What is the best niche that you can go into, that people will actually take out their credit card and immediately buy your product?

In the past year since I started my own eCommerce store and taking courses to learn all about ecom, I realised that the wrong way to do it is to sit down and brainstorm endlessly about the winning product.

The right way however was to sell a product that was already selling. In other words, never reinvent the wheel. This is one of the lessons that I wrote about in my recent article 10 Marketing Lessons I Learnt In My First Year Of Affiliate Marketing.

You see someone has already done the research for you. Someone has already tested the product and have proven that it sells.

So when you have those three criteria – the product is researched, the product is tested and the product is proven to sell – it becomes easy for you as the observer to simply source the same product, set up your own website and begin marketing the product.

So where do you actually go to find these proven products? Keep reading.

What You Will Learn

• How to choose your niche
• How to use Amazon to find winning products
• How to use Ebay to find winning products
• How to use Google to find winning products
• How to use Facebook to find winning products
• Where to source your products
• How To Choose Your Niche

The mistake that eCom store beginners make when starting an online store, is they become passionate about one product, build a store around that idea then start marketing it.

What happens next is they find out that the market is not receptive of their idea. No one buys their product so essentially they wasted a lot of time setting up a store that is not responding well.

With any business idea, it is a pitfall to allow your personal perception and preference to influence your decision.

Just like with blogging, it is a bad idea to blog about yourself, your dog or your cat. No one really cares about that.

Rather you should blog about things that your audience wants to read.

The same goes for eCommerce. You should sell things that people want to buy and you can do that by looking at the data and letting the data guide you to help you understand what your audience wants.

My advice therefore is to stop thinking about a specific niche for a moment. Find four to eight great products and split test them all. Then use the data that you get from your test and focus on selling that one product or several products that go well with your winner. That is how you create a niche store.

The thing about marketing a product, is that you never know how it is going to perform. So rather than spending all your resources on one idea in the beginning, take the time to work with many different ideas, then simply run with the one that has started making you money.

This is the exact formula that I used to create a successful Shopify store in one month where I was able to generate over $7000 in sales.

So in summary, when doing eCommerce, start with a general store selling just about anything, then once you have a product that is selling well, niche down the store and start selling products around that one thing.

How To Use Amazon To Find Winning Products

Why start with Amazon?

Well it is becoming a household name and most people go there to buy just about anything that they want, that they cannot get in your traditional brick and mortar stores.

To start understanding a product’s selling potential, there are two things that I would look at. The customer reviews and the best selling rank.

Starting with the best selling rank, Amazon gives you several products in different niches that you can work with.

Looking at the pet niche I see that one of the best selling products is a training pad. When I look closely at the product I see that it is the number one selling product in pet supplies compared to other products.

Amazon’s best selling rank is an indication of the number of units sold compared to other products in a given time frame.

Therefore using this data you can find a list of products that are in a high demand and popularity. Next to the BSR you will also see the top 100 list. Browse that list for other ideas.

If you go back to the Best Sellers home page and look to the left, Amazon gives you a list of sub categories which breaks down your main niche into sub niches.

So in this case the pet niche is broken down into different animals. This tells me that people interested in pets are interested in things primarily for their dogs, cats, fishes, birds, horses, etc.

Maybe you might want to get a few products from each sub niche and test each product against each other.

Let’s go a little further. If you click on each sub category, you get other sub sub categories.

Going through the list and repeating the steps outlined above to identify the best sellers, you can get an idea for those products that are popular and selling well by looking at the BSR and customer reviews.

How To Use Ebay To Find Winning Products

If people are not buying products on Amazon, they’re getting it on Ebay.

The internet also has tools that you can use to determine whether a product you want to sell, is popular on this platform.

Chances are, if you have used Amazon and have established that there is demand there and the same product is in demand on Ebay, then you can set up your own online store and sell the product easily.

What this does is eliminate the seller fees associated with Amazon and Ebay.

To find popular products, I like using a website called Watch Count. Watch Count tells me the most popular items on Ebay by the number of watchers in real time.

Using the same example above, I typed in dog training pad and found that on average there were 494 watchers of this product.

This suggests to me that the product is in good demand.

If we go directly to Ebay and search for the same product you can see the past sales of the product. Sales in the tens or hundreds are good, but if you get a product in the thousands or tens of thousands it is even better.

Let’s take a closer look at the product on Ebay.

When I click on the product with the highest number sold, there is a bit more data that Ebay gives to me. I can see how many were sold in an hour. The higher the number the better.

It would be even better if Ebay reported on the number of items sold per day to get an idea of how popular it was on a day by day basis.

Once you have found a potential product that you feel will have a high selling success you don’t want to stop there.

Look at the seller’s other products for more ideas in the same niche.

Are there products with high sales and watch counts? Repeat the above process if you find a product that interests you.

Make sure to carefully scrutinise the product by watching for how many are watched or sold in the last hour or day if the data is there.

If there is no data then it is likely that the products are not best sellers on Ebay so you can move on to the next.

How To Use Google To Find Winning Products 

Sometimes people prefer to use search engines to shop outside of Amazon and Ebay and this is where you can find out whether there is a lot of demand using Google.

You can find this data using the Google Keyword Planner tool and also Google Trends.

Both give you an indication of whether people in high numbers are searching for your product idea, what they are searching for and whether there is high or low competition in the marketplace.

If you have a stellar idea but the data says that no one is really searching for it, then that is not a good idea.

Which is why it is always a good thing to spend some time using this research process to find ideas that are likely to work.

To start you will need the Google Keyword Planner tool. I am interested in finding data on the product idea dog training pad so I type that into the field that says Your Product Or Service.

Based on Google data the product dog training pads got 1000 to ten thousand searches. This tells me that it is a highly searched for item but the competition rate indicates that the keyword dog training pads is highly competitive amongst marketers.

Google Trends also tells me whether this item is of a high interest over a period of time.

How To Use Facebook To Find Winning Products

Conducting Facebook research has always been my go-to way of finding products that people are interested in on Facebook.

Especially since I use Facebook Ads predominantly for eCommerce traffic, it is a good idea to go directly to this platform to see exactly what the marketplace has to say about any particular niche idea or product idea.

What you will be looking for is the number of shares, likes and comments that any product received.

When doing research with this platform, the keywords that you use is related to the words that most sellers use when advertising on Facebook. For example:

Niche/product + grab yours here

Niche/product + free shipping

Niche/product + get yours here

Niche/product + order yours here

Niche/product + order now

Using the above and the product keyword dog training pad I will look for any post that has a high engagement, preferably in the thousands.

So far I have found nothing so I will assume that no marketer has tested this product. That’s not to say that it wouldn’t sell well but I do not want to be the first to try. I prefer to find a product that already works so I know that it has been tried and tested.

Let’s try searching for the dog niche and see what we come up with.

One search gives me a few ideas to work with. It’s not a dog training pad but it would appear that the audience on this platform like playful items like this one.

Or practical items like this one. To help me understand the popularity I look at the engagement.

Before deciding on an idea that has gained a lot of engagement, it is a good idea to take it further and see what kind of engagement the product gets.

Some product ideas may have a high engagement but negative remarks. Others may have high engagement but positive remarks. You want to stick to those that have more positive than negative remarks.

Where To Source Your Products

Once you have decided on the product that you want to test and sell, you now need to find out where to source your product.

There are many suppliers that can probably provide your desired product to you but there are a few things that you need to consider:

Do you want a local or international supplier? This is important when import factors are considered. With international suppliers there is the issue of importing and paying import duties. Of course you can factor this into your price but you must also consider how much the customer is prepared to pay and whether your item is of a high perceived value to mark it up to account for the expenses you have made.

Do you want inexpensive products or are you willing to spend a bit more? To source inexpensive products the best avenue is relying on international providers from countries like China or the Phillipines. If you are sourcing products from the US be prepared to spend a little bit more which may in turn affect the profit margins that you can generate.

Do you want to hold inventory or drop ship? A lot of suppliers both internationally and locally do offer drop shipping services. You need to decide which Ecommerce model you will use and whether the supplier accepts drop shipping, has terms and conditions associated with drop shipping or do not offer it at all.

To find products for your online store you can use online directories like Alibaba or Aliexpress which is a Chinese Wholesale marketplace.

You can also attend wholesale tradeshows which is more personal since you get to meet wholesalers in person and examine their stock.

If you prefer to skip attending these fairs feel free to download my wholesaler’s list where I have compiled over twenty different wholesalers in different niches that you can research and contact.

Whatever method you use be sure to research the vendor as much as possible to avoid any deception especially with online vendors.

Wrapping Up

Before you put pen to paper and embark on creating an online store or buying a web domain, before you even spend a dime, I urge you to spend a day or two doing as much research as possible into the type of products that would sell well.

Take some time reaching out to vendors once you have an idea of what product you would like to sell.

Even before you sign any supplier contract or order in bulk be sure to set up a trial store and test whether your products will sell.

This is important to avoid wasting any money, time and getting frustrated in the process.

If you are really considering starting your own online store, be sure to check out the following related articles to help you get started and be on the right track.

Related Articles:

• The Ultimate Ecommerce Startup Guide
• The 8 Best Ecommerce Training Courses 
• How To Increase Conversions In Your Ecommerce Store 
• 4 Proven Ways To Increase Traffic To Your Online Store 

Cheers

The post How To Choose A Winning Ecommerce Product To Sell appeared first on I Am Dawn-Marie.

Related Articles:

• The Best Ecommerce Solution for Small Businesses 
• How To Increase Ecommerce Sales 
• The 8 Best Ecommerce Training Courses 

Today I decided to wind things back a little bit and give you a checklist of things that you should be doing to start your own eCommerce store.

This checklist acts as a guide to getting your own eCommerce store set up, from choosing a business name, to loading your store with products, to selling and shipping your products to customer service and outsourcing.

This guide is for you, if you know nothing or a little about eCommerce and want a definitive guide to getting started with eCommerce.

Remember that whilst this article seeks to guide you, eCommerce is a skill set that you need to learn and so you should make an investment in an eCommerce course to teach you how to grow a profitable eCommerce business.

What You Will Learn:     

• How to choose a business and store name
• Select web hosting and a domain name
• Decide on the platform that you want to build your store on
• Where to get wholesale products
• What eCommerce model is best to use
• How to choose your target audience
• How to apply a markup to your products
• How to advertise your products
• Are you ready for outsourcing?
• How to remain profitable. Metrics to look at.

How To Choose A Business And Store Name

The name of your store and business really is not that important to the customer. The customer is only interested in whether your store is legitimate, trustworthy and provides excellent customer service.

Therefore when choosing a business and store name, do not spend too much time here.

You may wish to name your store after some event that is special in your life or it can be a composition of the names of the owners of your store.

For example when I started my first eCommerce store it was named Winton Lane Marketplace. Winton Lane was actually the place where I grew up.

When deciding on your store and business name, I would recommend that you create a name where the social media handles are also available.

You do not want to create a name and then realise that someone else already has a Facebook or Twitter account with the same name.

To check whether this is the case I use a website called Namecheckr which verifies whether a potential business or store name is available across most social media platforms and whether the domain name is free.

If you want ideas for store and business names then you can use Shopify’s free business name generator for ideas.

Select Web Hosting and a Domain Name

Webhosting

Some eCommerce platforms like Shopify and BigCommerce have all-inclusive web hosting with their packages so deciding on where to host your eCommerce store is unnecessary.

If however you have selected an eCommerce site builder like Woocommerce for WordPress where you need to set up your own web hosting, then you will find that the process is not entirely daunting.

Web hosting is provided by sites like SiteGround or Bluehost. I particularly like Bluehost because of the ease of setting up the webhosting with one click and their customer service.

Also if you have decided to use Woocommerce for WordPress, Bluehost is actually their recommended webhost provider making this the number one choice for your eCommerce webhosting needs.

Bluehost has a really great offer where you can get webhosting and a domain name for only $3.95 per month using my referral link. This special offer is available to all my readers.

If you do not want to use Woocommerce for WordPress and prefer all-inclusive webhosting packages then the following platforms are great options:

• Shopify starts at $29 a month. See my comprehensive review of Shopify here.
• BigCommerce starts at $29.95 a month
• Wix starts at $17 a month and perfect for smaller eCommerce stores
• Volusion starts at $15 a month
• 3DCart starts at $19.99 a month

Whilst these platforms allow you to host your eCommerce store, you may still be required to purchase your domain name either directly from the platform or transfer an already purchased domain name to the platform.

Domains

Domain names can be purchased from any domain name provider like Bluehost or Namecheap.

