Talk about some much needed shopping therapy. There always seems to be a reason for buying stuff. Anyway, I hope most of you would have put up your early Memorial Day weekend sale promotions to capture the mega crowd of shoppers who have either started shopping or are going to do so this weekend itself. Noticed that many of the major retailers had started early since last week. Don’t worry, you can still catch up 🙂 Just get the news out via social media.
Author: Lisa
Have You Started Your Mother’s Day 2013 Promotion?
This year, Mother’s Day 2013 lands on 15th of May. So what better way to get an online promotion out to all your customers, friends and contacts by sending out some newsletters and creating some buzz on social media?
Ever Done An SEO Check On Your Site?
Whether you’re a new online site owner or you’ve been in the ecommerce business for quite some time, it’s always wise to do an SEO checkup to make sure everything is in order. This helps you see the condition of your site so that you can make the necessary changes immediately if you spot anything amiss.
Here’s the basic rundown on how you can DIY (Do-It-Yourself).
InstanteStore Introduces New Content Slider
Here comes our brand new spanking content slider! The previous one was getting ancient so the team decided to create a better one for our merchants to use. With the new slider, all you need to do is to upload your own images and type in whatever text you want displayed on it. We’ve included a text editor so you could pick the font and color of your choice.
Important Facebook Shop Tips To Take Note Of
Being able to sell your products on Facebook is an added bonus for many online business owners. These days, many customers prefer to communicate with businesses via social media like Facebook and Twitter as they want faster results instead of the usual email. The fact that these social media sites are open to the public is good reason for businesses to ensure that they are offering excellent products and services to avoid a public relations meltdown.
Anyway, for those who have yet to try selling on Facebook, just follow the easy steps to set up your Facebook Shop from the Admin panel. Here are a couple of important tips to take note of as well.
Design Tips From The Top Online Shopping Sites
What do some of the top online shopping sites have in common that draw tonnes of shoppers to buy from them? Nice pictures. Lots of nice, clear and colorful images. Less text. The design of their sites were made in such a way to put all the focus on the products. Whatever that is on the main page of their sites were placed there to capture the attention of shoppers the moment they land on the site. I’m not saying that everyone’s web store should all start looking like these top shopping sites as it would very well depend on what your own online store is selling but there are clear pointers that we could all learn and pick from these top sites.
Shopping Search Engines To Compare And Place Your Products
Getting your products more exposure will help spread the word about your online store. Normally, merchants will have their products added to the popular shopping search engines like Google Shopping and Amazon. However, there are a few other top comparison search engines that one could consider.
Most of these sites have major categories like Electronics, Computers, Clothing, Accessories, Appliances, Sports, Jewelry, Furniture, Health and Beauty, Home and Garden, Children, Games, etc.
Depending on the type of products that you are selling, you could check out the categories listed on these sites to see whether they are offering similar products as your store along with the pricing to compare. If you’ve got a better price to offer, then by all means go for it.
If you’re on a tight budget, stick to the free ones. Otherwise, you could check out some of these popular shopping search sites that consumers normally go to when they want to look for specific products. I’ve listed the tops ones here. Most of them will charge a cost-per-click (CPC) rate.
Add Value To Your Customers’ Online Shopping Experience
Selling at times is quite an art. You need a combination of getting the ‘desire effect’ right. Look at how Apple did it. Their products are more expensive but whenever there’s any product launch (or even a hint of it), everyone goes a bit nuts. Then comes the sales.
But let’s get down to reality here. Not all businesses are like Apple. Normal folks who are just setting up a small online store to sell products need to offer something more to their customers.
Other than the usual buy 2 and get 1 free or free shipping thrown in, one of the best ways would be to add some value to your customers. Depending on what type of product that you are selling, your online store should not only be about your products. It should have a mixture of tips, advice and relevant information to help your customers. Or it could even be a good place for people to visit to get relevant, useful and informative tips and advice. This will help your store’s SEO if you get a lot of natural traffic coming in.
Offer Clear Communication And Proactive Solutions To Retain Customers
Ever wondered what’s actually going through your customers’ mind when they visit your web store and decided to buy from you? Maybe as a seller, we tend to think we know what our customers want and have tried our level best to offer them what we think they are looking for. I never knew how frustrated I could get with online stores until I started buying online from some of them. Let me just relate some of my experiences to you. I won’t mention any store names here.
Is Your Business Targeting Emerging Markets Or Over-Saturated Ones?
Happy New Year everyone! Hope you’re all doing great. We’re still hearing constant news of economic slowdown and the never-ending budget woes coupled with stock markets bouncing around. But one thing has certainly remained constant. Consumers are spending more and more on online shopping year on year. Last year had some pretty impressive figures to show when it came to all the Black Friday, Thanksgiving, Cyber Monday and holiday shopping season.