A Guide To Selling Online

Ecommerce in Malaysia is constantly growing and will soon account for more percentage of all retail sales (in China, ecommerce is 23% of all retail). How we interact, discover and purchase goods (as well as return them) is now a 24/7 cycle.

While you might find yourself mostly reading about success stories, there are still plenty of sellers who did not perform well. Here in this article, we will share about how to get started in ecommerce with a better chance in succeeding.

Pick your platform

There are plenty of platforms in the market here in Malaysia where you can set up your very own online stores. The key is to find the platform that suit your business and make sense to you.

Lazada and Shopee are both popular third party marketplaces that allow you to post your products online and sell directly from their platform. There are plenty of advantages selling in marketplaces such as:

1. No coding required and it is quite easy to set up an account with most marketplaces.
2. Once you have created a seller account with them, you can start posting your products online and start selling almost immediately.
3. Most marketplaces spend a good amount of money to bring traffics into their sites. And the more traffics you have searching through your products, the more sales you will potentially get.
4. Trusted by buyers. Consumers are more likely to purchase from a trusted site compare to a new one.

The take is, most marketplaces will charge a certain amount of commission fees based on the products sold. Also, you will be sharing one same site with your competitor, which mean you will have to outshine others to gain the sales. So if your goal is to quickly set up an online store, selling through marketplaces will be the best choice for you.

WordPress and Shopify on the other hand, is an e-commerce platform that allows users to build out their own online store. WordPress offers e-commerce plugin features to allow users to add an online store to their website. Whereas Shopify has different monthly plans, each offering a different set of design and technological benefits. The advantage of having your own personal website is to create a much more brand oriented experience for your buyer. Also, you will have more control in terms of design and campaigns you wish to have for your products. But bear in mind that you might need to involve more technical skills into building a website and it cannot be done in a short period of time. And without the right marketing efforts, it is never easy to attract traffics into your own website.

Lastly, Facebook and Instagram is also another way to sell online, especially if you already have a community of followers that you’re regularly engaged with. Social media shop owners simply post images and descriptions of products to their pages and interested buyers can simply comment to buy and pay through third party payment gateway like PayPal or even bank transfer. Amongst others, this might be the easiest way but not always safe as the potential of being scam through social media is much higher. However, there are still plenty of shop owners who succeed in selling through social media. With plenty of service providers help to automate process and making payment more secure, it is one of the popular choice too.

Regardless of which method you choose, they have their own pros and cons. So make the choice base on your business and products. Not sure which to pick? Ask us at Red Dino, we specialized on setting up online stores for business and brand owners.

Be unique and stand out

Photography

Great product photography is the easiest way to boost your conversion rate and attract new customers. Whether you’re in fashions or electronics, there are dozens of clever ways to make your product pages look ultra-professional. Here are some guide to help you with:

1. Take clean photos with white background.
2. Take multiple angles of your products, show off every single side of it.
3. Close up on the details, highlight on your products unique selling points.
4. If you’re in fashion or consumer use products, add in human element to relate with buyers.
5. Make sure you take the photos with the right equipment, no one likes to see blurry images.
6. Be as detailed as possible with your products, never be too afraid that you’re taking too many photos for one single product.

If your products are more technical, put an effort into creating videos on teaching buyers how or what is the use of your products. If you’re more of a creative person, throw in a few pretty props to give buyers a vision into the look, vibe, and size of your item.

Product’s Description

A good product description is the one where it can answer all of your buyers’ question. Think of it as your sales person, but online. The trick is to treat yourself as one of your buyer and be objective in reviewing your own descriptions. If you are able to convince yourself in buying the products, you are good to go. The basic guideline is to answer below few questions (subject to products, questions below might not be all relevant to you):

1. What is the product about?
2. What does it do?
3. What is it made of?
4. What is the specific of the products?
5. How does it to operate?
6. What kind of benefits does it have?
7. If you have multiple variation or selection, what are the differences?
8. Why should I buy from you?
9. How long will I get the products if I purchase your product?

Social Marketing

Reaching customers through social media is one of the best and cost effective ways to engage and attract new buyers. Most online platforms allow you to run discount, campaigns and offer coupon codes easily, but it’s up to you to get the word out!

Work Hard, and Smart

Like every other business, you will most probably hit a wall and face numerous challenges along the way when you sell online. But if you are able to overcome the challenges and find a solution, you too can succeed in ecommerce. Here are some of the reason why most seller fail in selling online:

1. They work alone

Though most sellers might started ecommerce by working alone, it is never a good idea to stay that way. When your business starts to grow, you will be overwhelm by the workloads and never be able to focus on things that matter – growing your business. Build your team or outsource part of your works to a service provider to help you with works like photography, products uploading, customer support, social marketing and even logistics. There’s no need to flood yourself with all these operation works when you should be sourcing for new products or planning for the upcoming campaign.

2. Lack of management when you are selling in multiple channels

Never put all eggs in one basket. Ecommerce sellers often place their products in multiple online stores to make sure they reached all potential buyers, which is good. But when you are lack of inventory management, there’s a potential where such ambitious might back fired. So seek help with professional service provider or software like DinoSync – Integration and Inventory Management Software, to help manage your inventory across different platforms seamlessly.

3. Lack of understanding on buyers’ demand

Ecommerce is like a large open sea filled with opportunity, and a place where you can reach out to millions of potential buyer from all around the world. Without proper planning and analysis on your targeted buyers, one could easily plunge and fail during this exciting journey. There are plenty of tools in the market like Facebook Pixel and Google Analytic which provide useful data to help grow your business. Also, products analysis are also equally important. Understand your buyer, and you will be able to convert them into your sales.

It is never easy to start a business, but with proper planning, your chance of succeeding will be much higher compare to others. Seek help and advice from service provider such as Red Dino, who help sellers set up and manage their online store might be a good choice for you to outsource your operational work so you could focus on growing the business.