In-store sales are not doing well in the US and around the world. In January alone, Walmart distribution giant closed 289 of its stores in the United States and dismissed several thousand employees. Similarly Macy’s has announced that it will close 40 stores in 2016. The best chance for distributors today is to invest in e-commerce, according to the Business Insider. You can also use the online advertisement marketing strategy and can use the famous blogs such as Via Driver Blog for your business success.
You are a merchant and want to diversify your income? You are a young entrepreneur who wants to generate income without having a large budget? You must have a small experience in sell and buy in Cambodia. Online commerce is surely made for you! In this article, discover 6 tips to start selling good online.
VALIDATE THE APPLICATION FOR YOUR PRODUCT WITH AN ONLINE INQUIRY
The first thing you need to do before you start a business is to ask the people around you: do your friends and family think you have a good idea to go and sell a type of product or service online? Would they be likely to buy in Cambodia it?
It is important to properly understand the consumption habits of your product before putting it on sale to be able to provide the right information to the online buyer. Try to understand what are the decision-making factors in the purchase of your product, and how you can add value to your consumers.
To do an online survey, it’s easy! Simply create a Google Forms with your Gmail address. You can then email it to your friends and share it on your Facebook, Twitter or Linkedin accounts.
FIND PRODUCTS AND OPPORTUNITIES THROUGH RESEARCH TRENDS
Once you have noticed an opportunity for your product in your entourage, try to see what your market niche would be. In other words, in the type of products you want to sell, which subcategory of specialized product would you best define?
For example for the category of audio earphones, a niche may be the wireless audio earphones, or sports earphones.
To approximate the search trend against your product and find trends similar to this one, ask Google! Google Trends will let you see the general search trend for your product category.
DEFINING YOUR TARGET MARKET AND YOUR COMPETITORS
In order to know if you can make a place in the market you want to attack (headphones, for example), start by looking at what your competitors are doing and the size of the market for your specialized product.
A simple search on Google will allow you to quickly identify your main competitors.
If the competition is strong: many distributors already offer the product live on their mainstream sites. Conclusion: you will have a hard time making yourself a place in a market with many competitors! Try to be more specialized: why not rather sell “bluetooth sports headphones”? You will see that the competition is much less, so you are more likely to create a place in this market. For example, many French sites are present on the first page of search Google in Quebec for this product. If you have a Canadian site, you will have a better chance of having a better visibility in the Quebec market for this type of product and therefore sell online easily.
CALCULATE YOUR FINANCIAL PROJECTIONS
After you have noticed an opportunity in your niche market, you need to determine what would be the costs and potential revenue associated with your e-commerce activity.
What are the fixed costs to start such an activity? Variable costs? What is the optimal selling price for your product to generate the maximum profit? How many products will you be able to sell in Cambodia in the first year?
An important notion for the success of your online business is to determine your “break-even point”. You must be able to determine from how long you would be able to reach it, so that your project can survive as long as possible before you can actually generate income.
To learn more about cost and revenue management, there are many sales and marketing sites, such as Entrepreneur , that summarize the issues that need to be considered when developing a business plan for an online business.
TEST THE REQUEST ON YOUR MARKET THANKS TO MARKET PLACES AS AMAZON OR EBAY
Once you know a little better about the risks and opportunities of your e-commerce project, you can think of testing the sale of your product on platforms benefiting from an existing and accessible sales network.
The best known are Amazon and Ebay. They will allow you to quickly sell your product at lower cost, and generate sales fairly easily. The negative side is that you will have to pay a high commission on your sales (up to 20% for certain product categories). This model is therefore not the most profitable in the long term if your business volume increases. However it is a good solution to test the market in the short term.
Many statistics and complementary information in relation to the sale on these platforms are available in the Amazon Survey 2016 for sellers. Some sellers generate more than $ 10 million in sales simply through their Amazon account!
CREATE IDENTITY THROUGH SOCIAL NETWORKS AND STAY ACTIVE
Whether you sell your own brand or as a distributor, social networks are a crucial communication channel for online commerce. Indeed they will allow you to create a reputation, to communicate directly with your audience, your customers and to keep them loyal. Networks like Facebook, LinkedIn and Twitter can even generate you many more sales thanks to their viral scope!
Start by creating a Facebook My Business page highlighting your Facebook activities, and share it with your friends. Ask them to share it on their network, in exchange for a gift to draw for example. This will greatly increase your visibility on the internet.
You can also, with the help of some platforms like Storeya , sell your products online directly on Facebook.
