How to start selling your products using online stores

Not sure if selling your product online is right for you?

Here are a few statistics that might change your mind:

• E-commerce sales account for over 19% of retail sales worldwide
• In 2024, retail e-commerce sales are estimated to exceed 6.3 trillion U.S. dollars worldwide,
• 76.9% of the UK population shopped online at least once in 2020.

Plus, the UK’s highstreet is in decline, with half the UK’s existing shops expecting to have disappeared by 2030 (The Centre for Retail Research). 

It’s also projected that e-commerce will account for around 40% of all UK retail sales by 2030 (Parcel Hero).

Stats like these show why it's important to sell your products online in some way, shape, or form to give your business the best chance of success.

If you rely solely on the highstreet you could be putting your business in a very precarious position. 

And for obvious reasons, the shift to online shopping was accelerated by the COVID pandemic, with global retail e-commerce traffic hitting a record high of 22 billion monthly visits in June 2020 (Statista).

What’s more, if you restrict yourself to selling your products in brick-and-mortar shops – whether that’s your own or getting stocked on highstreet shops’ shelves – you’re severely limiting your potential pool of customers. 

Open an online store, on the other hand, and you can sell to people in Brazil as easily as people in Birmingham.

This drastically increases the maximum amount of revenue you can generate, which will only be capped by your production capacity.

Web hosting is also a lot cheaper than the rent you’ll pay for a shop front or a prime spot on a department store’s shelves, meaning far lower overheads for your business. 

Plus, there are companies dedicated to fulfilling orders from e-commerce stores. These allow you to outsource the entire process of storing and delivering your products, freeing you up to focus on keeping your customers happy, building a brand, and driving sales.

Of course, there are plenty more places to sell your product online other than your own site.

As of 2020, online marketplaces like Amazon and eBay account for the largest share of online purchases worldwide, (Statista) – with Amazon alone registered over 5.2 billion unique visitors in June 2020.

So, if you’re not listing your products on these marketplaces then you’re missing out. 

They’ve made it simple to get up, too – just go through Amazon and eBay’s step-by-step guides to selling on their platforms.

It’s also well worth partnering with the big e-commerce sites in your niche to have your product listed in their inventories. They’ll take a cut of your profits on each sale, but you’ll get access to a huge existing audience made up of your target customers. 

1. Focus on SEO

So, you’ve set up your own e-commerce store. Now, it’s time to get it in front of your customer.

This is where search engine optimisation (SEO) comes into play– the art of optimising your online store to show up at the top of the Google search results. 

As an online store owner, SEO is one of the most powerful marketing tools at your disposal – as these statistics from BrightEdge showcase:

• 68% of online experiences begin with a search engine. 
• 53.3% of all website traffic comes from organic search.
• SEO drives 1000%+ more traffic than organic social media. 

There’s an entire industry dedicated to helping sites get as high up the Google search results as possible, and if you want to achieve the best results with this channel, it might be worth hiring an agency or consultant to handle it for you. 

2. Execute a social media strategy

Social media is another great way to build a brand online and drive visitors to your online store. 

If you’re a fashion or lifestyle brand, it could even be the most effective channel at your disposal. 

Again, for the best results you might want to outsource your organic social media content to a specialist. 

And don’t forget – social media is as much of a customer support channel as a marketing one, so be sure to keep an eye on customers using your social media pages to contact you. 

3. Don’t forget digital advertising

Getting an advert on TV, the radio, or a billboard is a little out of reach for most businesses. But digital advertising is a different story.

You can run an advertising campaign on the likes of Google, Facebook, and YouTube for just a few hundred pounds. 

Plus, you can target an extremely narrow segment of customers, meaning your ads will be seen by people who fit your exact customer personas or specifically search for something you sell.

That means none of your advertising budget will be wasted on getting your message in front of people who aren’t likely to become customers. 

Digital advertising is another channel you can manage yourself, but you’ll see the best results by outsourcing it to a specialist. 

4. Perfect your product descriptions 

All our tips so far have been aimed at driving traffic to your site. 

The other piece of the puzzle is making sure as many visitors to your online store convert into paying customers as possible. 

And a key part of this is your product descriptions, with 88% of customers thinking detailed product pages are crucial for making a purchase decision.

So, be sure to take your time to spell out all the key features and benefits of your products across your site. 

The more detail you go into, the better – especially if you’re not an established brand that people already know and trust. 

5. Finetune your UX 

Your ecommerce site’s user experience (UX) is another crucial factor in its success. 

In fact, according to reports, 38% of shoppers will leave a website if it looks unattractive. 

That’s one of the big benefits of building your site on a template from a platform like Shopify, as you’re guaranteed to end up with a great looking site with a smooth UX. 

But there’s plenty you can do beyond that to make sure your UX drives as many conversions as possible. 

For example, research from CXL showed that simply changing the size of a product's image on an online store can increase its perceived value by up to $13.50 (£10).

Again, this is another area where it’s well worth investing in a professional’s help, as there are countless tweaks an expert will be able make to your site that will have a surprisingly big impact on your online store’s success.