Top 9 Effective Online Sales Strategies for Beginners

Vũ Khôi

Author at Wotech Electronics Blog

Online selling is becoming a trend, adopted by store owners and businesses to increase revenue, cut costs, and reach customers more easily. However, to do business online, sellers must build an effective online sales strategy that fits their business model. In this article, SimERP will suggest the best online sales strategies that many people are applying successfully today.

What is online selling?

Online selling is the business of selling products and services over the Internet. Unlike in-person selling, the seller does not necessarily need a physical store. Buyers and sellers use mobile devices to carry out purchasing and selling activities online. Customers can browse product information and place orders online without ever visiting a store. Sellers can reach out, exchange information, and trade goods with buyers without renting a physical space.

Online selling is becoming a trend. Many people start doing business online and only later expand to other sales channels. That's because online selling doesn't require much capital for rent or labor when you're just starting out.

>> Read more: What is a sales strategy? How to build an effective sales strategy

What should beginners sell online?

There is a wide variety of goods to trade in. However, not every product will succeed and bring you the revenue you expect. So before starting an online business, store owners and businesses need to research which products are worth investing in. SimERP will suggest a few trending products right now.

Cosmetics

One of the most sought-after product categories today is cosmetics. These are seemingly essential products for women. What makes this category special is its diversity, constant change, and wide reach. On the other hand, counterfeit and fake goods are also a prominent problem these days. So if you can find a quality supply source and prove that your products are authentic, you will win the trust of many customers.

Selling clothes online

This is also a product many sellers choose because of its diverse supply and high market demand. Depending on your target audience, you can choose different product segments. If you have plenty of capital and a reliable supply source, you can trade in mid-range or high-end fashion. If you have little capital, you should sell mass-market, popular products at low prices. Supply sources for this product often come from China, where prices are cheap and the supply is extremely abundant and diverse.

Snacks

If you don't know what business to start, you can choose snacks. Nowadays, many sellers offer snack products from China, Taiwan, Thailand, or Japan. Or you could even sell specialty snacks from different regions of Vietnam. The more unique and delicious the food, the more customers it attracts — especially young people.

Household appliances

This product category requires higher capital than the three above since these are electronic goods. Depending on your customers, you should choose suitable products. If your customers are middle- and high-income earners, you need to import products from well-known names like Panasonic, Baseus, Bosch, etc. But if you are targeting low-income customers, you should choose affordable, eye-catching appliances that still perform their basic functions.

Home décor items

Home décor is a current trend, especially during the COVID season when many people had to stay home all day. People pay more attention to their homes and want to decorate them as beautifully as possible. In addition, this category faces far less competition than the four above. So it's a perfect choice when you don't yet know what product to sell. However, whichever customer segment you sell to, the common trait of this category is high aesthetic value. The more beautiful your products, the more customers they attract.

Steps to build an online sales strategy

Identify your resources

To do business online, the first thing you need to do is identify the resources you currently have. These include human resources, material resources, and especially finances. With limited resources, you can only run a small business model with a safe direction. Later, when you have more capital, you can scale up.

Analyze potential customers

To gain more customers, you must understand them and craft a strategy that meets buyers' needs. Therefore, store owners and businesses must know how to analyze potential customers and understand what they want. Customer research should be based on factors such as demographics, customer needs and wants, consumption habits, etc. From there, you can develop a business plan to reach customers and address buyers' demands.

Analyze the business environment

Beyond customers, many other factors in the business environment can affect your sales. Especially in today's competitive environment, sellers need all the more to research and analyze market factors to beat competitors in the industry. Using the PESTEL model and Porter's Five Forces, you can research and analyze the following:

Macro environment:

• Laws and policies: Research which policies may affect your business.

• Technology: Technologies you can use to grow your business.

• Economy: Market changes in the industry, including trends, demand fluctuations, growth rates, etc.

Micro environment:

• Current competitors: What are your competitors' distinctive traits? How can you stand out among them?

• Suppliers: Where should you buy from, domestic or overseas? How should you purchase? Where can you buy cheaply with reliable quality?

• Substitute products: Are there substitute products that could affect your business?

• Incoming competitors: Which new players might enter the industry soon?

Set business goals

Once you have analyzed your customers and the market, you can establish your business goals. You can set goals based on the SMART model, which includes the following elements:

• Specific

Instead of being broad and vague, set small, specific goals that are easier to control. For example, if you sell fashion online, you should set separate goals for each product category such as clothing, shoes, and accessories.

• Measurable

Setting goals expressed in numbers helps you check, control, and understand business issues more clearly. Only then can you craft suitable strategies to fix problems in your business.

• Achievable

Don't set goals that are too difficult relative to your capabilities. Otherwise you will never achieve them. Sellers need to understand their business's capacity and weigh it against the market at large.

• Time-bound

Each goal needs a specific timeframe so you can keep close track of your business. You can set goals by week, month, or quarter. The shorter the timeframe, the easier it is to control emerging issues.

• Relevant

Goals must be coherent and connected to one another, serving a common purpose. You should define clearly what your overall goal is.

Determine how to achieve your goals and build your online sales strategy

Once you know your goals, you must plan how to achieve them. You can ramp up marketing, change products or suppliers, hire new staff, change your management approach, etc. Depending on the issue and goal, you can devise solutions to solve that problem and optimize your business.

Next, you need to clarify those options and build a complete strategy. The more specific and detailed a strategy is, the better results it will help you achieve.

Execute and review the strategy

This is the stage where you check whether the strategy works. After executing your online business strategy, business owners should review results monthly or even weekly to identify problems as early as possible and minimize later risks.

