How to sell products online

You already know by now that the online marketplace is booming. From Amazon to Alibaba and eBay, there are a plethora of huge online markets catering to almost every wish and whim a customer might have. 

If you’re about to embark on your journey to selling products online, you might have wondered what the best things to sell online are.

Yes, it’s true, you could sell practically anything, but do you know how to make that crucial sale online and keep the sales flowing in?

In this blog post, we explore some of the things you need to know in order to sell products online. 

Ready? Keep reading below!

Choose your product niche

As a starting point, you’ll need to figure out WHAT to sell. This may seem easy at first, but the global marketplace is already saturated with products.

This is why you need to find your niche. 

How do you do so? One solution is to use Google Analytics and Google Trends to identify best-selling products to sell online. 

Other factors to consider apart from finding trends that are popular at the moment are the fact that your product should solve some type of problem. 

You might also want to try and fulfill your customer’s guilty pleasures by offering them treats that they can indulge in. 

Finally, consider finding products that are easily marketed and branded so that your marketing plans (which are discussed in a bit more detail below) are successful. 

Find your customers

You may think that anyone and everyone can be your customer but the truth is that if you’re selling niche products, you’ll need to find your niche customers.

This is where segmentation comes into play.

You need to be realistic and create the perfect customer profile as your consumer as this will help you market to them more successfully. 

Create your marketing strategy

Once you’ve chosen your product and you’ve segmented your customers, you need to create your marketing strategy according to the buyer persona you created in the previous section.

This will mean deciding whether you will target them with email campaigns or on social media or even paid ads on Google and other search engines. 

If you opt for email, which can be a remarkably successful medium of marketing, remember to first create an email list.

This list is created by offering your customers something of value in exchange for their email address. This might be providing a free White Paper, creating a blog, or offering a newsletter with monthly discounts and special deals. 

Add a service offering

Products in and of themselves only satisfy certain needs. To take your online business that one step further, consider giving your customers a service as a value-added feature of your product offering.

This may mean helping your customers with dry cleaning if you sell T-shirts, offering an interior design service if you offer furniture for the home, or anything else that services your product more effectively.

The benefits of this is that you’ll not only draw more customers in with a wider offering, thereby increasing your revenue stream, but you’ll also be able to help solve more needs from one place. 

Get into the nitty-gritty

You also need to consider the nitty-gritty of offering your products to your customers. 

This will involve looking at details such as payment solutions, shipping and the price of shipping.

Will you include the shipping price in your final product price or will this be something separate the customer will have to pay? 

Remember that the more transparent you are with your pricing, the more trust your customers will have in your business.

As an extra thought, consider who you are shipping to and where. 

The global marketplace is huge and borders are shrinking due to an increasingly globalised world, making it easier to ship products across boundaries. 

However, you still need to do your research on the types of shipping your products will need as well as whether there are any special customs rules you need to follow in order to ensure your product safely gets into the hands of your customers.

Go live

Finally, once you’ve considered all of the above factors and you’ve ensured that the groundwork has been laid for your online business, you need to go live with your stock or services.

Right now, you’re probably thinking: don’t I need developers, hosting and website builders for this? And isn’t this going to cost me a lot of money?

The answer is that it depends. You certainly can go the traditional way and pay a truckful of cash to have your website developed.

However, with myPOS Online, all your worries are taken care of as we deal with all the hosting, developers, cookie and privacy policies to comply with GDPR, coding, etc. Now you’re wondering how much will this cost me? The answer: it’s absolutely free! You only pay a small transaction fee whenever you make a sale.

All you need to do is choose the theme and design for your online shop from a variety of templates, upload your products and bam, there you have it. You’re online before you even know it!

So, what are you waiting for?

Conclusion

Finding the best products to sell online and figuring out how to sell products online can seem like a daunting task.

Yet, the beauty of this type of business venture is that it has a lot of potential if you hit the nail on the head with your product and service offering.

By taking into account the suggestions mentioned above, you’ll be well on your way to starting your very own online shop with attractive products and value-added services.

Disclaimer: Please be aware that the contents of this article and the myPOS Blog, in general, should not be interpreted as legal, monetary, tax, or any other kind of professional advice. You should always seek to consult with a professional before taking action, since the particulars of your situation may materially differ from other cases.