How to Sell Online - Business Guide

This is a great time to make money selling things on the internet.

Three out of four people will go online to do some Christmas shopping, according to the Deloitte Annual Christmas Retail Survey.

And the confidence they gain from quickly and easily getting goods this way is likely to see continued growth in online retailing throughout the rest of the year.

Setting up an online shop is simple and cheap – hence the explosion in the last few years of e- retailers selling virtually anything you can think of.

But it’s not too late for you to set up your own online store. Because of the way people find goods using search engines such as Google, there are lots of opportunities to butt in and take your slice of the pie.

Here are the main areas you need to look at to get your online shop up and running.

What to sell online?

First off – what are you going to sell? Forget the Tesco approach of selling everything; it won’t work for a start-up business. Instead you should find a niche that you can dominate.

Gary Baker set up Tie Warehouse in January 2004 after he spotted a gap in the market. He said: “There were a few websites selling limited ranges of ties, but there was no single place to buy any kind of tie you could think of. We launched with a large range of ties and have expanded what we sell tenfold since then. Tie Warehouse is now the UK’s largest online retailer of ties.

“The secret behind our success has been focusing on the core niche and not being tempted to diversify. We stock every type of tie and related accessory we can get our hands on. It means we have a large fan base of people who love ties, but we also perform well in search engines for many tie searches.”

Don’t forget there are niches based round regular events, such as Christmas, Valentine’s Day and Mother’s Day. When you pick your niche, ensure that you can get a regular supply of product. You’ll quickly lose customers and see your reputation in tatters if you take orders you can’t fulfil.

It would be sensible to buy from a range of wholesalers so you are not reliant on a single source. Some people manufacture or assemble their own products.

Another alternative is to avoid stock altogether and become a drop shipper. This is where another business stocks your goods and sends them out for you. You never handle the product, but the margins tend to be low, and you have little control over the customer experience of receiving the goods.

How to price your products

Once you’ve decided on what you’ll sell, next is your pricing policy. And here’s a major downside of the internet for retailers. Tools such as http://www.google.co.uk/products " target="_blank">Kelkoo and Google Products make it so easy to compare prices, that sometimes the only way to make a profit online is sell at a very low margin and hope you will achieve a good volume of sales.

It’s worth bearing this in mind when you set up. If the cost of sourcing a product, stocking it, selling it and sending it are more than the potential profit, you are not in business – you are a busy fool.

Name your online store

Next up is the name of your online store and what domain name you can use. This should match the niche you have chosen. Ask yourself what could make your site different. It’s relatively easy to drive traffic to a new site using Google AdWords. But as a more cost-effective long-term strategy you want people to remember your store’s name and website address. This is how you start to build a brand.

When to come to set up your ecommerce store, you can either buy one off the shelf and adapt it yourself, or pay a web company to do it for you. This can be done for as little as a few hundred pounds now, plus a little for hosting every year.

Store look and feel

The look of your store is vital. It needs to look and feel like a professional, modern and trustworthy shop, not an amateur thrown together effort. Visitors need to have confidence you are not a fly-by-night operation, and will send the goods when you say you will (rather than vanish with their cash).

Ensure the navigation on the site is clear and simple, and it is easy to find and buy goods. And the site must be as secure as you can make it. Good security is essential, again for building confidence before they will enter their credit card number.

If you produce your own range of products and want the easiest way to sell them, the answer may be an eBay shop. These are cheap to operate and you can still point people towards them using your own dedicated domain name.

And finally...

When you are running an online store remember you are a retailer. Your competition is High Street stores as well as other internet shops. Have excellent customer service with a phone number people can call if they have a question. Take every opportunity to get your store’s brand in front of people, such as investing in a franking machine to put your store’s logo and website address on all packages you send.

Finally, once you have got your store set up – don’t just forget it! Keeping an online store performing well takes consistent hard work. And keep talking to your customers. Talk to them, listen to what they say and then take action to sell more.