“More than 73% of Australian households shopped online in 2018.”- AusPost’s 2019 ecommerce report
That’s immense! It also doesn’t account for the international market you can access with an ecommerce business.
Selling online is rapidly becoming the primary vehicle for trading goods. So, if you’re getting into the online shopping game, you’ll have access to a large market with stiff competition.
How do we to tap into this market? What do we need to know or possess to get moving into our own ecommerce business?
Do your market research and find your niche
We assume you have a solid business idea that you have researched thoroughly? How viable is it? Is it a unique enough offering? You’ll need to find your own gap in the market here, or you’ll lose yourself in a flooded marketplace of eager competitors.
This not just about nailing down the perfect business idea, it’s also about defining your niche to separate your business from the herd.
In today’s crowded ecommerce space there is a certain barrier to entry in terms of figuring out your specialty, or doing it better (or louder) than your competitors.
We don’t need to labour the point here – we’re sure you’re going into this well aware of the viability of your product or idea. Just be sure before you jump.
A truly banging website
No shockers here – you need a website to sell online. Did you know? Of course you did. But how good is it really?
You have now entered an intense market with competitors a click away. Good enough is not good enough – you need to be excellent.
There are a few factors here we need to cover for your new website.
Security and Trust
With online selling comes paranoia. Copycat sites, unscrupulous vendors, unprotected payment gateways, potential for fraud and card skimming – the list goes on.
You’ll need to overcome these consumer fears, especially when you’re new to the market.
Build trust by partnering with a proper ecommerce platform and ensure you have a professional looking site with clearly displayed card security credentials.
Branding
Your page should be slick, user friendly and well branded. Your brand is everything when selling online, so make yourself distinct with select colours, logos and messaging. An online identity builds trust and cements your brand.
Online experience
You’ll need outstanding UX (user experience) to ensure your products are clearly displayed, searchable and the journey to a sale contains the least amount of steps possible. Your UX is simply your visitor’s experience when using your site. Is it functional, practical, easy to use and clear in purpose? Good UX design makes using your site a beautiful and pleasing experience while helping visitors achieve what they came for as quickly as possible. This is your aim.
Your site design needs to be clean, simple and point your prospective customers toward the checkout as smoothly as possible. It needs to be fast and stylish, with a well branded interface and snappy menus. Essentially – design your page to be easily navigated and extremely clean.
An outstanding ecommerce solution
This’ll be the engine of your business. Drop one of these bad boys into your website and you’ll be ready to trade. Without a professional, fully featured and highly functional ecommerce solution – you simply can’t play this game.
At the very least, you’ll need a solution that complies to these features:
- Great customer service
- Strong aesthetics
- Helpful features
- A good user experience design (UX)
- Top-of-the-line security
- Affordable pricing
A user-friendly return policy
You may overlook this one, but it’s one of the most important and needs to be slated before you start trading. AusPost’s 2019 online selling report pinpointed a major hurdle you’ll need to overcome getting into the ecommerce trade – returns.
“The top deterrent to online shopping is not having access to the fit, feel and quality of a product. To minimise this barrier and drive revenue, retailers need to ensure they provide a user-friendly returns policy.” – AusPost
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