Just like a store name, your domain name is of little relevance however here are a few key things you should consider when choosing a domain name:

• It should not be too long
• It should be something that is easy to remember
• It should be easy to type and spell
• Avoid using dashes within your domain name
• It should represent you and your brand

The .com domain name is still the most popular and easily recognised domain extension for eCommerce stores although this does not directly reflect the success of your eCommerce stores.

It is important to note however that if you have an international domain extension like .co.uk or .de and you are selling products worldwide, that the recognition of these domain extension can cause some resistance from buyers especially when they consider that the product may be sourced in a country that is not local to them.

For example having a .co.uk extension may cause buyers from the US or Canada to panic that the goods is being shipped internationally. Therefore be mindful of this.

Decide On The Platform That You Want To Build Your Store On

There are many eCommerce store builders in the marketplace. With so many options it is difficult to size up all of them when you don’t know what to look for.

When selecting an eCommerce store builder I like to consider the following:

Price

Look at how the platform’s price compares to their competitors. Consider exactly what you are getting for the price and what are the core components of the package.

When selecting packages be sure to look at the cost of transaction fees as these will factor into your expenses when you start making sales.

Features

What features are you getting for the price you pay? Some crucial features that are paramount to the successful running of an eCommerce store include a shopping cart, payment gateways, number of products that you can upload to your store, data storage, customer support, security.

Are there any additional features that one platform provides that another doesn’t? Would a lack of features hamper the success of your store?

Support

Depending on the package that you select, be sure to check out the type of support you can get. When running an eCommerce store and considering that there is the potential to make ongoing sales every minute, I prefer to use an eCommerce platform that can provide ongoing customer support in the event that there is an emergency.

I have done a bit of research and here is how some of the top brand eCommerce platforms do when it comes to customer support.

Shopify provides 24/7 customer support by email, live chat or phone. They also have a huge resource of video tutorials, webinar and a Shopify community.

BigCommerce provides 24/7 customer support as well by email, live chat or phone. You can also search helpful articles and review their common questions if you have a problem.

Wix’s library of information will help you solve most problems with your online store. If you are unable to find the problem in the library then you can connect with a Wix support staff via email only. Premium plans which start from $4 a month do however get premium customer support. Their website does not say whether this premium support is via phone or live chat.

Volusion provides customer support via their library of articles written by Volusion experts. If you prefer to speak with a support staff then there is a chat facility however expect a response within a few hours from the time you lodge your question.

3DCart offers live customer support and you can also access their forums where you can ask questions about your eCommerce store and receive answers from other users of the facility. If that is not enough you can submit a support ticket with any problem that you may have.

Woocommerce for WordPress as an eCommerce WordPress theme provides support for their customers via support tickets and contact forms. You can also access their FAQs via a library of questions.

Ease Of Use

It is always best to look for other customer’s reviews to see how easy it is to sign up for and use the platform.

If you prefer most eCommerce platforms offer a free trial allowing you to test the usability of the program before you commit to a purchase.

During the trial process check and see how easy it is to set up the store, upload products to your store, connect any payment gateways. Look at how quickly customer support responds to your needs. Is it easy to build your store? Do you foresee any technical problems that make running the store demanding.

Performance 

Is there any trouble with glitches? What if you have a lot of traffic to your store? Can they accommodate you with reliable site speed?

I suppose trying to understand the performance of an eCommerce platform will take time to ascertain as you will need to have used the platform for sometime before making a decision on this point.

Furthermore once you have made the decision about the performance of the platform it may be difficult to move to other platforms if there is any trouble.

Be sure to consider eCommerce platform reviews before settling with one. To get a comprehensive review of the Shopify eCommerce platform be sure to read my article here.

Where To Get Wholesale Products

There are tons of places on the internet where you can find wholesale products for resell. If you want the cheapest wholesale products I would recommend sourcing them from Aliexpress or DHGate which are Chinese suppliers.

If you do not mind paying a little extra then local wholesale suppliers will be ideal.

I have created a massive list of over 60 wholesalers from the US, Canada and China which you can download here.

Whilst these wholesalers have been compiled from my own knowledge of running an eCommerce site, it is still up to you to verify how reliable the suppliers are by doing your own research.

What Ecommerce Model Is Best To Use 

When it comes to selling physical products, before you set up your store you need to decide what model you are going to use to deliver products to your customer. In this section I am going to discuss three models that you can use, the benefits and the disadvantages of each model so you know what to expect and can decide which one is best for you.

Dropshipping

Dropshipping is the process of fulfilling a retail product via a wholesale supplier.

So when a product is sold, rather than the owner of the store sending the product directly to the customer, the owner purchases the product from the supplier and has it shipped directly to the customer via the supplier.

There are some advantages and disadvantages to the dropshipping model that you should be aware of though.

|Advantages

There is no requirement to hold on to inventory.

Start up costs are kept to a minimum as you would not have to worry about purchasing products upfront for your store.

As you do not hold inventory as a store owner you can operate a dropshipping eCommerce store from anywhere with an internet connection. All that is required is to maintain a close relationship with your wholesale supplier which can easily be done via WiFi, Skype or a messenger service.

It is so much easier to get started as you do not have to worry about where to store physical products, packing or shipping your orders, tracking inventory for accounting purposes, dealing with returns or managing stock levels.

Overhead expenses remain very low. There is no need to keep up with warehouse expenses or inventory expenses. Some people can actually run a drop shipping eCommerce store from a home office.

You have access to a wide selection of products. Depending on the wholesale supplier you have selected, access to products in any niche is widely available. This is particularly true of Chinese wholesale suppliers like Aliexpress or DHGate.

|Disadvantages

You have no control over the quality of product that is shipped to your customer if you have not received samples beforehand. This can cause trouble if you receive negative feedback from customers who are not happy with their orders when they receive them.

You also have no control over when items are shipped to your customers. Certainly with dropshipping you can agree with your suppliers that products are shipped within a certain time frame however unless you have a close relationship with your supplier, usually you must abide by the supplier’s own shipping terms.

If you are using international suppliers, a major disadvantage is the length of time that customers must wait to receive their items. Sometimes this can be over a period of weeks or months. For customers who are not accustomed to lengthy delivery periods, this can lead to negative reviews which can tarnish your brand.

Supplier errors can happen often resulting in a poor customer experience. Even though this is not your fault you still have to accept responsibility as the customer has purchased the item from your brand in good faith that they will receive the item that they purchased. Whilst errors can always be remedied with good customer service, having too many errors can lead to negative feedback resulting in your brand being tarnished.

Shipping complexities may arise if you are using more than one supplier to provide stock for your store. For example you may have product A and B provided by different suppliers. However when the customer purchases both items they are likely to receive their orders separately resulting in confusion.

Another problem that can arise is the issue of shipping costs and how they are to be calculated. If a customer purchases products A, B and C and they all come from different suppliers, you need to decide whether the additional shipping costs associated with each supplier will be passed to the customer.

Fulfilment Centre

Instead of using the dropshipping model you can use a fulfilment centre or third party warehouse to store your products locally.

Fulfilment centres are places that have been established to assist eCommerce store owners in fulfilling their products. Fulfilment centres receive your products, store them and ship them to the customer on your behalf. Some even go as far to deal with any returns that you may have.

Now dealing with a fulfilment centre may be intimidating especially if you are a startup company. If you are just getting started with eCommerce I would recommend that you start with dropshipping.

However once you have successful with dropshipping, your ultimate goal as your business expands should be to either hire a fulfilment centre to do the work for you, or fulfil your products yourself with a team on board.

When moving onto the option of using fulfilment centres here are a few things to consider:

Many fulfilment centres do offer flexible pricing. In some cases the cost of using fulfilment centres is widely dependent on the number of products that you have to fulfil as is with Dollar Fulfilment where you only pay $1 for every product that you need to fulfil.

Using a fulfilment centre allows you to concentrate on the more important aspects of your business. By outsourcing the storing, packing, shipping and returns process to a fulfilment centre, makes your business more streamlined and you are able to devote more time and efficiency to ensuring that your customers get good service.

You also get to save a lot of time and money with fulfilment centres. Chances are, as your business grows, you need more manpower to handle various tasks. Instead of hiring staff to help you, it may be more cost effective to use a fulfilment centre.

Fulfil Yourself  

If neither dropshipping or fulfilment centres appeal to you and you simply like to have full control over your store, then fulfilling all your orders still remains a suitable option for you.

Of course when deciding to fulfil your own orders you must consider whether you will have enough people to help at a time when your business is growing.

If you have the funds, then hiring staff to deal with the packaging, shipping and returns process may not be a problem.

Always be conscious of the fact that as a business owner you cannot do everything. There comes a time when you need to automate your business and outsourcing certain tasks would be the wisest thing to do as you will be able to devote more time to the marketing of your business so you can get more sales.

How To Choose Your Target Audience 

Deciding on your target audience is dependent on where you would like to sell your products.

With a dropshipping eCommerce store it is easy to sell your products in any country depending on whether there is a high demand for the product in the country.

As long as the supplier ships internationally, then all you need to do is to consider whether it is appropriate for you to ship your item to a particular country.

Be careful however of countries that have problems with shipping regulations, theft and fraudulent activities. You may want to avoid these countries all together.

How To Apply A Markup To Your Products 

Your markup will determine how much profitability you get from your store. Deciding what to price your products at does not have to be a challenge.

All it requires is some research skills and knowing what your numbers are.

When I say “knowing what your numbers are” I mean, if you know how much your cost of goods are, the amount you are spending in advertisements, plus any transaction fees and additional costs, then you can markup your price well enough to make a decent profit.

If you price your products too low be careful that when you calculate your expenses you may find yourself actually making a loss.

A good way to consider the markup of prices is to look at your competitors. What is a similar product like the one you’re selling being sold for elsewhere?

For example if you see a store selling a similar product for $30.99 then it will be safe to price that product for $28.99 if you want to undercut your competitor or $35.99 if you know that the quality of your product warrants such a price.

Another way to apply a markup is based on a percentage. Some stores add a 50% markup on the wholesale price. Others apply a 25% markup.

Whatever markup you decide to apply to your store, make sure that it is enough to cover all expenses. If you find that during the sales process you are making a loss, do not be afraid to increase your product prices.

You can always test prices to see whether your customers will be attracted to them.

How To Advertise Your Products

When you launch your eCommerce store you must also have sufficient funds for advertising. There are many ways to advertise your store but the best way I have found is to use Facebook Ads.

Facebook Ads

I will commit to writing a detailed post on eCommerce and Facebook Ads very soon. If you would like to be notified when that post comes out then be sure to subscribe to my blog here.

Facebook Ads is a great way to find a larger target audience for your eCommerce store.

The reason why I love Facebook Ads is because it allows you to specifically reach your ideal customer using detailed targeting.

So for example, if you are selling unicorn printed leggings and want to reach an audience that likes unicorns then you can easily target that audience using Facebook Interests.

Facebook Ads is also a powerful advertising platform as it collects a massive amount of data about its users that you can use to form successful advertising campaigns.

Whilst I would recommend Facebook ads as a choice for advertising, you should always invest in educating yourself about how to use this platform before spending money with Facebook.

Facebook experts, Jon Penberthy and Jubril Agoro actually have a brilliant free webinar which you can access here to learn more about using Facebook Ads for your business.

Pinterest

Another great platform for advertising is Pinterest. Believe it or not but Pinterest is a high performer when it comes to driving sales in the digital market.

The reason why Pinterest does so well is because it is a visual platform that inspires audiences to take action. Pinterest eCommerce users actually reported that they received 20% more sales in the week with Pinterest than any other platform.

This is because Pinterest, through its analytics allows you to understand Pinterest audience’s shopping behaviours so you can adapt your content accordingly.

If you have never used Pinterest before and would like to consider this as a traffic source then I would recommend that you start by taking the Pinterest Traffic Avalanche course by Lauren MacManus and Alex Nerney which helps you learn more about driving traffic to your website.

Are you ready for outsourcing?

Remember that as your business grows your main focus should be on improving sales and marketing for your business.

Therefore if you started as a one man band, think about how you can build a team to help you with certain tasks like customer service, upkeep of your store’s inventory, packaging and shipping.

You may wish to outsource tasks like customer service and store upkeep to Virtual Assistants who you can find on places like Upwork, Freelancer or Fiverr.

You can outsource tasks like packaging and shipping to a team that you hire yourself or you can pay a fulfilment and logistics company to handle this for you.

Whatever you decide, it’s all about if your store has grown sufficiently to extend the budget to these additional expenses.     

