How to Sell Products Online (From Scratch to First Sale)
If you want to increase your income and start a new project, or want to expand your project, selling products on the Internet is one of the most appropriate and fastest solutions.
This is due to advances in technology and consumers increasingly relying on the internet to shop and buy their products, whether through social media platforms or online stores.
If you are a retailer or a business owner or you want to start a business to increase your income, then going online is now one of the most important things you must do to increase your income and make some profitable sales.
This article is for aspirants who are looking for how to sell products online. We will discuss the steps and ways to sell your products, the top tips to help you increase your sales, the most common challenges that sellers face and how to overcome them.
Why is it necessary to sell products online?
Selling products on the Internet has many names, such as: selling via the Internet or e-commerce, and it is considered one of the most important ways to make money from the Internet.
- It has many advantages for sellers and helps them make good profits with minimal effort, such as:
1. Selling products online is a fast and sure way to increase revenue and increase your return on investment, and you don't have to have extensive sales or technical expertise.
2. Low Risk You don't need a lot of capital to start with, but you probably don't need capital to start with.
3. Customers covering a wider geographical range, not limited to the population of your city or country, but there are many places outside the borders of your country to target its population.
4. The ability to sell, communicate continuously with customers, interact with them, and receive their opinions and comments directly, which helps you understand their problems, try to solve them, and grow your business to achieve more profits.
5. Online selling is a suitable opportunity to start a business as soon as possible because it saves the cost of building or renting a place for sale on land and all costs associated with utilities such as: electricity, maintenance, building procedures, etc.
6. In online sales, use various electronic marketing methods to promote products and reach customers, such as: paid advertising on social media, search engine advertising, and email marketing, which is more effective than traditional marketing.
7. Online selling is easy to manage, effortless, and easy to measure and track because you have analytics tools that help track orders, inventory, returns, and customer behavior with your products.
8. The availability of many customer service tools helps to build a good relationship with customers, gain their loyalty to your product, and make them permanent customers.
9. The process of selling products via the Internet is continuous and is not bound by specific working hours, rest days or regular holidays, because you can receive orders from customers at any time of the day.
10. Since the cost of selling products on the Internet is lower, the cost of e-marketing is lower compared to traditional sales, and the return on investment and the expected profit margin of sales increase.
11. Always easy access to customers' needs and requests and striving to deliver them through inquiries left by customers, whether on search engines or social networking pages about products.
Steps to selling products online
It is not easy to start selling products online without prior arrangement or planning and without clear steps.
That's why I'm going to show you some of the steps you need to take and some important factors that you need to consider in order to start selling your products online.
1. Select a sales area or specialty
To ensure the success of your selling efforts, you must have a solid idea of what you are selling and base your selection on an in-depth study of the business market and what it requires.
And to study the level of customer demand for these products, of course you want to take advantage of the sale, so there must be a large public demand for these products.
You'll also want to look for niche products that have less competition, that is, don't have a lot of competitors selling them, at least in the beginning.
Not only that, but you should also determine the source from which you got these products and rely on reliable sources.
When choosing a product supplier, a set of recommendations must be followed, which are as follows:
- Choose among the many sellers, familiarize yourself with the sales systems offered, and choose the most suitable one.
- Product quality guarantee and promise delivery date.
- It's a good idea to check the stock levels of their products regularly.
2. Identifying target customers
The key is to identify customers who are interested in purchasing your product because it matches their interests and needs. This is very important as it helps you identify the pain points, problems and needs of your potential customers in order to offer them a solution in the form of your product.
I will leave you an article entitled: How to Determine Your Target Audience, which shows you the practical steps to identify your target customers and how important this step is to achieving great sales and commercial success.
3. Know how to sell your product
There are many ways to sell products online, and here are some of the ways you can start your own business, so we will show you some of them that you can rely on, as follows:
- Method 1: Create an online store and sell through it
An online store is one of the great ideas to help you sell your products online because it is the official home of your online business.
This is convenient if you have a product that you will sell through; Whether you have a physical store and want to expand your business, or you have the skills to make a product and sell it through the store.
But if you don't have any products and you don't have enough money, you can set up an online store and use the dropshipping system, which will not only save you money on products and storage locations, but also ship products to customers.
