I’ve been making videos about successful online stores for some time now and provide coaching for entrepreneurs who are looking to get started with e commerce. From my experiences, I realized that most people who are new to e commerce have similar questions about the process. Here are some questions about online stores and some answers:
- Does it make a difference if you add hand written notes to customers?
Yes, absolutely. My store includes handwritten notes with every order. I have a staff member who sends a follow-up handwritten note to every customer who spends more than $250, and I actually have a second staff member who personally calls every customer. To make sure that the work gets done, my team reports to me once every week on how many calls were placed and how many letters were sent. I have everything automated so that a spreadsheet is compiled on an ongoing basis when a customer spends more than $250. Then, my staff members mark off when the work is done.
- For someone who is just starting a website, what advice do you have to help people get their first few sales in order to get some food reviews?
Well, the very first thing that you need to do is take the time to examine your website and make sure that it looks good and works properly. Remember–you want the site to be straightforward and simple to use. If customers can’t easily find products and check out, they won’t waste time on your site. Don’t get hung up on little details like banners though. As far as how to get reviews, you may want to approach friends and family members and ask them to try your products for free and write reviews. You can also put out highly targeted AdWords ads or product listing ads. For example, you might want to highlight a specialty product that is hard to find so that you can attract some first sales.
Incentive sales like offering a discount for the product in exchange for a review can also help. Keep in mind that you can also add fake reviews. I have done it a few times for products that I know are of good quality. You can also call customers after the fact and offer to give them a gift card or other reward if they go and enter a review.
- When you first started your store did you drop ship?
No, when we first started my mother actually made all of the products and shipped them. Now that I’ve grown, I’ve been able to hire other people. For me, that was a good fit because my mother had lots of experience in the dancewear industry. If you don’t have a connection like that, you can look for people in the industry to work with.
Another option is to have someone make something overseas. This works better if you have a very simple product. To get started, it’s a good idea to show the person a similar product that they can work from. You also have to come up with a good marketing plan before you start looking for a manufacturer. Then, you can look at Ali Baba for producers. Keep in mind that it can take 6 months to get things off the ground.
Drop shipping does allow you to get started very quickly.
- How should you get started with Google AdWords?
The very first thing that you need to do is come up with keywords for your site. Use the Google keyword planner to come up with long-tail keywords, which is a very specific keyword phrase like “red cotton dance shorts.” These very specific keywords indicate that people are ready to purchase products. Make a list of as many as you can think of and then use the Google Keyword Planner to determine which ones have the most searches.
You can learn more about starting, setting up and managing online stores by watching my full online store live Q & A session video.