How to remain profitable. Metrics to look at.

Finally and most importantly always monitor your numbers. Know how much you are making in the front end and what your expenses are.

Nothing is worse than making $10k a month in revenue but when you calculate your expenses you find that you actually have expenses totalling $11k. A similar scenario happened to me when I first started my store which is why I am a firm believer in knowing your numbers through spreadsheets.

Some things to pay attention to are:

• Gross revenue how much money is coming into your store
• Advertising cost how much you are spending on advertising.
• Cost of goods how much you are paying for the products
• Payment gateway fees depending on your preferred payment gateway, you are likely to have transaction fees with each incoming sale.
• Ecommerce platform fee depending on your preferred eCommerce platform you will have a monthly fee to pay
• Net revenue (profit) your gross revenue minus all expenses.

Wrapping Up

Well that’s all folks. I hope this comprehensive guide helps you start your ecommerce store and understand what things you need to consider. Whilst my list is comprehensive it is not exhaustive and sometimes you learn things as you go along.

This is why it is always best to just start and take action.

If you want a detailed guide in running an eCommerce store be sure to check out my article on the 8 Best Ecommerce Courses Compiled And Reviewed to help you get started. Anyone of these courses will help you start on the right track and get optimal results if you put in the work.

Also feel free to sign up to my newsletter here for more awesome eCommerce tips and tutorials.

Recommended Resources

• Shopify grab a free 14 day trial when starting your very own eCommerce store with Shopify. Click here to get started with Shopify.
• Bluehost grab webhosting for any Woocommerce store for only $3.95 per month.

Related Articles: 

• Best Ecommerce Solution For Small Businesses
• How To Increase Ecommerce Sales (18 Actionable Steps You Can Take)
• 8 Best Ecommerce Training Courses Compiled And Reviewed
• How To Start An Online Store

The post The Ultimate Ecommerce Startup Guide: Beginning, Middle To End appeared first on I Am Dawn-Marie.

According to Datanyze there are approximately 404 eCommerce platforms that have a market share on the internet.

Whether you want a small store with simple design features or a large scale store with higher volume traffic, the type of eCommerce platform you choose is important to ensure that your customers get the best customer experience and you as the owner get good merchant value.  

Having started my own eCommerce store last year and testing a number of different platforms before finally settling down to one, I wanted to speak about my experience and why I chose Shopify as the best eCommerce platform for any start up business.

The purpose of this guide is to help other eCommerce entrepreneurs with their buying decisions and give them a few things to think about when choosing an eCommerce platform to grow their business.

In this post I will be reviewing Shopify and will share with you the features of this platform that helped me make the decision to switch from my old eCommerce store builder, Woocommerce.

You may be in between platforms or looking to create your own online store. If you thought about using Shopify then hopefully this post will help you make your decision with certainty.

Here is what you will learn:

• 5 important requirements to consider before you decide on an eCommerce platform
• How Shopify has taken over the eCommerce market
• The 8 pros of Shopify
• The major cons of Shopify that can change your mind
• Why you should use Shopify to build your eCommerce store

5 Important Requirements To Consider Before You Decide On An Ecommerce Platform

Before you start any business it is imperative that you do your research to find out key components that will help you either thrive or dive.

The same is with an eCommerce platform. Choosing one is not as simple as deciding between Hotmail or Google. There are many platforms in the market to choose from. Those include Shopify, 3dcart, Bigcommerce, Woocommerce and others.

Here are five of the most important requirements to consider before ultimately deciding on an eCommerce platform.

1. Mobile Responsiveness

According to Invesp, over two billion mobile phone users will make some form of mobile commerce transaction.

This is a clear indication that more and more people are shopping online so there is no doubt about the importance of a mobile responsive store.   

Therefore when choosing any platform your first thoughts should be whether it offers mobile responsive designs.

Many platforms already understand this trend so the options available for mobile responsiveness is very large.

2. Security

The importance of security is huge among online shoppers. It certainly should be for you as well as the trust and integrity of your store is dependent on whether you can provide a safe shopping environment for your customers.

Therefore do not rely on a few security badges to prove that your store fits the bill. Make sure that the eCommerce platform you are using provides an SSL certificate (Secure Sockets Layer). Most platforms include this certificate in their price plans where others you have to purchase your own certificates from your webhost.

3. Fast Website

The page load speed of an internet store can affect conversion rates. With many people expecting quicker processing, how fast your website loads is crucial to the number of visitors that bounce and those that stay.

Therefore factor this element in when considering an eCommerce platform. Remember that your store will have tons of high resolution images. Make sure that your eCommerce provider has the capacity to store the pixels of these images whilst preserving the ability to produce fast page speed.

4. SEO (Search Engine Optimisation)

When you are launching an eCommerce store sometimes ranking in the search engines is far from our minds when we are using advertising that does not involve SEO.

To solve this choose platforms that easily allow you to optimise your store for SEO.

For example you should be able to change the page’s meta descriptions with ease and implement SEO basics with minimal effort.

5. Payment Methods

This is an obvious feature of every eCommerce store but I’m going to take it one step further. It is so important that an eCommerce platform has a wide range of payment methods accessible to its users.

An eCommerce platform that caters to regional differences is ideal especially if your target audience does not live in a top tier country where payment methods like debit or credit cards is unconventional.

How Shopify Has Taken Over The Ecommerce Market

Shopify is a leading eCommerce platform that helps small and large businesses build optimised, user friendly eCommerce stores.

Shopify was built in 2006 by a group of five who wanted their own platform to sell snowboard equipment. They could have used different marketplaces to host their products but they found that the ability to build relationships with their customers and sell their own goods at the same time did not exist.

They soon realised that there were a number of small businesses who were in need of a hassle free tool and from this day Shopify was born.

There are over 500,000 active Shopify stores driving over $46 billion dollars in sales.

This only speaks volumes about the effectiveness of this platform for most of its users.

According to Google Trends, Shopify continues to grow in popularity as the favourite eCommerce platform, leading the way ahead of Woocommerce.

In the rest of these paragraphs I hope to show you how Shopify is qualified to be one of the best eCommerce store builders in the market.

It gives beginners and eCommerce experts the ability to start an eCommerce site with little effort and gives you everything you need to run a successful, profitable online store.

The 8 Pros Of Shopify

1. The Ease of Choosing a theme

The design of your website is ultimately important because it affects how likely a visitor is to leave your website once it lands on your page.

Most people make a decision to stay on your website depending on how easy it is to navigate the site. If the site looks cluttered or unusable then expert very low conversions.

Shopify helps you with your theme decision by providing ten free themes and paid themes from $140 from their Shopify Theme Store.

Their themes are absolutely professional that to any visitor it looks like a well put together store.

What I like about designing your store using Shopify themes is that it makes it easy to add content to your website using their customising editor.

Much like a drag and drop builder, Shopify uses sections so you can move around different sections based on how you would like it to appear in your store.

It’s also possible to redesign a theme if you would like a particular feature on your store but it is not provided by the theme.

As long as you know HTML and CSS code you can change the code to make more advanced customisations if you want to.

Also if you have a developer who can design a completely new theme for you, you can always upload this instead of choosing one of Shopify’s themes.

2. Integrating Apps

Shopify offers one of the biggest app selections across most eCommerce platforms, both free and paid.

Apps help to improve the functionality of your store whilst adding some features that assist with store conversions.

The apps are quite simple to install. If you are familiar with WordPress plugins, the addition of Shopify apps can be done in just a couple clicks of a button.

Furthermore if you have created your own third party app which has not come from the Shopify App Store, you can easily add and manage this app from your dashboard.

If you are a developer and want to add your own app to the Shopify App store, then be prepared to go through Shopify’s requirements to have your app considered and then published on their platform. Don’t however be intimidated by their process. The review team is very friendly and helpful and will guide you to creating a successful app.

If however your app requires many revisions you will be given a second chance to get it right.

3. Ease Of Use

Even for the complete beginner, building an eCommerce store does not have to be hard. Shopify already said that their mission was to make commerce better for everyone.

I think they did a pretty good job of making that possible by providing simple features that anyone can navigate.

Even if you still want a show around there are many courses, free and paid, on the internet which show you how to get started with a Shopify store.

What I like about their new interface (Shopify actually did a complete makeover from their previous model to their newest version in June 2017) it takes the user from different steps in the stage of building your eCommerce store so there isn’t any overwhelm.

For example as you enter your main dashboard on the home screen you are given the options of adding a product, creating a custom domain, customising and editing your theme in a structured format.

If you want to stick to these simple steps in a 1-2-3 fashion then you can. If you are more advanced the addition of apps will help you to expand your store.

It’s also worth pointing out that you can purchase a custom domain directly from Shopify for $14 per year. If you have your own third party domain that you purchased elsewhere then that too can be integrated onto the Shopify platform easily by following a few simple steps.

With the set up structure so easy to navigate I do not see how any beginner can get lost with Shopify. After all it is Shopify who are absolutely determined to be the number one eCommerce provider and they know that ease of use is of primary concern which is why they made it such a breeze to walk through.

4. Securing Your Shopify Store

Previously I spoke about the importance of security in your store. If there is any doubt as to whether your store is secure, customers will not make a purchase.

Also with Google’s recent focus on penalising websites that do not use SSL certificates, merchants are recognising how important security is for both the customer and the online web.

Thankfully Shopify is one step ahead by making sure that every store, regardless of their payment plan, has a free SSL certificate and that all connections are done over the recommended HTTPS rather than the HTTP.

Other security measures enabled by Shopify include two step authentication. This is a second layer of security which lets you unlock your Shopify account by using unique authentication codes provided by authentication software.

Shopify also has security badges which lets the customer know that they have entered a secure site. Shopify also complies with the highest standard of Payment Card Industry standards which is the standard required for information security.

 5. Shopify SEO

If you intend to use SEO to drive traffic to your eCommerce store then it is important that you can optimise your store for SEO easily so that buyers can find your site.

Shopify does a pretty good job by making sure it offers various elements to implement SEO.

Headings, image ALT tags, page title and meta descriptions can be easily inserted making it less difficult for your store to appear in the different search engines like Google, Yahoo or Bing.

Some SEO is also taken care of automatically such as auto generated canonical tags which prevent duplicate content from appearing in search engines. Also your website’s sitemap.xml and robots.txt files are generated automatically including title tags which include your store’s name.

If you really want more guidance to perform well with SEO then thanks to SEO apps like the SEO Manager which you can find in the Shopify App store, you are able to enhance your site’s SEO.

These apps having trial periods but after this time there is a cost. Some start from $0 and go to $20 per moth.

6. Shopify Pricing

Shopify has 4 different price plans catering to everyone’s budget.

Shopify Lite which is $9 a month. With Shopify Lite you do not get a store framework. This plan is for anyone who wants to sell but do not want to maintain an online store. So you may want to sell in person, have a buy button on an existing website or use Facebook as a sales platform. This plan is ideal for you.

Shopify Basic is $29 per month and has everything you need to build an online store. So you can create, customise and manage an online store.

If you want help on your store you can hire two people who will have individual staff accounts. If you accept credit card payments via Shopify Payments, there are transaction fees of 2.9% + 0.30c that will apply. There is also an inbuilt blogging engine so if you like promoting products through blogging then this addition will come in handy.

Some of the other features of the basic plan include the ability to host unlimited products, discount codes, SSL certificate, 24/7 support. If you would like to view more about this plan then click here.

Shopify Plan is $79 per month and has everything you need to build an online store plus all the features of the basic plan. Credit card transaction fees however are 2.6% + 0.30c. You can hire up to five people to help you in your store having access to five individual staff accounts. In addition you can provide gift cards to your customers, run professional reports and automatically recover abandoned carts. If you would like to view more about this plan then click here.

Advanced Shopify is for those people who want to scale their business and have volume transactions. This is $299 per month. Your transaction fees are 2.4% + 0.30c. You get everything that the Shopify Plan has except you can now hire up to fifteen people, build advanced reporting and have third party calculated shipping rates show in your store if you are using carriers like UPS or Fedex for example. If you would like to view more about this plan then click here.

As a beginner you also have the opportunity to try out Shopify for a 14 day period. I am absolutely certain you will love the simplicity of this platform. Go right ahead and get started with your 14 day free trial here.

7. Shopify Support

All I can say is amazing!

Very helpful staff who from my experience will do their utmost to help you in anyway that they can.

One time I wanted an extra design on my store but did not know how to add the appropriate HTML code to the site.

I went to their support and BOOM! I got a free complimentary design for what I wanted and the outcome was excellent.

