E-commerce: Selling online - Business

Lesson 3: Ways of selling online

FIVE THINGS YOU NEED TO START SELLING ONLINE:

1. Know what to sell

• You should know what you’re going to sell.

1. Know how to sell

• People generally prefer to express their preferences rather than listen to someone whose intent is to sell.
• It’s best to know your audience in order to sell to them

1. Choose a place to sell

• It helps you get discovered just like a physical store that customers can and through a postal address.
• Your store reflects your name or brands and how you do business.

1. Decide how you’ll get paid

• This can be done if you use a payment gateway like PayPal or a shopping cart service which your customers can also use to send you payment.

1. Get customers

• A business will not work if you do not know who to sell to or if there aren’t any customers coming along
• You need to learn about your customers for them to patronize your business. Customers make a business possible.

PLACES TO SELL ONLINE

You need to have a way to accept payment.

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• AUCTION SITES
  • Provide the convenience of not having to set up a website to begin selling.
  • Auction sites cater to specific categories of items.
• Fixed price marketplaces
  • Websites where goods are sold with definite prices, just like amazon.
• Online Craft Fairs
  • It is like a bazaar and is an excellent place for craftspeople, who are generally specialized artists, to connect to the public and garner followers.
• Classifieds
  • Often associated with newspapers wherein small ads are grouped together into categories in their own sections.
  • The term was coined by Graham Tolhurst.
• Online infomercial
  • A direct response video advertisement.
  • Began to invade the internet as early as 2003
  • Social Networks
  • Only meant to connect people with one another.
• Own storefront
  • It is a website where you can post the things that you sell.

LESSON 4: TOOLS FOR SELLING ONLINE

• The shopping cart

  • Used by a customer to “load in the products he wants to purchase, just like you would a shopping cart in a supermarket.

• Payment

  • The shopping cart tools available on established e-commerce website services are a good way to get started.

• Storage and delivery

  • You have to find a way to stock, or warehouse your goods somewhere.
  • The products must be shipped so that the customers can get what he paid for. •

• Promotion

  • Is essentially all about letting potential customers know that your business and its website exist, as well as what your business offers
  • “Tip of the day” feature is one way to keep visitors coming back.

• Google’s feed burner

  • Is a popular service business people can use to create feeds of blogs that display short version of posts with links to video or audio content that followers can consume
    Analytics
  • Use to analyze existing or simulated future data to develop realistic decisions for future actions.

• Web analytics

  • Another popular and versatile analytics tool which can be used by beginners and experts alike.

• Feedback form

  • A form that a reader fills out and sends to the person designated by the e-business.
  • These can be used to elicit information or to have them purchase something from the site.

• Logistics supplier

  • A company which specializes in handling and delivering goods from one point to another.

• Survey form

  • A document with blank spaces to be filled out with particulars on a certain subjects.

• Viral marketing

  • Promotion of marketing messages through online social networks.

LESSON 5: CREATING YOUR ONLINE STORE

Compared to a traditional brick and mortar store, an online store is easily created or set up.

• Transaction system
  • Necessary for a physical store to have a cash register for recording transactions and sorting and keeping cash
• Weebly
  • It is a website creating service that is free to use and offers an easy and comprehensive way to have your own place on the World Wide Web.
• A store in your blog
  • Easiest way to get up and about selling things online is to create a blog with content that’s related to the products or services you’re selling.
• Products access and delivery
  • You will need to consider the method of delivery for your product.
• Affiliate marketing
  • A marketing method employed by various companies in which a business pays an affiliate for every sale resulting from the affiliate’s own hard work.
• Trade
  • The exchange of goods for money

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