All you have to do is have an online store and subscribe to the dropshipping system that some e-commerce platforms provide, where you display these products, or wholesalers or manufacturers send these products to customers, and you get the price difference between these products. Bid and ask prices.
As you may have noticed, it all revolves around how you create your online store.
Now easier than ever, it is easier than ever to create an online store, and you can learn more about it through the many articles on the Winners site.
For example, you can easily use some of the e-commerce platforms that allow you to create a full-fledged online store.
It provides you with all the solutions and tools that help in trading and selling products online. Start introducing and selling products easily without any software experience.
Simply select a payment method on your store to be able to receive payments for your sales and integrate with some of the companies that offer shipping services to provide your customers with a one-stop shopping experience.
One of the most popular platforms is the Shopify platform, which is easy to use and integrates all the tools and features that will ensure your successful sales.
We will not delve into this topic because I will leave you this article, useful for starting your store:
- The second method: trusted selling
This way, you won't need a huge amount of capital to own what you're selling. The concept of selling merchandise is that these products that you will sell belong to an online store or other brand.
All you are doing here is helping them sell these products for a commission or a percentage of each sale.
It is doubly beneficial for both parties, as the brand achieves a wider reach and gets more sales for its products, and the seller receives a commission for his efforts in the marketing process.
What's great about this approach is that the affiliate marketer doesn't take the risk of acquiring the product and setting up a physical store to sell it on.
- You need to perform a set of steps to get started, namely:
- Choose the products you want to market.
- Determine the buyer demographics of this product.
- Be where your audience is. If it's on search engines, your marketing efforts are aimed at getting good traffic sources on search engines and social media.
- All you do is use different marketing strategies like:
- Email marketing.
- Articles and blogs.
- Video marketing.
- Facebook group.
- landing page.
Through these strategies, groups interested in these products are targeted and relied upon to direct these customers to purchase from the brand owner's website or online store.
Now you may be wondering how can I calculate the number of products sold through me on the site and how does the site know that. The advantage of selling consignments is that you will get a link with your code to keep track of the number of products sold through that link.
Important things you should know to ensure successful commission sales include:
Features and characteristics of your product and research your target audience so you can write content that sells your product and entices them to buy.
Rely on funded campaigns on different platforms to get more traffic and sales deals.
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- The third method: the e-commerce market
E-commerce marketplaces are major platforms dedicated to selling products on the Internet, allowing shoppers to buy through them, and sellers through them to display their products and manage buying and selling through the platform.
The most famous of these markets in Egypt is Amazon - the market previously - Jumia and Noon.
For example, Amazon enables you to register an account as a seller by entering all your data such as name, bank account number, email, national ID, listing your products, page title, product description, price, and all product detail information.
Amazon offers you a variety of shipping methods, you can choose the one that suits you best, which are:
Fulfillment by Amazon: In this case, your products will be stored by Amazon and shipped to the customer.
Easy Ship: In this case, storage will be your responsibility and shipping to the customer will be the responsibility of Amazon.
Self Shipping: Here, you will store your products and ship them to your customers.
5 tools to create an e-commerce website in 2023
- The fourth method: selling products on social networking sites
People who are new to selling online often use social media to get their business started, and creating a business account on Facebook or Instagram is one of the most popular ways that most people take.
There are many strategies on each platform which can be used to generate huge sales.
- For example:
There are many strategies you can use to sell on Facebook, such as:
a) Facebook Marketplace: The Facebook Store to sell products is a free service launched by Facebook, through which merchants can display their products and provide simple descriptions and prices. Customers can view the product and contact you directly to get the rest of the details.
b) Create a Facebook Page: It is very common for most event owners (even service and non-profits) to start displaying photos of their products and interacting with the audience through this. You can also measure the performance of your marketing efforts with the insights Facebook gives you.
c) Facebook Shop: This is a modern Facebook strategy that allows you to create a shop and link it to your online store so that viewers can start browsing their products and complete their purchase through the Facebook Shop.
d) Sponsored Ads: This is a paid strategy that enables you to target specific audiences through Facebook ads based on age, education, geographic area, interests, and even where they live.
e) Facebook Groups: This strategy requires you to interact with customers in Facebook Groups who are associated with your campaign, share interests, and provide them with helpful advice and information about the products you offer.
However, these tips must be presented in an unconventional manner, appearing as an expert in front of the audience before you can showcase your product and invite them to visit your store or page to browse your product.