When I was having trouble with my Facebook share button on my store, Shopify stepped in and made certain that the matter was resolved with me the first time.

I did not feel rushed at all. I did not feel like I was a bother. The communication was smooth.

Shopify has 24/7 support regardless of your plan. Support can be given via chat, email or by telephone.

You can also get immediate communication with them when in need.

The one thing I do not like about other products is that when you are on a lower plan you get support within 24 hours. Not the same with Shopify. It does not matter which plan you are on, you are equal if you have purchased the lite plan to if you have purchased the Advanced Plan.

Aside from their support team they also have a library of information, video tutorials, webinars and community where you can figure things out on your own if you want to.

8. Shopify Payments

Taking payments from your customers is most important for every merchant. So far from what we have seen, Shopify integrates with most payment gateways from the major ones to international ones.

You can see a list of the current payment gateways by country here.

This gives the opportunity to people from all over the world to try Shopify as an eCommerce option.

It is highly recommended that before you start your store, that you study the payment gateways for your country to see whether it will work.

The Major Cons Of Shopify That Can Change Your Mind

From all the pros that I have listed on Shopify I do want to keep this review as genuine as possible and list some of the negative sides to Shopify that I did not like.

I mean Shopify isn’t all that and a bag of chips!

These problems are those that I had experienced personally and felt it important to list it here so you can make an informed decision as to whether Shopify is for you or not.

There may be other negative sides listed on the world wide web, but I can only give my experience.

So here we go…

Shopify does not offer real time shipping unless you are on their Advanced Shopify Plan (Ummm. No thank you!) As a small business I needed automated shipping quotes but was not prepared to fork out $299/month.

I for the life of me could not understand why this was being tagged as a premium feature but hey I had to roll with the punches.

Also if you are using Shopify and living in the UK at the time I had to use Stripe as my payment gateway. This meant I was paying double transaction fees on Shopify and Stripe as at the time if you used a third party payment gateway you incurred Shopify transaction fees as well. So transaction fees for Shopify and transaction fees for Stripe. That meant a double whammy to my profits.

UPDATE: Shopify Payments is now available in the UK so transaction fees will not apply, only credit card fees. This now eliminates the need for a third party payment gateway so now you will only pay one set of fees. 

Currently Shopify Payments are available only to stores in the US, Puerto Rico, Canada, UK, Ireland, Australia, New Zealand and Singapore.

As a side note be very careful when you are choosing your payment gateways. Make sure that you are aware what your outlay will be including your payment gateway transaction fees!

Wrapping Up

Shopify is no holy grail but it is a major contributor to the eCommerce marketplace having 11.14% marketshare.

Shopify is for any beginner if they know nothing about coding or website design. Even experts who want the ease and simplicity of running an online store can use Shopify.

From our experience, Shopify gets two thumbs up.

Give it a try. You might like it after you try their 14 day trial.

If you have tried Shopify already let me know in the comments what your thoughts are.  

Cheers,

The post The Best Ecommerce Solution For Small Businesses appeared first on I Am Dawn-Marie.

I had very low sales conversions. Most people do not realise that the problem is not so much that people do not want to buy from you. It’s simply a matter that they do not trust your store.

When I studied other people’s stores and got advice from a few other Shopifiers, I realised what I was doing wrong. So I am writing this post to help other eCommerce store owners understand what they need to do to improve their store and start getting sales.

When I did a total revamp of my store I went from $0 in sales to $7.5k in sales in just one month. You can read my success story here. 

This is exactly what I changed and what you can look out for or add to your store to make it better.

18 Actionable Steps To Increase Ecommerce Sales In Your Online Store

#1 About Us Page

Your About Us page does not have to be personal. It does not have to show the person running the store if you do not want to. But a paragraph or two about what your store represents, the history of the store and where it’s going is a good place to start.

#2 Contact Us Page

If your store is just getting on the scene you want to offer a way for people to contact you in the event that there is a complaint. One of the things that boosted my conversions by 27.5% was including a telephone number and an email address.

Make sure that the email address is a professional email address, so not Hotmail or Gmail. I used Namecheap to buy a domain and then added the private email feature as an add on.

For my phone number I purchased an internet number from Grasshopper.com. Whilst I did not have that many calls on the number, I did have a few which went to voicemail. I never answered phone calls but screened every call and then returned each one at a later time during the day.

#3 A Refund Policy

This is mandatory if you want to have a professional-looking store and to gain trust from your visitors. Customers are more inclined to make a purchase if they know that they are protected in the event that they are not satisfied with their purchase. A refund policy also sets out your store’s terms and makes it clear when you will accept a refund so there is no dispute if anything goes wrong.

#4 A Shipping Policy

Make it clear when customers are likely to expect their purchase. Most customers abandon a purchase when there is doubt as to when an item is to be shipped and delivered.

You may also want to consider offering many items with free shipping. If customers have added an item to cart and then abandoned their purchase at the checkout it is more than likely that the shipping cost was an issue. To solve this problem of having too many abandoned carts I removed the shipping cost completely or reduced the price of my shipping. Most eCommerce store owners, compensate for the free shipping by increasing the price of the item. So you can offer an item for $24.99 with free shipping or $20 + $4.99 shipping.    

#5 An FAQ page

It is important to make your store look as trustworthy as possible. Including an FAQ tab to my store helped improve my conversions by 13%. Sometimes a customer may have a question about an item that can be addressed immediately with an FAQ section.

I realised that this was important when I sought feedback from a customer who did not immediately purchase an item. She said “I was not sure what rolled canvas meant as opposed to framed so I changed my mind”. I therefore immediately added an FAQ section addressing any possible questions that my customers could have. I also saw from my Google Analytics that the FAQ section was most frequented immediately before the customer proceeded to checkout so I know this was an ideal step to take.

#6 Trust Badges

There is a perceived sense of security when you see a trust badge on a store. I tested placing the trust badge on the footer of my store page but found a greater effect when I included it under the Add to Cart button on my product page.

Trust badges and seals, build trust with your customers. It acts as a stamp of approval that your store is secure or the product is of a high quality. This is what IiGears trust badge and seals look like.

Some companies like Norton AntiVirus, McAfee offer trust badges when your site is tested with their systems. You can also download trust badges from Google Images.

#7 Product Descriptions

I found that simple product descriptions worked better with my store. It is important to test whether long or short product descriptions have any effect on add to cart conversions.

A good way to test this is to have two ads running to two different product descriptions for the same item and see which one gives you better conversions.  When tested I found that precise product descriptions won. The objective I wanted to achieve was to have the customer spend as little time on the product page as possible. I wanted as few distractions as I could have the customer subject to, so they could make up their mind, add the item to cart and then checkout. Everyone’s store is different so make sure and test with your store.

#8 High Quality Images

If you have stock of your products it is a good idea to take high quality pictures of the image. Make sure that the image is large and clearly displays the product. If you are dropshipping and using images from AliExpress or Alibaba as in the below imagery, remove any Chinese symbols or branding from the image.

Too many images on the product description can act as a distraction to the customer so try to portray the product carefully in as few images as possible.   

#9 Customer Reviews

Having customer reviews added a huge boost to my ecommerce sales. I found that my sales improved by 19% with customer reviews having tested a product page with no reviews against one with reviews.

Customer reviews acts as social proof and to the customer it simply means that people do buy from the store so it can be trusted. Secondly they get to see the opinions of other people before they purchase the product. As a new store owner it may be difficult for you to get reviews in the first place. A work around is to add a few reviews yourself until you start getting reviews from your customers. When customers do purchase make sure and follow up with them to ask for a review.  

#10 Remove Social Share Buttons

As an eCommerce store owner the main goal for your customer is that they visit your store, see the product that they want and make a decision to buy or leave the store. Therefore avoid anything on the product description page that distracts the customer. Social share buttons were one of those things that I removed. I wanted for my customers to remain in my store as opposed to being taken away from it by a request asking them to share the product with their friends.

#11 Check The Color And Size Of Your Add To Cart Button

In my old store my add to cart button was small and blue. In my new store it was large and green. I wanted the call to action to be bold and clearly visible. I also wanted a colour that represented the will to move forward such as with a green traffic light.

I am not sure whether the change in the colour of the button had any impact on sales but it was one of the things I did differently for my store. The colour of call to action buttons sometimes have an effect on our buying intent. According to The Amasty Blog, “colour does mean something” as they scrutinised dozens of eCommerce stores to see what other owners were using.

If you are starting your own eCommerce store, do not assume that the colour green or blue button will work well. It is important to test button colours to see which one works on your product page and with your audience.

#12 More Than One Payment Option

I used Stripe as my payment processor for my eCommerce store however you may find it beneficial to have more than one payment option. Some customers feel that a transaction is more secure when they use PayPal because of PayPal’s Buyer Protection. If you find that customers are adding items to their basket but not completing checkout then it may be because they do not prefer to use your chosen payment processor. Therefore you may wish to consider adding more payment variations if conversions from add to cart to checkout are low.

#13 Product Options

I limited my product options to just 5 variations. There were so many things that I learnt when I did over my store and one of them was that I should never offer the customer too many options. Too many options mean confusion and overwhelm for the customer. This is true when it comes to the colour of items. With too many options they may not be able to make up their mind. So to avoid this keep variations in small quantities. I would not recommend having more than 5 variations.

#14 A Logo

Adding a logo to my store displayed professionalism and gave a finished touch. A logo does not need to be fancy. It can be created using PicMonkey or Canva and can be as simple as including acronyms to represent your store’s brand.

#15 Discount Code on The Checkout Page

I offered an additional 5% off on the checkout page by providing my customers who reached the checkout page with a discount code. This increased my ecommerce sales conversions by 6% and is a nice little way to seal the deal with the customer.

#16 Scarcity or Urgency Apps

There are apps on the market that you can install on your store as a strategy to increase a sense of urgency. For example, apps that show that an item will be sold out or that the price will increase.

I found that by including the Hurrify Countdown timer from Shopify  to my store, caused people to complete their purchase straight away instead of going away and thinking about it.

For example I had a bracelet on sale in five different colours. The customer only bought one even though she could have purchased all five for the price of four. I contacted the customer later on to offer her the five for four deal and asked why had she not chosen this option just to get her feedback. She replied that “I really wanted to get the bracelet for my granddaughter and had to make a quick decision because the timer was going down”. If you are using Shopify check their app store to look for apps that add this feature.

#17 Abandoned Cart Follow Up

Shopify has a feature where you can send an email to a customer fifteen minutes after they have abandoned their cart reminding them to return and finish their purchase. Using this feature I found that 32% of my customers came back to complete their purchase.

Never assume that a customer has not completed their purchase because of the price.

To recover abandoned carts I decided to request telephone numbers from my customers at checkout. This helped me contact the customer in the event there was a query I had before I shipped the item. I also took advantage of this and contacted any customer who did not complete their purchase to find out why. I was actually surprised to find out that three in five customers did not complete their purchase because their phone rang. One in five did not complete their purchase because they got distracted by the television.

#18 Simple Store

Finally, in my first store I had a carousel slider on my front page and was so focused on making it perfect and pretty. In my second store I realised that none of that mattered. I created a super simple storefront where all the products were listed so that the customer could easily view the product of their choice and got better conversions. My advice, keep your stores simple. You do not need any fancy designs or to spend a decade trying to perfect your store.

That’s It!

If you are having trouble converting your visitors into sales then it is more than likely there is an issue with your store, your product description page or your check out process. Hopefully the mistakes and changes I made to my store can help you identify what needs improvement so you can drive more sales into your store. Good luck!

Cheers,

The post How To Increase Ecommerce Sales (18 Actionable Steps You Can Take) appeared first on I Am Dawn-Marie.

Naturally you would want to take your product online and go where the demand is right?

You probably have tons of questions about how to start, what products are best to sell, where to buy your products and a whole other heap of mind boggling tasks that you need to figure out.

Well the best place to start when venturing into something new is to invest in a course.

And not just any old course. You want to invest in an e commerce course that is worth your time and money. At the end of the day you want to use the resources provided within the course to achieve a decent return on investment (ROI).

This is why I have compiled this online guide to help you determine which course is more bang for your buck. You know, the crème de la crème.

These courses are based on reviews of the population and even personal trials. Hopefully  one of them will give you the goodies that you need to expand and grow your eCommerce business.

If you are serious about eCommerce see it as a valuable investment and don’t forget you can also write these off as business expenses.

Now keep reading to find out the 8 best eCommerce training courses online.

The 8 Best Ecommerce Training Courses Online

1| Build A Shopify Dropshipping Business From Scratch

Creator: Adam Reed

Profile: A 22 year old graduate who launched his first online business at the age of 17. Now at the age of 22 his speciality is dropshipping.

