HOW TO SELL ONLINE

Any individual or organisation looking to be successful on the internet is sure to ask themselves the question do I know how to sell online? To be able to effectively sell online requires a number of effective online disciplines and experience as the pitfalls are plentiful and the competition in many markets is intense.

Although the power and accessibility of the internet enables a greater number of people to sell online, the skill set required in order to do this successfully is entirely different to that required to sell in the real world.

It is easy to setup an ecommerce website using one of the readily available ecommerce software solutions available online. The challenge however is to make this website successful and actually generate profit.

To take advantage of Devoted Domains expertise in how to sell online please contact us.

FIRST STEPS IN HOW TO SELL ONLINE

The first thing that any person wanting to sell online should do, even before they start building their website, is to examine the big successful ecommerce websites such as eBay.co.uk, Amazon.co.uk, Play.com and take note of things that make them successful. These ecommerce websites will have spent an absolute fortune on research to establish a website that is as user friendly as possible. What is more they will have also incorporated psychological elements to ensure that users who visit their website know instantly what the website is doing, are encouraged to buy and are reassured that the website is safe to buy from.

Once you have examined some the top websites online to try and get some useful tips as to how to sell online, the next thing to do is to start looking at websites within your specific industry and market. Type some keywords in to Google that are related to your industry and have a look at the websites that feature at the top of the listings. You should take particular notice of the SEO elements on these websites that ensure that they feature at the top of the listings. If you are unsure what these elements are take a look at our free SEO guide. If you know of any other websites within your industry/market that are successful then have a look at these and pay particular notice of the colour schemes, usability and layout as these are the elements that are sure to be making these websites successful.

HOW TO SELL ONLINE - THINGS TO TAKE NOTE OF

One of the most important elements that you are sure to have noticed while conducting your research into how to sell online, particularly on the top websites, is that there are things to buy immediately on the first page. It is a proven fact that the faster that you get your items available for sale in front of your potential customers the more that you will be able to sell. This is a very useful device to use on your homepage to ensure that you sell more products online, but you must be careful not to display too much on the first page as this will be too much information for the potential customer and they still need something to be excited about as they explore your website.

Another extremely important element that ensures that a website is able to effectively sell online is navigation. You will have noticed that all of the important sections of these websites are linked to from the homepage, in either a horizontal or vertical navigation bar. It is essential that the user is able to find what they are looking for as quickly as possible if you are going to effectively sell online so these navigation elements are vital in ensuring the most sales possible. In nearly all cases these navigational elements will be accompanied by search functionality. Again this search functionality is vital in order to be able to effectively sell online, if it is not included then be prepared to fall behind the competition before you have even started.

WHY INCORPORATE THESE ELEMENTS IN YOUR WEBSITE

To be able to effectively sell online it is extremely important that you earn your potential customers trust. By incorporating elements from the top ecommerce websites described above you give yourself the best chance of earning this trust. Users will be familiar with the layout, functionality and colour schemes used in these websites and if these are incorporated into your ecommerce website then the user will subconsciously feel more secure buying from you.

One of the potential pitfalls in incorporating the elements used in the top websites is to try and be the next Amazon or eBay. Many websites will try and sell as many items as these websites in an effort to try and compete with them, this is an entirely unrealistic goal as these websites have incredible resources behind them. A better objective is to find an untapped niche market that has the potential to generate a lot of sales for your ecommerce website and focus on this. This will enable you to be competitive within your market and will dramatically reduce your setup and running costs.

HOW TO SELL ONLINE - ESSENTIAL WEBSITE ELEMENTS

At least 90% of your potential online customers are going to want to pay by credit or debit card directly online. It is essential that your ecommerce website has the functionality to enable your potential customers to buy through your website with as many different types of payment method as possible, and even more important that you are able to accept credit and debit card payments.

Payment facilities such as PayPal will enable you to incorporate credit and debit card payments into your website with the minimum of html knowledge through "buy it now" buttons. For a beginner ecommerce website or for a website only selling one or two products or services this will serve it's purpose, but the ideal solution is always a fully integrated merchant payment system. The PayPal "buy it now" buttons enable customers to buy online via credit or debit card but suffer from the drawback of not offering a shopping cart and the user will be taken away from your website when they come to make payment which is not the ideal situation for customer usability.

Spelling, grammar and easy-to-understand language are very important elements in ensuring that you are able to sell effectively online. If a user notices errors in your spelling or grammar or finds the language used on your website too technical then they will switch off straight away and you will lose sales. To check your spelling and grammar use the spell check on your text editor (if you have one) alternatively copy and paste the text on your page into your favourite word processor and check for errors. To ensure that the language that you have used on your website is appropriate try to get as many people as you can to read through it and make sure that the language used makes sense to them and that they feel that it is appropriate for the market and industry that you are in.

Setting yourself a rigid and realistic budget is another must in order to be successful in selling online. The first important thing to remember is that an ecommerce website costs a lot less to run than a shop in the real world. In the real world you will have overheads such as staff and office rental which are extremely costly. It is possible for one person to setup and run a small online shop from the comfort of their home, only investing in additional staff once the business becomes more successful and starts to generate too many sales for that one person to be able to cope with. If you are designing your own ecommerce website to sell online then all that you will need to do is to budget for between £25 and £100 a month depending on what ecommerce service and payment provider that you opt for. For this small monthly fee there will be no limit to the number of sales that you can generate, infarct the more sales that you make the less the percentage your payment provider will take from each transaction in nearly all cases.

HOW TO SELL ONLINE CONCLUSION

The massive potential of the internet has lead to an enormous number of people trying to learn how to sell online effectively as the cost reduction and potential for internet marketing and other marketing communications online is unlimited. It is important to bear in mind that despite these factors, trying to successfully sell online through an ecommerce website that has been designed and launched on the cheap is a very daunting task. Using an easy to setup ecommerce template website and "buy it now" buttons through a payment provider such as PayPal can often signal to the customer that you are a small operation and does not install trust. Customers wanting to buy online are not going to like to see signals like these and this will limit your potential for sales.

It is also extremely important to consider timescale when setting up your ecommerce website. A lot of online businesses fail either because people cannot find them or because the functionality and layout of the website is not appropriate for the market in which it is in. Successful online shops will often take between 6 and 12 months to start generating profits so it is very important to be patient and determined.

This guide on how to sell online will not guarantee that you will launch a successful ecommerce website by any means, but it can be used as a useful tool in launching your ecommerce website and indicates the kind of factors that make a successful online shop.

Still unsure how to sell online? Please get in touch with Devoted Domains to find out more about how we can help you.