Effective online sales strategies

Cross-selling

Nowadays, many online stores apply cross-selling to boost their revenue. They suggest complementary products or offer all-in-one bundles to persuade customers. Many buyers are willing to purchase add-on products to save time, enjoy deals, or get the best results from a product. So you are entirely capable of increasing your sales.

Example: a customer wants to buy a skin-brightening moisturizer; you can suggest products like a toner or serum from the same brightening line. The customer will happily buy the combo to achieve maximum skin-brightening results.

Up-selling

Besides cross-selling, up-selling is one of the online sales strategies widely used. Instead of letting customers buy a lower-priced item, you suggest a higher-priced product that better meets their needs. For example, a customer wants to buy a laptop for around 10 million VND, but you suggest a 12-million-VND laptop from the same brand with a better configuration — that's you executing an online sales strategy.

When applying this strategy to your online business, showcase on your e-commerce website and product ad pages the value of the higher-priced product. Compare two products from the same brand and highlight the features and benefits of the higher-priced one.

Using an online sales strategy on Facebook

Facebook is a social network used by many people, so you can easily reach potential customers. You can create a fanpage to post ads for your products, run Facebook ads, or post sales content in groups. Facebook also has a Facebook Store feature that lets you sell directly on the platform, like your own online storefront. Customers can browse social media while viewing and buying your products there.

Whichever method you use, you need to pay attention to your post images and content. Ideally, use high-quality product photos taken by yourself. These photos should be visually consistent, with simple backgrounds that make the products stand out. You should also post customer feedback photos to prove your products are genuinely good and trustworthy.

As for post content, keep it a reasonable length, engaging, and psychologically attuned to customers. Don't be long-winded or use confusing, academic language. That will discourage customers from reading further.

Optimizing product pricing

A product's selling price is a critical factor that directly affects customers' purchase decisions. They will take time to compare which product is cheapest while still meeting their quality and feature requirements. So before setting your final price, you need to survey market and competitor prices, as well as customer expectations on price and quality. Only then can you analyze and set the most suitable price for your product.

Personalized online sales strategy

If you can implement personalized selling activities, it will help you attract a large customer base and retain them. This personalization can be as simple as sending a greeting card or a discount code on birthdays, anniversaries, and holidays. Or sending personal messages to remind them about an event at your store. You can also build a blog or email address to respond to and answer buyers' individual questions. This will make your customers happier and more eager to use your products.

Building an optimized e-commerce website

Your e-commerce website is like your store. If you want customers to notice and buy, you need to build and maintain your online store. A sloppy, unattractive, user-unfriendly sales page — or simply one that loads too slowly — will make customers leave your site immediately and never want to buy.

Today you can build websites easily with web-building platforms. Invest in your online store by increasing website speed, caring about the site's design, and polishing features such as product filtering, adding items to cart, saving products to a wishlist, etc. That way customers will stay longer on your online store, explore your products, and you'll increase the conversion rate from potential to actual customers.

Promotional campaigns

Running promotions attracts customers to your products. These campaigns can take the form of mini games, sending discount codes to a specific customer group, special-occasion promotions, and more. They also have a lasting impact after they end: they boost engagement with your fanpage across platforms, new customers become loyal ones if they truly love your products, and they maintain and strengthen the relationship between you and your customers.

Building and growing a loyal customer network

Turning buyers into loyal customers makes it much easier to grow revenue than convincing a brand-new customer to buy. They are people who already use your products and have real impressions of them.

If your products are genuinely good, reasonably priced, and come with excellent service, they will surely choose you as their go-to brand and support you regularly. Once they become loyal customers, they tend to recommend your company's products to people around them, bringing you new customers. You can set up sales groups, run promotions, issue membership cards, and above all, pay attention to customer support services.

Establishing a suitable shipping and delivery policy

Shipping and delivery policy plays an extremely important role for every type of business, especially when you sell online. You should set rules for ordering, delivery, and returns to guard against risks such as order scams, late deliveries, or returns of goods that are no longer in original condition.

For example, with ordering, you should encourage customers to pay a partial deposit in advance, or at least prepay the shipping fee. If a customer returns an item or wants to exchange it, the seller should only accept the return if the item still has its original tags and seals and has not been altered.

>> Read more: Online sales system: How to build an effective one

Things to keep in mind when selling online

Research your customers thoroughly

Many sellers focus only on their products and forget that customers are the ones who deserve the most attention. Your products exist to serve customers and solve their problems, so they must be built around buyers' needs.

Analyze the market, industry trends, and competitors to identify the most suitable customer segment. Then research those potential customers in greater depth, adjust your products to fit them if needed, and find the most optimal approach.

Pay attention to your product supply source

If your products aren't good, quality will surely suffer, directly affecting your business results. So you should research several highly rated domestic and foreign suppliers and choose the two best ones. If your primary supplier has problems, you can buy from the other partner. If possible, visit their production site to check quality, or ask them to send samples so you can assess whether the products are truly good.

>> Read more: Sales cost management: How to manage it effectively?

Manage your online sales rigorously

Managing an online business is no easy task when you have many different product lines and limited resources. Store owners and businesses must manage everything from personnel, sales, marketing, and finance-accounting to even customer relations. Therefore, you cannot manage things manually — it causes avoidable errors with serious consequences.

You should pair up with management software like SimERP to optimize monitoring and oversight of your business activities and avoid unnecessary mistakes. Currently, the SimCRM package — which helps manage sales, revenue, customers, and the sales team — is being offered as a free 30-day trial. Sign up now by clicking the button below!

Conclusion

To do business online effectively, store owners and businesses need to research and build an effective online sales strategy. These strategies must fit your business, products, market, and customers. We hope that with this article, you can find the best online sales strategy for your store.

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