Cost: Originally $200. Now $15

Who is this eCommerce training course for:

• Anyone who wants to start an online business
• Anyone who has no experience in online business
• Anyone who wants to start a business with little start up costs
• Ideal for digital nomads

What you will learn:

• How to build an eCommerce store using the dropshipping model. You will learn how to do this from scratch.
• How to do niche, product, theme research and selection
• How to create a store with Shopify. Shopify offers a 14 day free trial to my readers so be sure to claim your trial by clicking this link.
• How to use Oberlo to add thousands of products to your store easily and effortlessly
• How to set up your store for Shopify SEO
• How to link social media fan pages to your Shopify store
• Tips and tricks to increase your sales conversions
• A walk-through of getting traffic to your Shopify store
• Plus a lot more

Pros:

• The creator of this e commerce course provides as much information as possible to start a Shopify store and use the dropshipping model. Therefore in my opinion, any new beginner who wants to start an eCommerce career can use this course to help them get started.
• The course over delivers on extra tips and tricks to help give you a head start over other Shopify users (who do not take the course obviously ;-)).
• It reveals the different apps that the creator uses to make the process of setting up your store more streamlined.
• The eCommerce training course does not hold much back and his delivery of the course is in a step by step fashion allowing you to do everything that he shows to get you from A to Z.

Cons:

• As with all courses I am of the belief that many eCommerce course providers, set you up to believe that running an eCommerce store is simple. Adam has many great credentials and his eCommerce history is outstanding but as a beginner one’s expectations should be met from the start.
• Running an eCommerce store is no easy feat.
• In fact it is a lot of hard work like any business. You must be prepared to put the effort in to get great results. You must also be prepared for the bumps that will come a long the way.
• No business is easy otherwise we would all be doing it and getting rich in the process. However if you have patience, determination and a strong will to succeed you can be successful with this course to get your first few sales.
• Aside from the hype attached to this course, it is a little disjointed. For example, he may touch on a topic in one video series but not give a complete overview leaving you to guess how it is finished. Then he may pick up that same topic in another video series. So organisation of the course is a little out of whack.
• There are a few broken videos in the course as well making the video and audio quality poor.

Summary:

This eCommerce training course is useful if you want to set up a Shopify store and start making your first sales. Whilst it does touch on Facebook Ads, it was not very detailed to help you understand exactly the metrics you need to look for to be successful with Facebook ads.

Ideally this course is suitable for beginners only. If you want to be more intermediate or advanced then you may have to invest in other eCommerce courses to truly be successful and generate a healthy income with eCommerce.

Start the course by clicking here.

2| Shopify Tyrant: How To Start An Ecommerce Biz From Scratch

Creator: Niche Tyrant

Profile: Niche Tyrant is a brand. They are internet entrepreneurs and trainers who offer courses to help those who are struggling in the internet marketing space.

Cost: Originally $95. Now $15

Who is this eCommerce training course for:

• Only for beginners who are interested in starting an eCommerce store

What you will learn:

• How to start a profitable Shopify store. Shopify offers a 14 day free trial to my readers so be sure to claim your trial by clicking this link.
• How to research high converting products
• How to create successful Facebook ads
• How to use Instagram to drive traffic to your Shopify store
• How to scale your business and automate the process
• Which apps you must have to run your store

Pros:

• If you are new to eCommerce you can use this step by step course to get you started with Shopify. It is an easy to understand course and very informative for those users who have no understanding of what Shopify is and how to use it.
• It explains how to research your niche, find products and target your audience.

Cons:

• This course is not for advanced users of eCommerce. The course really touches the surface of eCommerce but does not go in depth on marketing the store and the best ways to do that.
• Whilst the course touches on Instagram and Facebook marketing, more detail is required for the user to fully understand how to use Facebook and Instagram ads, what metrics are important to consider when running the ads, how to scale the ads, how to achieve a great return on investment to ensure that the store is profitable, how to write ad copy.
• The course is therefore not detailed enough. In some cases the student may have to figure things out on their own or use another course to help them hone in on specifics that they need answered.
• You may be able to find much of the information in this course on eCommerce blogs (like this one ;-)) or YouTube channels. So you must decide whether you wish to spend money first on this course or whether you should spend a bit of time in blogs or YouTube to find the information you need.

Summary:

This eCommerce training course is ideal for beginners only. I would not recommend this course for advanced students.

The course is very simple so you will not find as much in depth analysis to get your store progressing to a profitable and successful business.

Much of the information found in this e commerce course can also be found on blogs or YouTube but if you want everything in one place without having to figure things out then this may be an ideal course for you.

Start the course by clicking here. 

3| Ecommerce Training Academy

Creator: Alaa Hassan

Profile: An eCommerce pioneer with over sixteen years under his belt. He is currently the Director of Digital Marketing at Canada’s leading home fashion retailer. His purpose with the Ecommerce Training Academy is to help other eCommerce professionals like him grow a profitable eCommerce business.

Cost: unknown

Who is this eCommerce training course for:

• This course is for eCommerce and digital marketing professionals
• For anyone who is new to the online eCommerce space and wants help getting started

What you will learn:

• Ecommerce basics how to launch an online store
• How to increase online store traffic and profit from it
• How to convert shoppers into customers
• How to retain customers
• How to get more email subscribers

Pros:

• The material on this website can be accessed for free. Therefore I will consider this a free demonstration of how to get started with eCommerce.

Cons:

• This e commerce training course has not yet launched and you must sign up to get notified when they do so.
• If you are prepared to wait for the Academy to launch, that is your choice. If you would like to start right away then it is better to utilise the other courses that I have recommended in this post.
• Whilst you can use the content on Academy website for guidance, it does also point you in the direction of other resources to follow to solve an eCommerce problem.
• The content on this website is not ideal for beginners. There is no step by step instruction on the site on how to get started with eCommerce. Rather the site directs you to other content elsewhere on the internet where you can learn how to get started.
• If you have some knowledge of eCommerce and merely want extra tips for better results then this site is a useful source of information.

Summary:

This course has not yet launched and you will merely be directed to a blog like platform where information on eCommerce is given for free.

I would not recommend this site for beginners as there are no step by step guides on how to start an eCommerce store. In fact the website makes it clear that the content was created for professionals. It therefore is useful for anyone who wants a bit more insight into eCommerce.

You may wish to get your name on the email list to find out when the Academy has officially launched. More than likely when it has launched you will be required to pay for the course.

Click here to put your name on the email list

4| How To Make An Online Store With WordPress eCommerce Website

Creator: Hoku Ho

Profile: A website developer who teaches others how to create beautiful websites from scratch using WordPress. Hoku got started by designing wire frames and mock ups in Adobe Illustrator for an Iphone App company he co-founded. He then learnt about HTML, CSS and WordPress and now teaches many others how to use WordPress as well.

Cost: Free

Who is this eCommerce training course for:

• Anyone who wants to learn how to create an eCommerce website using WordPress and Woocommerce

What you will learn:

• How to build an eCommerce website step by step using WordPress
• How to register for a domain name, set up web hosting and WordPress so you can go live on the internet
• How to customise WordPress with the Woocommerce plugin and the Storefront theme

Pros:

• This eCommerce course is a very short course lasting one hour and 12 minutes. It is free to access. It is like a crash course to get you set up and running in no time if you are ready to start your eCommerce career.
• The course is straight to the point, clear and easy to understand.
• There is no hype surrounding this course which is great in my eyes.
• It is not intended to mislead the reader into thinking that ecommerce will make them rich. In fact there is no mention of all that fluff that you usually get when someone is trying to sell a product. This was probably eliminated because the course was free.
• The instructor for this e commerce course was very easy to understand, engaging and informative. There were no issues with audio or video quality.

Cons:

• This course only teaches you how to set up an online store with Woocommerce. If you need extra guidance on store content, product description, how to make your store convertible, how to get sales, how to drive traffic to your store, then this course is not for you.
• Similar courses like this can be found on YouTube. The course is however free so there is no problem here.
• It is an introduction however to a paid course. Like everything on the internet there must come a point where you will need to pay for things to get better results. This eCommerce course is a precursor to a paid course.

Summary:

This eCommerce training course is not fine tuned. It merely shows you how to create an eCommerce website using WordPress so will not teach you how to get sales etc. If you need to find out how to build a profitable store then you must go to other courses for help.

Only use this course to find out how to get started with WordPress and Woocommerce.

Start this course by clicking here. 

5| Ecom Entrepreneur

Creator: Vick Strizheus and Shubham Singh

Profile: Vick Strizheus is an entrepreneur, author, speaker, business strategist, and has coached over 3 million students from over 180 countries. Many of those students have already created success stories for themselves.

He is the creator of the Four Percent Group and has partnered with Shubham Singh to create the eCommerce training web class Ecom Entrepreneur.

Shubham Singh is an ecom entrepreneur who started his business at the age of 17 by selling electric scooters. He does not promote the dropshipping model like everyone else but has a unique way of building profitable eCommerce stores.

His actual first store involved arranging a distribution deal with the manufacturers of the electric scooters, rebranding it under his own name and then promoting it online through eCommerce. He has replicated this process for many other eCommerce businesses and is today teaching students how to do this through the Ecom Entrepreneur course.

Cost: Originally $6997. Now $1997

Who is this eCommerce training course for:

• Anyone who wants to start an eCommerce business
• Anyone who does not want to use the drop shipping model. In most cases courses that teach the drop shipping model require you to ship from places like China. Therefore if you prefer not to ship from China markets then this course is for you.

What you will learn:

• How to find the right product for your store
• Finding a manufacturer to get products from
• How to create your company name and domain
• How to set up your brand
• How to create content
• Must use apps for your store
• How to create an eCommerce account with Shopify. Shopify offers a 14 day free trial to my readers so be sure to claim your trial by clicking this link.
• How to set up your store with Shopify
• Using a prelaunch checklist to make sure your store is in order before launching
• How to set up an email list
• How to integrate a newsletter feature on your store
• How to prevent fraud on your store
• How to set up live chat on your store
• How to manage inventory on your store
• How to launch your store
• How to scale your store

Pros:

• This in-depth e commerce course has a precursor to it, which is a free four part video series. From the video series you will learn more about the man behind the Ecom Entrepreneur course, Shubham Singh.
• He tells his story of his start up and how he has deviated away from the drop shipping model, to build hugely profitable eCommerce businesses for himself.
• One of the things that I like about the four part video series is that they make it absolutely clear, that drop shipping is a dying model and that it is unacceptable if you are using Stripe or PayPal to receive payments from customers. In fact drop shipping as a business model is forbidden by Stripe and PayPal and is clearly set out in their terms and conditions. You can therefore have your business collapse if you use drop shipping.
• Therefore the Ecom Entrepreneur teaches you an alternative way which ensures that your business is stable and does not have any risk of falling under in the event PayPal and Stripe discontinue their services with you.

Cons:

• This course is not complete.
• At present the free video series is only accessible. Although it is in its early launch, having launched September 2017, there is still a lot of work to be done with the Ecom Entrpreneur course.
• You can still access the free course if you want whilst you wait for the official paid course to be started.

Summary:

It is difficult at this point to give a detailed synopsis of this eCommerce training course as it is not yet finished. You can however get some value from the free training series where Shubham speaks about his success as an ecom entrepreneur without using the drop shipping method.

If you decide to start a drop shipping store, eventually you will want to get to the point where you are importing in bulk and managing inventory from local fulfilment centres. When Ecom Entrepreneur releases all of its training videos it will teach you how to do so.

6| Shopify Power: Build An Ecommerce Website Using Shopify

Creator: Jason Miles

Profile: Jason Miles is the co founder of Liberty Jane Clothing which started as a brand being sold on eBay. They were soon able to scale up their business and grew from strength to strength launching other online stores, blogs and book deals. Miles’ passion is for business start ups, branding and social media.

Cost: Originally $145. Now $15

Who is this eCommerce training course for:

• Anyone who wants to build an online store using Shopify and is ready to work hard
• You should already have a product, product idea or product plan in place
• You are an artist, crafter or seller of items and need to know how to set up a fully functional eCommerce website
• This course is suitable for entrepreneurs, marketers, small business owners and people. It is not suitable for web developers.

