Monday, February 5, 2018

Ecommerce Platforms: 5 Best Platforms For Your Online Store

By: joanne

With so many businesses shifting from the physical marketplace to online, it’s no wonder we’re seeing so many ‘How Tos’ about ecommerce marketing. As great as these are, many are based on assumed knowledge that new players to the game don’t always have. So I’m going to get right back to the basics.

Let’s run through the types of ecommerce that your business can use and see if we can find the best ecommerce platform. We’ve all thought at some point: Why ecommerce in the first place?

This only continues to increase, meaning more people are beginning to shop online instead of the store. The easier you make it for your customers to shop, the more likely that they will.

While it can feel a little daunting to shift your business into the online world, whether entirely or in part, don’t worry. All you need is perseverance, dedication, and the openness to learning a whole new type of marketing. And we’re here with you the whole way.

Starting Your Ecommerce Business:
5 Basics

How Should I Price My Items?

There are two types of pricing we keep in mind with ecommerce business platforms:

1. Market-oriented pricing.
2. Consumer-oriented pricing.

Market-oriented pricing means we analyze our market to see whether our products are price or value-related. A great way to start is by checking out how our competitors price similar products, and then decide whether to lower, raise, or equal those for our store.

Consumer-oriented pricing is different as we take reference points from our customers. For example, we ask: Who are our customers? What motivates them to buy our products and services?

When it comes to the pricing itself, there is a sweet spot for how much customers will spend online. Many ecommerce businesses, including us, have seen great success pricing between $100 and $200!

Fixing Low-Profit Products

Now we’ll want to start looking at the margins. If the prices are too low then we’ll also see profit margins dropping. But if a particular item is causing a low margin, then there are four things that you can do:

1. Cut production costs
     You should not trade value for quality. Simply find a way to save wherever you can, whether renegotiating      with vendors, or alternating materials without compromising quality.
2. Bundling items
     Next, try to bundle low-margin items with high-margin items. This way, you can boost sales for less      successful products and create even more incentive for customers to purchase already popular products.
3. Price raising
     This one is easy! Try raising the price slightly every year to boost the margin.
4. Discontinuing
     Try to avoid this, but if there really is no other option then you can consider discontinuing the product so      you don’t have stagnant stock.

Creating Supply From Demand
We strive to find products that aren’t stocked locally and source them as this will drive online sales. By searching for demand in our industry, we can then create the supply.

Shipping Troubles?
When curating stock, this can be forgotten about until it’s too late: shipping!

It depends again on the industry. And sometimes because of this, it can be difficult to avoid. You should always keep eye on the size and weight of the items because it can affect the shipping costs.

As we all know, the larger and heavier the item, the more expensive the shipping. If the shipping cost is too high, it can turn the customers away. A tip to overcome this is to actually include the shipping in the price of the product, and then offer the item with free shipping!

But the best bet with the lowest risk is to stock up with smaller items, which won’t create out-of-the-world shipping costs.

Google Shopping

For us, Google Shopping has been a fantastic tool, which is kind of like the internet’s version of window shopping!

Let’s say, if I were to see a product that I’d like to sell, it makes it easy for me to see who the different sellers are, and which suppliers they source from. This is when you should pay attention to who the manufacturers are, which are listed under the ‘Brand’ section.

Best Ecommerce Platform
Using Google Shopping is a great way to source products when beginning an ecommerce business, and comparing different prices vendors list.

Now, if you’re a more advanced seller, then you can even open up your own Google Shopping account, and use it as your own ecommerce platform. This platform works on a cost-per-click (CPC) basis, but what’s great is that unlike other platforms, there’s no CPC minimum. You’ll have to set up an account with Google’s Merchant Centre, and they’ll guide you along the way.

5 Different Types Of Ecommerce
Your next step would be to get your website up and running and choose your best ecommerce platform, which will manage your products, categories, the checkout process, and all other aspects involved with an ecommerce website. But how can we choose without knowing the different types of ecommerce? Let’s figure them out now.

Read More at: https://seopressor.com/blog/best-ecommerce-platforms-for-your-business/

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