If you’re going to do something in e-commerce, or you’re not going to do it at all, these are the golden rules you should follow:
1. Don’t Try to Be Amazon!
Yes, what they’re doing works awesomely well for them. But just because that happens, it doesn’t mean it’ll work well for you. Take reviews, for example.
They work great when you have 20-50 of them for a product at Amazon. And then when people come to your site, they see no ratings or reviews at all because you have low traffic!
Your site looks like a ghost town instead and ratings/reviews don’t help one bit.
Some parts of Amazon may be worthwhile to copy, but don’t mimic them down to the last detail.
2. Do Use E-mail Marketing
For sure, ask for their e-mail when you get them to purchase. You know they like your store enough to buy from it, so it’s the perfect time to ask.
E-mail marketing often gets forgotten because it’s not the hot, new thing. But on an ROI basis, it’s possibly the most effective form of marketing available.
3. Give Your Customers Options
Can they buy that sweater you’re selling in purple, green, blue, and even orange? You definitely lose out on sales when customers can’t customize their products the way they want.
Give them as many options as possible so they don’t go to another store to buy that sweater.
4. Don’t Use a Hard Sell Approach
Face it – most customers on the web aren’t ready to buy.
Think of it this way: what do you do when you’re looking to buy something online?
Do you go to Google, type in the item name, and then hit “buy” on the first site possible?
No, you check around for prices first. You look at different sites to see if you can get benefits with some that others don’t offer (like free shipping).
You might read some blogs or product reviews first to see if the product’s worth it.
After all that, THEN you buy!
Trying the hard sell route won’t work.
5. Don’t Underestimate the Time Involved
When you hear of people working on the web, what’s the image most sites portray?
You sit in your pajamas sipping on your favorite drink, working whatever hours you want.
You can get that far, but it takes years of hard work to build a business that runs without too much help from you (in most cases).
Plan the number of hours it takes you to do things, and then add 30% to it to account for the unforeseen. Revise your plan every month.
Follow Those Rules to Success!
Okay, so clearly there’s many more rules than those. But they give you a good start, and if you follow them, you succeed much faster.