What you will learn:

• How to set up a Shopify website quickly and easily. Shopify offers a 14 day free trial to my readers so be sure to claim your trial by clicking this link.
• How to integrate Shopify with Amazon, Etsy and other selling sites
• How to integrate social media into shopify
• How to understand the Shopify eCommerce platform
• How to collect money from your customers via Shopify
• How to use apps to maximise your eCommerce profit

Pros:

• This course is all about Shopify. If you want to learn how to start an eCommerce store using Shopify, then this is for you.
• It is an easy to implement e commerce course for beginners who want step by step instructions on how to start Shopify. It also delivers the power and possibilities for using Shopify as your eCommerce platform.

Cons:

• This course is very basic. It is not for the user who already has a store set up and is ready to take it to the next level.
• There is no level of detail to this course. As I mentioned before it is very basic and really gives an overview of Shopify.
• The instructor for this course uses Power Point slides rather than walk throughs of how to set things up with Shopify. Therefore this is more or less a what to do, rather than a how to do it course.
• I think that most people prefer to have practical steps when they take online courses. They want a bit of hand holding and a detailed guide on how to do something. Sadly this course does not deliver on that.
• It will not teach you about niche selection, product research or traffic strategies.

Summary:

You may find this eCommerce course useful if you are very, very new to eCommerce and want to learn how to begin by using Shopify.

Other than that, if you are more intermediate then I would not recommend this course. Perhaps the Ecom Entrepreneur course will be better suited for you.   

Start this course by clicking here.

Ecommerce Marketing And Lead Generation Courses

7| Social Traffic Blueprint Facebook Ads Course

Creator: Jon Penberthy & Jubril Agoro

Profile: Jon Penberthy is a full time online entrepreneur who originally achieved success with YouTube Ads. He then catapulted his success from YouTube to Facebook and created the Facebook Ads course for people who want to use Facebook but do not know where to start.

Jubril Agoro is a full time traveller who has been using Facebook Ads to market his products. He is well versed in how to set up and scale a Facebook ad and is ready to help other marketers use this marketing tool to grow their business by thinking outside of the box.

Cost: $997

Who is this marketing course for:

• For anyone who already has a fully functional eCommerce store set up and wants to learn marketing using Facebook Ads
• For any eCommerce website owner who is struggling to get traffic to their online store and wants to learn how to use Facebook to drive traffic to get more sales

What you will learn:

• How to set up a Facebook fan page
• How to create story ads
• How to define and research your target audience
• How to place your first Facebook ad
• Which type of ad is best for your product
• The metrics to look for when running a Facebook ad
• How to read your ads data
• How to troubleshoot ads
• How to reverse engineer your income
• How to retarget your audience to increase sales conversions

Pros:

• This is a very detailed course that first gets into why you need to do things in a particular way in order to get a desired result.
• There is a lot of theory given upfront to help beginners understand why they write ads the way they do so as to attract the right audience.
• This course gives step by step instructions on how to place your first ad and also gives walkthroughs of what to look for to determine whether an ad is profitable or not
• There is a Facebook support group where the creators of this course jump in and answer all the questions posted by the students.
• You can tell that the creators want you to win and are willing to help you as best as they could to get great results.
• They also offer group coaching once a week, so you can take action on your ads and then have them ready to be critiqued.
• People who took this course have seen really great results when they implemented the teachings of the creators
• 30 day money back guarantee

Cons:

• Sometimes you may have your Facebook Ad account disabled however in my opinion not enough help is provided on how to recover your ad account.
• If you are new to eCommerce then you must know that Facebook likes certain legal policies on landing pages that they direct their audience to. The course however does not cover this and this is critical to an ad being approved. More information should be provided on this to help the beginner understand everything that is needed to be known about using Facebook ads.
• Coaching calls are sometimes interrupted by poor internet connection

Summary:

This is a great course for getting to know about Facebook Ads. Most eCommerce store owners use Facebook ads to drive traffic to their stores.

Therefore it is a must have resource to go to, to learn more about how driving traffic if you want to increase sales.

At the price, I love the fact that there are group coaching calls and ongoing support.

The details that need work such as poor internet connection during the coaching calls and covering the legal policies are tiny in comparison to the value that is delivered on this course.

Start this course by clicking here.

8| Pinterest Traffic Avalanche

Creator: Lauren McManus & Alex Nerney

Profile: Co-founders of the Create and Go blogging community and the Avocadu weight loss website. They successfully used Pinterest, a search engine, to drive tons of free traffic to their blogs and create a six figure income in doing so. They are now teaching other people how to use Pinterest as a marketing tool to build your brand.

Cost: $197

Who is this marketing course for:

• For anyone who already has a fully functional eCommerce store set up and wants to learn marketing using Pinterest
• For any eCommerce website owner who is struggling to get traffic to their online store and wants to learn how to use Pinterest to drive traffic
• For any eCommerce blogger who wants to use Pinterest to drive traffic to their blog

What you will learn:

• How to set up your Pinterest account for success
• Pinterest SEO
• How to design your Pinterest profile and boards
• How to create viral content on Pinterest
• How to create pins
• How to avoid Pinterest jail
• How to find and join Pinterest group boards
• How to automate Pinterest traffic using Tailwind. Tailwind is Pinterest’s approved scheduler. They offer a free trial where you can schedule 100 pins for free.
• What plugins to use for a better Pinterest experience
• How to track your progress with Pinterest analytics
• Pinterest ninja secrets

Pros:

• This course is a detailed course on how to get started with Pinterest.
• Pinterest is a search engine and so search engine optimisation is critical to winning with Pinterest. The course gives a detailed review of how to master Pinterest SEO to ensure that you get the most traffic .
• Usually with courses you are given a lot of fluff with Power Point presentations on what to do rather than how to do it. The creators actually show their own dashboard so you can get a behind the scene look at all their content and analytics to see what is working for them and implement it in your own business.
• I also like the fact that they are very transparent about their pinning schedule so you will know how to do the same.
• They do have a Facebook group where they are helpful in answering questions and posting things that are working for them. It’s like they are on the same playing field as their clients.

Cons:

Some of the statements made in the course by the creator gave the idea that it is best to avoid other traffic sources.

Whilst Pinterest is attributed as one of the driving factors behind the creator’s success, I do not think it is acceptable to advise ruling out other traffic sources.

If you have an eCommerce blog and use Shopify then you will know that Shopify allows you to optimise your store for Google SEO. The creators also rule out Facebook. However Facebook is a gold mine for eCommerce store owners and should never be casted out.

At the end of the day it is their opinion but if you were to take this course then you may not agree with their statements when it comes to other traffic sources.

Summary:

This course is useful if you have an eCommerce store and want to try Pinterest traffic for sales. 87% of Pinterest users bought something because of what they saw on Pinterest. 93% of pinners use Pinterest to plan purchases.

Plus you can actually get massive amounts of traffic from Pinterest for free whereas you will have to use Facebook ads to get any comparable numbers.

The course is a detailed step by step course to help anyone who has never used Pinterest get started.

The only thing that you should be wary of is the creator’s own comments regarding other traffic sources. It is an opinion so it is up to you whether you want to give it high regard or let it pass over your head.

Start this course by clicking here. 

Final Thoughts

The courses listed here all bring to the table some type of value which you may get out of it when used. If you are serious about starting eCommerce as a career then I would strongly recommend that you use the best course to become knowledgeable about the topic and master it.

If you are a beginner to eCommerce then the courses on setting up an online store may be suitable for you but you can also find such information on eCommerce blogs or YouTube channels for free.

(I have posted a few of my own blog posts which help in setting up an online store below)

If you want more strategies and tips on building a profitable eCommerce store and potentially growing it to six figures or more, with ongoing support and hand held coaching then an investment is needed for the best courses.

There are three out of the eight courses that I would recommend that you make this investment:

Build a Shopify Dropshipping Business From Scratch. Click here to start

Social Traffic Blueprint Facebook Ads Course. Click here to start Social Traffic Blueprint

Pinterest Traffic Avalanche Course. Click here to start Pinterest Traffic Avalanche 

Cheers

Related Articles: 

• How I Made $7.5k In One Month With My First Online Store 
• 4 Proven Ways To Increase Traffic To Your Online Store
• How To Start An Online Store

P.S Have you taken any courses that has helped you successfully create an online store? Let’s get the discussion rolling. Mention it in the comments below.  

The post The 8 Best Ecommerce Training Courses Compiled And Reviewed appeared first on I Am Dawn-Marie.

I hadn’t a clue what eCommerce was but when names like Amazon and EBay were mentioned and it was explained that average people were setting up their own online stores, I thought I had stumbled upon a fun way of killing my time by selling things I loved.

It never really dawned on me how simple setting up an online store could be. I was more or less sceptical about the entire process of arranging a store, adding products to it, connecting a payment processor. I really was not ready to learn how to design or code a store which is why it never crossed my mind.

I also thought that it would have been labour intensive and costly to hold inventory and package and ship items to customers.

Frankly I had no time for that.

But what was the game changer was when they said that I did not need any of that to open and run an online store.

Ok well now we’re onto something aren’t we?!

I know that most people get turned off from the thoughts of having a mountain load of things to do for an online store but I want you to know that there are so many apps that you can use to make the process more streamlined and efficient.

Once you have an online store set up, which may take a week or so, the only real thing you have to do is market it using advertising. 

Other things like customer service and dealing with product orders can actually be outsourced. That is what made the idea so much more attractive and because of that, Winton Lane Marketplace, my first eCommerce success, was born.

My First Ecommerce Business

The idea for Winton Lane Marketplace came about because I wanted to sell as many knick knacks as I could under one roof, hence the word “Marketplace”.

I realised that just like blogging, you need to give customers what they want. A business is never about you so I had to find products that people were passionate about and were willing to buy.

I also had to source my products from somewhere. Of course I could have gone to a wholesaler and bought a load of products in bulk but at the time, but I had no place to stock them.

I also did not want to bear an additional cost of storing these items. When I decided to start my online store, I wanted to keep my costs as low as possible. Every store owner’s dream right aside from being an eCommerce success?

Well the only way that I could have done that was through drop shipping.

At the time, I studied this model in great detail and decided to give it a try.

What Is Drop Shipping?

Drop shipping is a supply method where you, the store owner, does not hold any inventory or stock. You also do not deal with transporting the item to the customer. What happens when you receive an order from your customer, you will pass their information to a supplier, manufacturer or wholesaler who packages and ships the order to the customer on your behalf.

With a drop shipping business model, you never get involved in stocking or posting items. It simply requires a relationship with a supplier who takes on the burden of doing these tasks for you.

You also do not need to worry about the customer receiving the supplier’s own invoice within their package as you can easily set out an agreement that no branded invoices will be contained within the package.

This keeps the supplier anonymous and ensures that your brand name remains in tact with the customer.

What other store owners have done, is to ask the supplier to include custom made branded marketing material within packaged goods. Some suppliers have this service as an extra cost to the store owner so you can decide if you want to add this touch to increase personality in your brand.

The drop shipping model was pretty straightforward and ideal as it allowed me to focus on marketing my store and driving sales.  

With Winton Lane Marketplace, I used the Alibaba Marketplace to find products. If you do not know what Alibaba is, it is a Chinese supplier based in China.

They sell hundreds of thousands of products in any and every niche you can think of at very inexpensive wholesale prices. From clothing to electronics to toys. If you can think of it, they probably had it.

This is why it was such an easy option to use the Alibaba Marketplace, since I did not have to worry about where to find a specific product.

However using a supplier from China did come with some trouble. The one thing that I did not like about this model was my customers were in the US.

So you know what that meant?

Ever had to order a product from China and it arrived within a month? Well not every customer was pleased with this even though my shipping policies were clearly stated on the product description for everyone to read.

So you can imagine that dealing with customer service was a nightmare.

Thankfully some customers were understanding but others were not. But I will outline for you later on, how you can avoid this little hurdle.

If you are using the drop shipping business model and you want to be an eCommerce success, the best advice I can give to you is, be very prompt when addressing customer queries. If there is any delay they can file chargebacks on your payment accounts and you do not want to be in trouble with them.

That is how some of my eCommerce friends got their PayPal accounts suspended because they failed to respond to customer requests quickly and efficiently. When PayPal sees that there are many disputes rising on your account, they can suspend your account preventing you from accessing the funds in it.

If you have no access to funds then you cannot pay the supplier or pay for your advertising.

So be very wary of this.

How I Made $7.5k With My First Shopify Store In One Month

When starting a Shopify store the one thing that you want to pay attention to, is your profit margin. This is super important if you want to be an eCommerce success.

Your profit margin is the amount of profit you make, after all expenses are taken away.