2. Instagram
Not only that, but you can rely on Instagram to sell your products through it, you can also collect traffic to your online store through it, increase your conversion rate, publicize and promote the growth of your brand, and increase the interaction between you and your customers.
- You should know some helpful strategies, such as:
a) Instagram Store: This is a new feature where it is now possible to create a store, display your products and link the store to a Facebook store or a web store.
b) Realistic: These are short videos that can be used to demonstrate the benefits of a particular product within 60 seconds.
c) Influencer Marketing: You can pay celebrities with their Instagram followers to promote your products.
- The fourth method is to market the product
The fourth step to selling products online is to market the product. Product marketing is more than just the choices or steps you take to sell your product. It is the way to grow your business, increase sales of your products, and increase your presence in the market and with your customers.
It is not only about displaying products on the Internet, but it goes beyond measuring and analyzing the results of your work to discover the gaps, strengths and weaknesses in them and work on developing and improving them.
There are some marketing strategies that must be followed in order to achieve a high percentage of sales and promote your brand in the market and competitors.
- Among these strategies:
- Email marketing.
- Content marketing.
- search engine optimization.
- Social media marketing.
It should be noted that the method of selling on the Internet is not without challenges, which you must expect and deal with, which we will discuss in the next point.
- Challenges of selling products online
During the sales process, you will go through many steps and many challenges, but you must understand what those challenges are and how to overcome all the risks and challenges that you will face.
- Among these challenges:
Some beginners who sell products online do not have enough awareness of sales planning and goal setting, and because the selling process is not a random process, it must be planned. You also need tools to help you take an approach that will ensure that the sale is successful and that goals are met.
The solutions in this article provide comprehensive information (all the information and tools you need) on how to create a sales plan.
2. Fierce competition
Where there is fierce competition for target customers via the Internet, whether from companies or owners of initial projects.
The solution is to do your best to give your brand a competitive advantage, to provide high quality products, and to focus in marketing your product on the benefits and advantages that your customers get when they own your product.
3. Difficulty gaining customer trust
Consumers usually do not make purchasing decisions lightly and trust sellers from the first moment, but there is one very important point that you must consider and manage carefully in order to multiply your sales, and that is the customer journey, as he believes, starting from time. He is aware of the existence of your product, so that he can make a purchase decision and trust you, becoming your regular customer.
Top tips for maximizing profits selling products online
1. Ensure a unique shopping experience for your customers by providing them with good service and products, and providing an excellent shipping experience.
2. Provide special offers and discounts on your products and offer your products at special prices.
3. An important factor to help you attract customers is to provide a professional and complete description of the product, including product features, advantages and benefits that customers generate when using it, which requires you to know the product well.
5. Clearly include prices before and after discounts, and include all shipping information and delivery times so that customers understand all financial aspects of the product.
6. Using funded advertising campaigns on social media and search engines, targeting a large audience searching for your products and interested in using them.
7. Take advantage of influencers and celebrities who have a following and provide content related to your product to showcase your product to their followers.
8. Regularly survey customers about the quality of service they receive through your online store to ensure customer retention and loyalty to your store, and to eliminate any mistakes suppliers may make that could negatively affect the reputation of your store.
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The most frequently asked questions about selling products online
- 1. What are the benefits of selling products online?
Low risk, you don't need a lot of capital in the beginning, but you may not need capital at all.
Reaching customers in a wider geographic area, you are not limited to the population of a particular city, but many places outside your country can target their population.
- 2. How do you sell products online?
- Select the selling profession (products to be sold).
- Determine target customers.
- Define sales methods.
- Launch a marketing campaign.
- 3. What are the ways to sell products online?
- Create an online store.
- Sell products on a commission basis.
- e-commerce market.
- Sell through social media.
- Email sales.
- 4. What are the challenges faced by sellers?
- How to develop a sales plan.
- Intense competition between companies and entrepreneurs.
- Difficulty gaining customer trust.
In conclusion
Selling products on the Internet is very profitable and anyone can use it to improve and grow their business or even start a new activity, even if they have no technical or commercial experience and only have the motivation to work and earn money through the Internet.
In this article, we have shared with you all the information you need to get started and become a professional selling products online. We hope you have benefited from it.
Share with us, have you tried one of the methods of selling products online and what is the most effective way to achieve profitability?