You’ve set up your ThrivingLocally shop and now sitting back and waiting for the orders to come rolling in.
If you’re still waiting…and waiting…and waiting. Maybe it’s time you stopped hoping for customers to magically appear and do something about it.
In this case, that means taking a good, hard look at what you might have been doing wrong that has affected your ability to turn a profit.
Take a look at these reasons and decide if there is something you can do to change the waiting game into the selling game.
1. Your Product Photos Are Terrible
If you’ve ever taken a product photo that you know isn’t good and thought, “Well, this will do for now.” you should be ashamed of yourself. Just kidding. But this could definitely be one of the major reasons why your sales haven’t been good.
Think about it: Who wants to buy something they can’t clearly see? I wouldn’t. You wouldn’t. Your customers surely wouldn’t either.
Always take your time when it comes to product photography. Don’t forget to get multiple views.
2. Your Product Descriptions Aren’t Descriptive
Say you’re selling a green T-shirt and in the product description you write, “Green T-shirt.” Well, first of all, kudos on originality. Now let’s figure out what else you can say about that green T-shirt to help persuade someone to buy it.
Is it made of the finest silk known to man? Did you hand-sew it? Did an artist design the logo on it? Was it made locally? Does it run large or small? Does it come embellished with rare jewels? You get the idea.
These details are what your customers want to know and can mean the difference between a sale and well, no sale.
3. You’ve Priced Your Products Too Damn High (Or Too Damn Low)
Did you conduct enough competitive intelligence on your products before pricing them? Be honest.
If not, you might want to take a look at your competitors to see what they’re selling similar products for.
If someone can get something for the same quality at a lower price elsewhere, well, they’re probably going to do that.
And if you think rock-bottom prices are the way to combat that, well, don’t do that either. If something is priced strangely low, it makes people wonder what’s wrong with it and you’ll probably end up losing that sale anyway.
Instead, come up with a fair middle ground, or, if you are pricing hiring than your competitors, make sure your customers know why. (Better quality, warranty, etc.)
4. You Put Up a Crappy Banner
If your banner photo looks unprofessional, your store probably will too. When this happens, you lose credibility. This could mean customers doubt the quality of your products, think your shipping process might be sketchy, and so on. Don’t lose sales because a crappy banner is overshadowing your products.
Make a nice one yourself using PicMonkey or hire a graphic designer to do it for you. This is a small project and shouldn’t cost you too much to have done.
5. You’ve Forgotten All About Promotion
Even if the marketplace where you have your online shop promotes your products for you, doing your own marketing is still essential to your store’s success.
There are so many things you can be doing to help boost your profit, from email marketing to social media. If you’re new to all of it, tackle one at a time so you can get the hang of it fully before adding more to your plate.
6. You Don’t Take Advantage of Holidays/Seasons
Not great at marketing? Every holiday and season is a built-in marketing opportunity for you and it’s one of the easiest ways to drum up more sales for your store.
Highlight seasonal items. Offer discounts before every holiday. Promote your products as perfect for ‘back to school’, ‘Easter brunch’, ‘fall weather’, ‘Holiday Special’ and so on.
The words you use and the way you present your products can be made to fit almost any occasion. Don’t miss out on this easy and effective marketing tactic.
7. You Don’t Offer Sales or Discounts
While holidays and seasons are great, you shouldn’t limit your sales and discounts to them exclusively.
Hold ‘just because’ and ‘why not’ sales to keep shoppers interested. Capitalize on that sense of urgency a ‘today-only flash sale’ will cause.
With a little bit of creativity, there truly is an unlimited amount of promotions to come up with that will encourage more sales.
8. You Never Add New Products
Diversity is how you keep customers coming back for more. If you only offer a couple products, you’re probably not going to get much repeat business.
Work on adding more to your product line to keep customers interested — and purchasing — throughout the year. Then, make sure you’re emailing customers to let them know of your new products. (And tweeting. Facebooking. Instagramming. etc.)
9. You Have Unrealistic Expectations
You just opened your ThrivingLocally store and haven’t had 100 sales yet? You haven’t “gotten around” to putting your store’s URL on your business cards, email signature, and flyers? You have many out of stock items that haven’t been updated, you forget to respond to customer questions and then wonder why people aren’t buying?
All of these scenarios, and many more, add up to unrealistic expectations. As with any business, selling online — and being successful at it — won’t happen overnight.
But if you work hard to offer quality products, excellent customer service, and competitive prices, while promoting the heck out of your store, you’ll be much more likely to see the amount of traffic and profit you’ve been hoping for.
Let us know if you have any questions or if we can assist you 🙂
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