For example,

You list wall art in your online store for $300.00

You purchase it for $80.00 including shipping from your supplier

Your supplier ships the product to the customer

You earned $220.00 net

After paying for ad spend which may be $25.00

Transaction fees $17.00

Your profit is $178.00

Therefore you must always, ALWAYS know your numbers. Avoid this major pitfall of having hundreds of thousands of dollars in revenue but losing thousands of dollars because your expenses were greater than your income.

It can happen and I’ve seen it happen.

In order to make $7.5k with my store, I made sure that I sold products which were of a high perceived value so that I could mark it up to a realistic price that the customer would be willing to pay. This would ensure that my profit margins were high.

Products which are of a high perceived value are:

• Wall art
• Jewellery
• Sneakers
• Electronics
• Cosmetic Items
• Sweaters
• Custom T shirts

You also want to make sure that you sell products in a niche that people would buy from. This is why research is so important.

How To Do Research

You can start doing your research on Amazon or Facebook.

For example, if you want to start an online toy store, then searching Amazon’s toy section will show you which toys are best sellers.

You can also look in the section New Releases, Movers & Shakers and Most Wished For items for ideas.

In order to remain competitive it is a good idea to head on over to Alibaba Marketplace and see if you can find similar products where you can mark up the price so that it is on par with Amazon’s price.

You want to make sure that you are not overpriced. After all you are competing with stores like Amazon and shopping places like Ebay.

And a customer will choose Amazon or Ebay over a non-branded store anytime.

Another way that you can do research and which is the way that I found my winning product, was through Facebook.

Facebook eCommerce store owners use keywords in their ads as call to actions. For example, buy yours here, grab yours here or get yours here.

I plugged those same keywords into Facebook search and found a few items, which were hugely popular by looking at the amount of engagement the ad received.

If you have a particular niche that you want to sell in, then use the keyword for the niche and keyword search terms. For example if you want to sell products for horse lovers then your research will include the search term “horse grab yours here” or “horse buy yours here”.

Where To Find Products

I already mentioned the Alibaba Marketplace to find products for your store but there are many other wholesalers that you can use that provide better quality products.

You can also find wholesalers who are available in the United States which may be more convenient to you, if your customers are in the United States.

If you find that sourcing products from China is not ideal for you and you want to avoid the lengthy delay that your customer will face (and the wrath of the customer), then you can have your products imported to a fulfilment center like Dollar Fulfilment where they will take care of packaging and shipping to your customer.

They even take care of receiving returns on your behalf.

Whilst using fulfilment centres, takes away from you having to hold stock, there will be that initial cost of shipping the items in bulk and other additional costs like import taxes.

If you do not want to use fulfilment centres you can also use online fulfilment companies like CustomCat or Pillow Profits which allow you to sell custom printed clothing articles like t shirts, shoes or handbags.

Lucky for you, I can help you avoid the guesswork of finding the best wholesalers and drop shippers for your store because I am giving away a MASSIVE list right here.

Click here to download your free list of niche wholesalers.

How To Start An Online Store

Anyone can start an online store and become an eCommerce success but you must be willing to do the work first and put in the effort to get it up and running.

This will include doing the research to find great products to sell and setting up the store.

Thanks to great online store builders like Shopify or Woocommerce, putting together an online store is very easy.

In my article, How To Start An Online Clothing Store, I went through the steps of building an online store using Shopify.

Shopify is one of the largest online store platforms that helps its users sell online, on social media, offline or even from the trunk of your car.

You do not need any design skills as the platform uses drag and drop features to make building your store as easy as possible.

If you do need design customisation then you can contact their design team as they offer one hour of complimentary design. If your customisation requires more work then you can hire one of their design experts.

Shopify is also used by over 500,000 businesses and has over 1 million active users.

So it is a pretty stable and popular platform that most people are using and achieving their own eCommerce success.

To start selling online with Shopify click here. Shopify is giving my readers a free 14 day trial so you can try it and see.

Ready To Start Your Own Online Store?

Having an eCommerce store is a majorly profitable side business that anyone can do. It is one of those side hustles that I recommended in my article 25 Best Online Passive Income Ideas because it can be passive income once you have set it up and automated the entire process.

If you are seriously interested in eCommerce and starting your own online store, I would highly recommend the Sellosity Labs Ecommerce training course. In this training series you will learn:

• How to tap into a multi trillion dollar hungry market and become an eCommerce success just like myself and many other successful online store owners
• How to drive traffic to your store and market your product globally to increase sales
• Ecommerce success secrets that no one tells you
• How to get started with your online store.

If you are new to this type of online career then it is important to understand how eCommerce works so that you do not waste a lot of time and money.

Once you have the know how, it is insanely lucrative for the average person to master.

To get started with the Sellosity Labs course click here.

I hope the experience with my first store has given you some inspiration to get started. Whilst I no longer run Winton Lane Marketplace, my first eCommerce success experience taught me a lot of lessons that I am happy to share and pass on to you, my readers.

When I started Shopify I had no idea what eCommerce was, but I saw other people winning and I wanted that for myself.

I was prepared to learn the skill and learn it well.

Now it’s your turn.

Start with your Shopify 14 day trial here.

Learn how to master eCommerce here.

Happy selling!

Cheers

The post How I Made $7.5k In One Month With My First Online Store appeared first on I Am Dawn-Marie.

Hellooooooo! No one is looking for you!

Unless you have a large audience and are well known no one knows who you are.

So what you have to do is tell people that you exist and you can do that by following simple strategies to get you noticed.

In this post I am going to share with you four proven ways to increase traffic to your online store. If you have any type of online business, you will see that these strategies can also work if you want to attract customers to your business.

The key to being successful with any business online, is to have a lot of traffic every day.

You always need to have those eyeballs on your offer.

If you do not then your business is dead. Try and not promote your business and you will see what I mean.

So once the hard work of setting up your online store is over, there is more hard work to do. Sorry to burst your bubble kiddo.

You’re not quite at the end just yet.

But stick with me, because by the end of this post you will learn some completely new ways of driving traffic to your online store. So pull up your chair and let’s get right to it.

How To Increase Traffic To Your Online Store

1. Social Media

Ahhh! The good ole social media.

It is the best place to start because these days that is where everyone hangs out.

There are many platforms on social media that you can use to increase traffic to your online store. You want to pay particular attention to the ones that are more visual.

Pinterest, Instagram and Facebook are ideal since they are all visual based social media outlets. They are incredible assets if you want to up your visual content marketing strategy.

To attract more customers be prepared to create some amazing, beautiful images that will literally cause your audience to have eyegasms!! *gasps* LOL!

Some great online design tools that I use for my images include:

• Canva
• PicMonkey
• beFunky
• Snappa

You can use these tools and go in a million directions as to what you can create. They’re really awesome.

Pictures – check!

Let’s talk social media.

Pinterest

Pinterest was never a thought when I launched my online store last year but the benefits of using it to drive traffic to your store is huge.

To put things in perspective, there are over 170 million active users on Pinterest which means that you can potentially target over 170 million customers.

According to Pinterest 87% of people bought something because of what they saw on Pinterest. 93% of people use Pinterest to plan purchases.

Therefore it makes sense to get your brand in front of this audience.

To get started with Pinterest:

• Make sure and start by creating a business account. This is where you will have access to analytics, so you know what is working and what is not.
  
• You then will create boards which are relevant to your niche. Ensure that your boards are SEO friendly by using keywords for those boards. You want to name your board a keyword or phrase that people will look for. Create several different boards with different combinations of names that you think people will look for so that your boards can be found. As Pinterest is all about aesthetic, the images on your board should be of a high quality and ones that grab the most attention. Therefore focus on bright colourful images. Vertical images also work best. I use PicMonkey to design my board images and found images from Shutterstock and Unsplash.
  
• Once you have created your own boards, join a few group boards related to your niche that you can pin your images to. Group boards comprise other Pinterest marketers and help to increase exposure to your business. To identify group boards look out for the group symbol.

To continue increasing traffic to your online store, pin on a regular basis to each group board that you use. You can even automate your pinning using the Tailwind pin scheduler which helps you to pin tons of pins everyday automatically.  

I never thought about Pinterest as a traffic source but because it is a visual search engine and people use it to find ideas for the things they want, it’s a great way to get more people to your eCommerce store.

There is a lot more to understand how to get traffic to your eCommerce store using Pinterest and I am grateful to it everyday as it helps drive traffic to this blog. Here is a look at my progress so far using Pinterest. What if all those daily viewers were going to your own store?

If you are serious about using Pinterest to increase your online store sales then I would strongly recommend the Pinterest Traffic Avalanche course by Alex Nerney and Lauren MacManus.

It was through this course that I was able to grow my traffic steadily and I am certain it can do the same for your online store.

Instagram

Instagram is a slightly different kettle of fish.

There are no groups to join and you get found by using hashtags.

Check out the hashtags that your competitors are using. Do not use the exact hashtags but seek them as inspiration and come up with you own. Five to ten relevant hashtags should be sufficient as anything more will come across as spammy.

If you are selling wall art then some of the hashtags you might consider are:

#artoftheday

#homedecor

#streetart

#artwork

#artdesign

#paintingonthewall

Always use hashtags in every post you make.

To avoid coming across as salesy and attract more people to your brand you can create images that focus on story telling. Instead of posting merely product images, you can tell a story by sharing customer’s images that feature your products.

A great example of this is from a company called Natursutten. An image with only the bag would not be as engaging as an image with a cute baby in a bag. Do you see what I mean?

Check out as well Alice + Ames and how they captivated little girls dresses in another customer photo of a mother with her two beautiful girls.

By being a little bit more relatable, posting images in this way helps you to connect with your audience.

When you are connected with your audience people are more inspired to take action resulting in increased traffic to your online store.

Facebook

An online store and Facebook ads go perfectly.

This is exactly how I was able to generate over $7k in sales in one month with my Shopify store.

I used the power of Facebook to sell and once you know how to use this platform properly, it is a gold mine.

What I love about Facebook Ads is the specific targeting that you can include in your ad criteria.

If you are selling Athletic wear you can specifically target women who are in a certain age bracket and who follow a particular interest.

You can also target fans of your competitors.

Just like Instagram it is a good idea to tell a story, firstly to assist with brand awareness. Do not be too hasty to create a sales ad campaign.

Yes we all want sales, but if someone does not know your brand, you want to warm them up to who you are first.

A good way to warm them up is by telling a story using sequenced ads.

So in week one you may introduce your audience to your brand by talking about how you got started or how the product you are selling was made.

Video marketing would be best for this strategy at this point.

In week two, you can use any data that you captured from week one and retarget people who watched the video and then ask for the sale.

Fabletics UK does a good job at this.

Notice how in their first ad they use only video and there is no sales call to action.

However in the follow up post they have introduced a call to action “Shop the latest Fabletics collection”.

There are many strategies that you can use to drive traffic to your eCommerce store using Facebook Ads.

The strategies outlined here are only a handful but make sure and check out the Social Traffic Blueprint free webinar and course which gives you a low down on other ways that you can use Facebook to increase traffic to your online store.

2. Blogging

Most people want sales quickly and that’s all well and good.

But… hold on a minute. Think outside of the box! Don’t you want to dominate your niche and stand out?!

This is why you need to use methods that not everyone will think about. It might take some time to get going but the results can be worth it. So let’s talk about blogging shall we?!

Blogging is all about content marketing.

To ensure that your online store gets visibility in the marketplace, it is important that you write content that will help your audience solve a problem.

For example, if you are selling survival equipment I made a search of the Google Keywords Planner tool and searched “outdoor equipment”.

Google provided some keyword ideas and I noticed that one of them was “basic camping checklist”  with 1k to 10k average monthly searches and “camping essentials checklist” with 100 to 1k average monthly searches. Both were low competition keywords.

I would therefore write a blog post using these two keywords and my article may be titled like this “The Ultimate Camping Essentials Checklist “.

I would also include a review of some of the top products in my online store and provide a link to where the reader can purchase the product if they want to.

Keep in mind that when using blogging to increase traffic to your online store, it will take some time for Google to index your pages and SEO to kick in.

The best way to succeed with blogging and eCommerce is to ensure that you are consistent and write articles that help your audience solve their problems. How-To and List articles have great buyer intent.

Doing so will ensure that your efforts pay off in a big way after a few months. If you haven’t started a blog yet, well now is a good time.

3. Search Engine Optimisation (SEO)

Following on from blogging, if you want to increase organic traffic to your online store then optimising your website for SEO is your best bet.

For many people, SEO might be a confusing topic but it is actually easier than you think.

If you are using Woocommerce for WordPress then the Yoast SEO WordPress plugin, makes optimising your store for SEO simple.

