You need to target customers where they are
Having an online store alone is not necessarily enough to get you started. Traffic to a newly launched site can be hard to generate and it will take some time for search engines to give you a good ranking. You need to get your products in front of your target audience through several sales channels.
In this article we will:
- Explain to importance of using different channels
- What are the options and how do you choose?
- Take a close look at a number of popular sales channels
Why use different channels?
The world of online shopping is incredibly competitive. No matter what your business is selling it is almost certain that someone else will be doing something similar. In order to be successful you need to be able to put your brand and your products in front of shoppers in as many places as possible to get the sales in.
When you launch your website you won’t have an existing audience which will automatically come to your store. Chances are it will take a while for people to even know it is there. Unless you have a gigantic marketing budget which could drive huge levels of traffic to your own site, you will need to diversify your sales channels and have a robust sales strategy.
What are your options?
There are many ways to diversify your sales channels.
For most online retailers, online marketplaces are a good option to start with. There are many marketplaces out there all with different target audiences and very different rules and regulations.
Mobile and tablet sales count as different sales channels – you need to make sure your site is optimised for these devices if you are going to make a push at selling on them.
If you are manufacturing your own products you could look into selling in other retail stores. For example Liberty of London has an open call for British designers to pitch to their buyers each year.
As well as selling in other places there are ways to drive traffic to your own site which could be viewed as separate sales channels. Affiliate marketing is a great way of getting your products and your brand in front of shoppers who would otherwise not have seen them.
Social media is an important way of driving traffic and creating a community around your brand which will turn people into shoppers.
You might not want to launch into all of these options. To decide which ones you would like to concentrate on, look at what your competition is doing, look at the various costs associated with each option and see which you think could yield the most returns.
Online marketplaces
There are so many online marketplaces out there now – how do you decide which ones to focus on?You should start by making a list of the ones you come across. Amazon and eBay are the big ones but there are many out there such as Etsy, Play.com and Not On The High Street.
“Embracing online marketplaces allows retailers to diversify sales channels by being able to reach an already existing customer base,” says Julia Priddle, Head of Account Management, ChannelAdvisor.
“Online marketplaces such as Rakuten’s Play.com, eBay and Amazon already reach the masses and have a well established reputation for being reliable and trustworthy for both the customer and the seller.
“Retailers using these marketplaces can take advantage of this reputation by ensuring that they generate good reviews to supplement their offering, putting themselves at the top of search listings.”
Fees will vary wildly so you should do some research and find out what each one would cost you. Not On The High Street for example charges quite high joining fees. These fees could prove to be worth it however if the site sells well.
Mobile and tablet sales
Customers use their mobile devices for everything now. Mobile shopping is growing at a very quick pace – IMRG found that it grew 300% between 2011 and 2012 and according to Mobify mobile devices account for some 31% in the UK. With this in mind you need to include mobile devices into your sales strategy.
Hopefully you will have incorporated mobile optimisation into your site when you first had it built. If not, it might be worth speaking to your developer or platform provider to find out how much optimisation would cost. This will turn mobiles into sales channels for your brand.
Once your site is optimised for mobile sales you should start thinking about how you will reach shoppers on their mobiles. Email and text marketing can boost mobile sales once you have a data base of registered users.
Affiliate marketing
This is a great way of reaching audiences that your site hasn’t quite managed to pull in yet. Basically a publisher with a website (that isn’t in any competition to your own of course) will promote your products in return for commission. They publish adverts on their site which will lead back to you own if a customer clicks on it.
The terms of your affiliate contract will dictate when you pay – it could be when a customer clicks on your ad, registers with you or buys something – this negotiation is up to you. As long as you partner with an appropriate publisher and your ads are well targeted it can be a cost-effective way to reach new customers.
Social media
If you’re trying to draw traffic to your site, creating awareness of your brand through social media is a cost-effective way of doing so. By creating profiles with the various social media platforms you can get shoppers’ attentions and draw traffic through to your webshop.
But it doesn’t stop there. Social commerce is really starting to take off with a string of start-ups such as Chirpify and BuyReply making it possible to purchase items without leaving the social media platforms. If you post something on Twitter it is possible, through partnerships with these companies, for customers to purchase without going to your site.
With these points in mind you can’t underestimate social media as a sales channel. Facebook and Twitter are the most obvious options but visual platforms such as Pinterest and Instagram can show off your products in the best possible light and give your sales a boost.
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