The reality of trading goods and services changes every day. Electronic commerce (e-commerce) is becoming a bigger part of our lives all the time.
Big brands and many physical shops are creating online shops so that they keep up with developments.
This is mainly because e-commerce is growing rapidly, at a rate of 12.5%, and is expected to keep growing.
The expected growth comes down mainly to 2 reasons.
The first is that the European Union is trying to boost e-commerce, so that it can keep up with trade developments in Asia and America, by passing favourable rules for e-commerce (for example, it is trying to pass a maximum price cap on courier services to make e-commerce within Europe easier).
The second reason is purely practical and has to do with how familiar people are becoming with computers. Every day we get more comfortable using a computer, and we also gain the confidence that if we buy something from an online shop, the purchase will go through successfully and the product will be what we wanted. Think back 10 years: would you have bought anything over the internet?
What do I need to start an e-shop?
This is the question we hear most often from prospective clients.
It is about what they need, both for their accounts and for building the online shop, before they can start selling over the internet.
In an earlier article on starting an e-shop we covered the basics of registering with the Greek tax office and EFKA (the Greek social security fund), as well as what you need from a basic technical point of view.
To sum up, the essential things you need to start your e-shop legally are the following:
- Registration with the tax office and EFKA
- A domain name
- A server to host your files
- The files of your e-shop (built for you by a web design company or created by yourself)
- An integration for online payments
- Shipping charges
- Compliance with the GDPR
Once you have all of the above, you can start selling your goods online safely and legally.
Of course, how well you have set up and built all of the above is a key factor in whether your online shop succeeds or fails.
If you would like us to take care of building your e-shop, just click the button below
Building an Online Shop
How your online shop is built and presented is extremely important.
What matters most is the sense of security and confidence that its presentation and appearance create in a potential customer. Impressing yourself and your customer comes second to that.
So how do you get the look of your shop right? Should it be impressive, with effects? Should it be minimal? Should it have lots of colours?
The right answer is that it depends on your audience!
If your audience is made up of people who are into technology, effects will draw them into your e-shop. If your audience is older, you should keep navigation simple and clear, without unnecessary effects.
So good design comes after you have researched your audience!
How do I define the audience of my e-shop?
That is the next question everyone asks. The right approach is to look at what you sell. For example, a women’s clothing shop clearly has only women as customers.
The next approach is age: which age group of women will mainly buy clothes from the shop.
Finally, another approach is whether your clothes are expensive or not.
Once we have answered these questions, we can see whether there are interests that define our audience. For example, if we sell women’s sportswear, sport could be one of them.
This is a little simplistic, but it is the general rule.
Good graphics, images and product descriptions
Many people neglect the product page and the product photos.
This is a huge mistake!
Photos, and graphics in general, are what make a user choose a product. Make sure you have plenty of photos of each product from different angles and, above all, that they are high resolution and look good!
The product description is also extremely important. Give the user or customer as much information about your product as you can.
Easy payment and simple shipping
It is very important that payment in your online shop is quick and does not put the customer through any hassle while shopping online. A would-be customer will not spend long on it if paying is difficult, even if the product is already in their basket!
Shipping, and a good deal with a courier, are hugely important for the success of your e-shop. Research has shown that e-shops with free shipping are 30% more successful than those without it, even when the shipping cost is built into the product price!
How will my e-shop sell?
This is the most important question, and it is where you should focus most of your effort and invest most of your budget.
It is great to have a simple, beautiful e-shop, but what if nobody sees it?
To put it in simpler terms, with a simple example, imagine there are 2 shops. The first is terrible and expensive but sits in the centre of New York, while the second has very low prices and is beautiful but sits on top of a mountain with 100 residents. Which one do you think will be more successful?
There is only one answer to this
Proper e-shop promotion and a marketing plan
Promoting a website or e-shop and increasing its visitors is a subject that countless articles have been written about.
In general, the advertising options for your online shop are the following
- Advertising on social media (Facebook, Instagram, Pinterest)
- Video advertising (YouTube, Vimeo marketing)
- Organic promotion in search engines (through content marketing, perhaps by writing articles on your blog)
- Paid advertising on Google (PPC) and on search engines in general
- Promoting your products through price comparison sites such as Skroutz or BestPrice (the main ones in Greece)
- Offline advertising for your site and e-shop through leaflets or by attending trade fairs.
There are of course many more options, some more specialised than these, but these are the main ways to attract an audience and potential customers to your e-shop.
With effective advertising your e-shop will succeed.
But what makes advertising effective?
Advertising to the right audience, as we said above!
Once you start advertising, how can you be sure it is working properly?
Tracking your e-shop traffic with Google Analytics 4 or a similar tool
To see whether our e-shop is reaching its goal, we need to track whether our advertising is bringing results.
If it is, we can keep it going. If it is not, we can change it or stop it altogether!
The tool that helps us with this, and the one we use at WebMate, is Google Analytics 4.
Through it we can see a lot of data. Besides checking how effective our advertising is, we can also learn more about our audience!
Running ads is not enough. We also need to analyse their results and optimise them, so that the money we spend brings back many times as much in profit!
If I do all of the above, will I have a successful e-shop?
Nobody can guarantee success, because we have not touched on the most important part: the product itself.
Is the product good quality? Is it priced right? What is the competition like?
How good is your after-sales service?
Are orders dispatched on time?
How are customers treated on the phone?
There are a great many factors behind the success of an e-shop, and this article has covered some of the most basic ones. Constantly working to do well in every area is very likely to bring you success.
If you would like our help building a successful e-shop, click the button below and talk to us!
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