The Rise In Digital Shopping
E-commerce sales were valued at US$16.9 trillion globally in 2020 and this figure is projected to reach US$27.5 trillion by 2025.
Shopping online has increased as a result of the increased availability of goods and services, the decrease in the cost of digital technologies and the rise of social media. In 2020, almost half (45.4%) of global online shoppers made at least one purchase on a digital platform.
The Benefits Of Online Shopping For Consumers And Businesses
E-commerce has a lot to offer both consumers and businesses. For consumers, online shopping provides the opportunity to compare products and offers from various suppliers easily and cheaply. In many cases, merchants will provide additional discounts if customers make purchases across multiple platforms (such as Amazon, Walmart and eBay).
Businesses can also take advantage of the digital marketplace to reach potential customers easily and cheaply. Many companies have developed strategies to utilize digital platforms to their advantage.
It’s clear that both consumers and businesses can benefit from online shopping, but what are the best ways to make money from online marketing and selling?
The Four Steps To Online Success
If you’re new to the online world, it’s a good idea to follow some tried and tested methods for generating an income from online marketing and selling.
The below list details the essential steps to setting up a successful online business:
Step one: Set Up Shop
In order to generate an income online, you’ll need to set up a shop. This entails creating a website or an online store where you’ll be able to display and sell your products. To successfully run a merchant store, you’ll need to perform a number of tasks including setting up a brand, picking a suitable e-commerce platform, choosing a suitable theme for your website and uploading product images. While there are various platforms that you can use to set up shop, for the purpose of this article we’ll be focusing on Magento.
Choosing a suitable e-commerce platform is more important than you might think. If you choose the right e-commerce platform, you’ll be able to utilize a variety of goods (such as physical products and digital downloads) in your online store. This, in turn, will improve the likelihood of generating sales. The most popular e-commerce platforms are Shopify, Bigcommerce and WooCommerce.
Step two: Choose Your Products
Once you’ve set up shop, you’ll need to choose your products. In order to be able to sell your products online, you’ll need to ensure that they’re branded and certified so that customers can know exactly what they’re buying. You can also use popular marketplaces like Shopify, Bigcommerce and WooCommerce to find and choose the products that you want to sell.
As a general rule, you should look for products that have high demand and that can be easily converted into cash. For example, if you’re selling health and beauty products, you might want to look into the CBD oil market as well as the skincare and makeup product markets.
If you’re new to the online world, it’s a good idea to start small. You can use free tools like Google Trends to easily identify product niches that are growing in popularity so that you can choose products that are likely to be profitable. Choosing products that are profitable is important as you’ll be able to generate an income from the very first sale that you make.
Step three: Create content
The next step is to create content. This could be in the form of blog posts, product reviews, FAQs, videos tutorials or anything else that might be helpful to your customers. The main goal of content creation is to attract, engage and educate your target audience so that they come back for more. To achieve this, you can use various channels including your blog, social media, and forums to provide additional value to your website visitors.
The more value that you provide, the more likely customers are to come back for more. To put things simply, providing more value means that you’ll be able to sell more products and generate more revenue. The most popular digital marketing platforms include HubSpot, Hootsuite, Marketo and Pardot.
Step four: Generate Leads
The final step is to generate leads. This involves getting existing customers to buy products that they hadn’t considered before. To do this, you can offer special deals, discounts and free gifts for acquiring new customers. For example, you might want to give away a free t-shirt with every order or offer a special discount for using a particular coupon code.
To generate enough leads to make it worth your while, you’ll need to choose your gifts and discounts wisely. Don’t choose a product that is too difficult for your customer to use or enjoy. Instead, choose items that they’re more likely to purchase. For example, if you’re selling skincare products, you could offer a limited edition bag filled with all of their favorite skincare products. Or, if you’re selling pet products, you might want to focus on offers that relate to pets or animal care.
Now that you have a good foundation for generating an income online, you might feel ready to take your business to the next level. Or, at least, you should feel prepared to try new things. Below, you’ll discover a variety of ways that you can make money online.