If not, here are a few guidelines that you can follow to help your site rank in Google:

• Use descriptive product titles. These are the titles that show up in Google search. So if you are selling cat socks you can describe the item as “Black Cat Socks”
• Use meta descriptions and include important keywords in them. The meta description appears below the product title in Google search and tells your audience what your website is about.
• When uploading your product images, ensure that they use the title of your product. So instead of saying 1.jpg, rename the image as black_cat_socks.jpg
• When using heading titles (H1) in your description use the keyword Black Cat Socks
• Any URL to the product should include the keyword in it.

These tips will help Google understand what your page is about and make it more likely to appear in the search results.

When it appears in the search results, especially if it ranks on page 1 of Google, be prepared for an insane amount of traffic to your online store.

4. Influencer Marketing

You can leverage the power of influence someone has over their audience by asking them to review your product.

I have always seen this in action on YouTube and Instagram where eCommerce owners, send samples to YouTubers or Instagrammers with a high following and engagement and ask them to mention or review their product.

So let’s say you have just launched a hair line product. You can reach out to popular Youtube and Instagram accounts and ask if they would mention or review the product you intend to sell.

This will create brand awareness for you and your product and potentially drive traffic to your online store.

How do you find these influencers?

You can start by using a niche keyword in the search field of Instagram or YouTube.

In this example we searched for “hair care” and YouTube suggested “hair care routine 2017”. There were over 7 million search results.

Although you will get many videos where people have a high following you want to pay attention to those YouTubers who have their contact details in their portfolio or description box.

This tells me that they are open to accepting sponsorships or requests for reviews.

Once you have their contact details it is time to send out an email to find out if they will consider mentioning your product.

You may use the following template as an example,

Hi [name of influencer],

My name is [your name]. You may be interested to know about the launch of my new online store which has products which I think you may like.

I am wondering whether you will accept a free sample of the product and if you like it, just as much as we do you might consider mentioning it to your audience.

I wait to hear from you.

Cheers!
[your name]

Final Thoughts

The launch of an online store is an exciting time but no one will know about it unless you take action and promote it as best as you can.

Whilst there are other ways that you can get the word out about your online store such as with Google Ads or Bing Ads, these are current and effective ways that will help you establish your brand in the marketplace quickly.

Before we part, if you are brand new to eCommerce or are looking for some additional help in getting started with eCommerce, getting your online store set up and getting your first online store sale then I would highly recommend The Four Percent Ecom Entrepreneur course by Vick Strizheus and Shubham Singh.

You will learn all of this and more in a free step by step video series to help you master eCommerce in any niche that you choose. Some of the students have been getting awesome results in one month or less and it was how I grew my Shopify store to $7k in sales in less than a month.

Check out the Ecom Entrepreneur course here and look out for my free bonus wholesaler’s checklist when you join the course :-). (check your junk mail just in case) 

The post 4 Proven Ways To Increase Traffic To Your Online Store appeared first on I Am Dawn-Marie.

I wanted simplicity and the only way to find that simplicity was through an online store builder.

An online store builder is a platform that allows you to host your own store. All designs are completed for you.

All you have to do is create a theme, upload your products and connect a payment account.

At the time I wanted to start an online clothing store but I did not realise it could be that easy.

I am so glad it took away all the complexity from running my online business.

I created my online store with Shopify and in this post I want to show you how simple it is to start an online clothing store (or whatever product you may decide to sell).

How to Start An Online Clothing Store In 7 Easy Steps

1. Create A Shopify Account

To get started you must create a Shopify account.

Shopify gives you a 14-day free trial so you can test out its usability and decide whether it is something that you would like to continue to use.

Once the 14-day trial is over, you may choose your price plan that suits your budget.

|Basic Plan

Shopify’s plans start from $29 per month which is their basic plan.

With their basic plan you get the absolute minimum that you need to run your store. This includes 24/7 support, fraud analysis to ensure that you only receive genuine payments, free SSL certificate, website and blog, etc.

As a basic member you can assign two assistants to manage your store if you want to.

So if you wish to start an online clothing store, you may hire an assistant to add all the products for you or you may have an advertiser helping you promote your store. Instead of giving them your username and password, you can assign admin rights to the advertiser, so they can create their own admin account under your store.

Shopify does have its own transaction fees and for the basic plan it is 2.9% + 0.30c.

|Shopify Plan (recommended)

There is also the Shopify plan which is highly recommend as it gives you everything you need to grow your eCommerce business.

This includes everything from the basic plan plus the ability to create professional reports, gift cards for your customers and their amazing abandoned cart recovery feature.

I chose the Shopify plan because of their abandoned cart recovery feature.

If a customer adds an item to their cart but does not purchase immediately, Shopify will record this and send the customer an email automatically inviting them to complete their purchase.

I have been able to recover many abandoned carts from this feature so it is a valuable tool to have in your store.

If you want assistance with your store you can assign five users.

The Shopify plan is $79 per month and transaction fees are 2.6% + 0.30c.

|Advanced Plan

Then there is their advanced plan which, in addition to everything you get with their Shopify plan, you also have an advanced report builder and third party calculated shipping rates included within its interface.

You can assign 15 assistants to your store.

The advanced plan is $299.00 per month and transaction fees are 2.4% + 0.30c.

2. Choose A Store Name

At the time of creating your account you must decide on your store name.

Every store is given the domain “.myshopify.com” so whatever store name you choose, your final URL will be storename.myshopify.com

If you prefer to substitute Shopify’s subdomain for your own unique domain name, you can visit Namecheap and purchase your own custom domain name.

I prefer to use Namecheap over Godaddy or any other domain provider, since Namecheap offers very inexpensive domain names with a number of creative domain extensions like .live, .shop, .online or even .posh.

Shopify will then allow you to redirect your custom domain to their domain and all you will need to do is give your custom domain name to your audience.

I would recommend that you take some time to think about what you want your store name to be.

Once you have created the name, you are unable to change it.

3. Choose A Theme And Customise

What I love about Shopify is how simple their themes are. I use the Brooklyn Theme.

It makes your store look professional, crisp and clean.

You can easily make basic changes to the colour schemes, the fonts or the layout of your store.

The features are also drag and drop.

If you know HTML and CSS you can edit the codes within the Shopify platform to customise your store exactly how you want it to be.

Do not worry if you do not know HTML or CSS.

As a Basic Shopify plan member or higher, you will get one hour of complimentary design time. With this complimentary design time you can ask the Shopify designer to add any type of feature you want.

If however your requirements are more extensive, then you can hire a Shopify expert instead.

To find the best theme for you, spend some time browsing the Shopify theme store.

Themes are free and paid.

If you have built your store but you have changed your mind about the theme you have used, then you can easily change the theme without worrying about whether the layout will be affected.

Shopify makes changing the theme of your store effortless and ensures that any product you have already added to the store is transported from your old theme to your new theme without interrupting the appearance of the store.

4. Add Your Products

Adding products to your store is very simple.

Before you add your product you must first create Categories or Collections as Shopify refers to them.

When you start an online clothing store your Collections can be Tops, Pants, Dresses, Skirts or Shoes.

To create a Collection within your Shopify admin Dashboard, click on the Products tab image, then Collections, then the blue button Create Collection.

Add all the collections that you would like to use here.

Next add your product by going back to the Products tab image, then Products and All Products.

Complete the fields with as much information as possible to help your visitor understand the product. This will include a description of the item, the size of the item, the price, etc. Include an image of the item too.

These are the basic things that you should include however a good rule of thumb is to keep it simple.

Some experts say that it is better to write detailed product descriptions as they help with conversions, but I have tested this and for me, my store converts better with short and simple product descriptions.

You can test to see which one works best for your store.

5. Set Up Your Payment Gateway

A payment gateway is how you will receive your payments from your customers.

Shopify offers many different payment gateway options so you need to select the right one for you.

When I started with Shopify I used Stripe and PayPal.

However as I continued to use PayPal and got a sudden influx of orders, PayPal placed a limit on my account.

This meant I was unable to withdraw the funds from my PayPal account immediately.

Be careful when using PayPal. You will want to ensure that this is the best platform for you, if you decide to use it.

Aside from Stripe and PayPal there are other payment gateways you can use depending on your country.

When choosing the payment gateways here are a few things to consider:

|Transaction fees

Transaction fees are applied by the payment processor. Each payment platform such as Stripe or PayPal have their own transaction fees for each purchase that is made by the customer.

As the owner of the store, you will pay that transaction fee which is deducted from the amount that you receive from the customer.

The transaction fee is usually a small percentage of the sale price and can be as low as 2.9% + .30c (Stripe & PayPal).

Be sure to check out each payment gateway’s transaction fees and factor this into your product retail price to ensure that you make a good return on investment.

|Card Types

It is important to know what type of payment cards are accepted by the payment gateways.

For example some gateways may accept Visa or Mastercard but not American Express.

If you have chosen a payment gateway, Shopify also allows you to offer PayPal as a payment option to your customers.

Some people have found that by including PayPal as a payment option, it increases conversions.

Because of the issues that I had with PayPal I disabled this as an option.

I really did not notice a decrease in my sales conversions after doing so.

|Offsite Checkout

Some payment gateways take your customer away from your store so they can make the purchase on the payment gateway’s own website.

Once the payment is confirmed, the customer is then redirected back to your website.

Whilst you may have control over the look and feel of the checkout page with the offsite checkout option, be careful.

Customers tend to get suspicious when they are not familiar with a payment gateway and have to leave a site to complete their purchase.

|Taxes

If you have a clothing store it is likely you will need to charge taxes on the product.

You can indicate to Shopify whether you would like to automatically apply the taxes to the product or whether your price already includes the tax.

When you are in the Product section of your store, edit the product that you want to charge tax on.

Scroll down to the section titled Inventory & Variants.

Click on Product Variant which will open in a new dialog window.

Ensure that the checkbox next to Charge Taxes and Requires Shipping is marked. This tells Shopify that you intend to charge the customer both shipping and taxes and they will apply your rates once you have configured this.

To configure the taxes go to the gear icon on your dashboard where you will enter the Settings page. Click on Taxes and then enter the relevant tax rates for your store.

You can add tax rates based on the country the customer is in.

To configure the shipping rates, use the Shipping page and enter the relevant shipping rates that you want to apply.

6. Test Your Store

Before you go live this is a crucial step that you must take to ensure that the customer journey is easy and that you get paid!

It is the worst thing when you go live, that your payment gateways do not work or your buttons on your shop do not link to the correct products.

Simply do a test purchase or click through a few buttons on the site to ensure that the functionality of the store is how you want it to be.

Sometimes excitement gets the better of us and we forget this important step.

You do not want to do that.

Shopify allows you to test purchases on your store before going live.

To do so:

• From your admin dashboard, click Settings then Payments.
• If your payment gateway is already activated, deactivate it.
• In the Shopify Payments section, click Edit
• Check the box Use Test Mode
• Click Save.
• Make a test purchase as a customer would.

Once you have satisfactorily tested the payment, make sure to revert to the appropriate payment gateway that you do actually want to use.

7. Go Live

Now that everything is set up you are ready to take your first order.

Make sure that you download the Shopify app.

It immediately creates a cha-ching ring when you receive an order. The sound of that cha-ching really excites me. LOL

Shopify will also give you all your customer’s details so you may ship the order to them.

Where To Advertise Your Store

How do you get traffic to your store?

If no one knows your store is live then there is no way for you to make sales.

This is why it is so important to advertise your store so that you can tell the world that you are in business.

In my article How To Get Traffic To Your Online Store I break down four ways that you can get traffic to your store to help your brand succeed.

Be sure to check it out.

• Related Article: Social Media Case Study: How I Generated Over $19,000 With Ecommerce

Final Words

With many online platforms being boxed and packaged, anyone can start an online clothing store right from their desktop.

The power of technology and the internet is super amazing.

The Shopify platform is one of the easiest to set up and use. Plus it allows you to focus more on marketing your website instead of maintaining your site.

Hey, if you are brand new to eCommerce or are looking for some additional help in getting started with eCommerce, getting your online store set up and getting your first online store sale then I would highly recommend that you check out my blog post where I uncover the 8 best eCommerce courses you can use to help you learn how to market your online store, how to get traffic to your online store and how to generate sales with your online store.

In this blog post, I break down the pros and cons of each course, what you actually get and if it is worth the investment.

Also if you want some inspiration to get started, check out my blog post How I Made Over $7k In Less Than One Month using Shopify.

Have you started your online clothing store yet? Tell me in the comments how it went.

Cheers,

The post How To Start An Online Clothing Store appeared first on I Am Dawn-Marie.