How to make your first online sale

The first sale you make from your new online store will be a significant milestone you'll need to overcome to launch your successful online business. You have the right niche, great products, well-crafted content, all the web pages and high-quality product images. All that's left is to convince customers to walk through your virtual revolving doors! Now you can twiddle your thumbs and wait for your first online customer to arrive: this can be quite frustrating, we know. There are a few simple marketing strategies you can implement to spread the word about your new store to your target audience so you can finally make sales. The purpose of this guide is to help you launch your store and get your first sale. Read on, and we'll show you the most effective ways to increase sales for your new e-commerce store.

Pay attention to the design of the store

Just like any physical store, your online store's design is crucial to retaining your customers online! Your web store's design should be attractive to your potential customers. It should look beautiful, professional, and respectable. A poorly designed design will only scare your customers away. Here are some things you can do to make sure your store attracts your customers:

• Make the right impression. People make their first judgments about your business based on the appearance of your online store. For this reason, poor web design won't win you sales. Your website design should match your products and brand identity, and visitors should also be able to immediately understand what your website does and what you have to offer. The more appealing your site is to your customers, the more time and money they will spend on it.

• Make your store mobile-friendly. Your potential customers go online every day with more than one type of device: laptop, cell phone, or tablet. If your website doesn't work with the devices your customers prefer, you're definitely losing revenue.

• Simplify navigation. Having a difficult and user-friendly website won't retain a potential customer for long. This makes your store's navigation one of the most important aspects of your store's design. Your store should be easy and fun to use. Your priority as a store owner is to make the navigation process, from the landing page to the checkout page, hassle-free and stress-free. If you don't, your potential customers will abandon your site every time they encounter a less-than-smooth transition during the transaction.

Become part of the social world

Having an online store isn't enough. You need a social media presence to build meaningful connections and generate real, two-way interactions with your audience. You can use your social media page to directly promote your business, products, and offers. You can also use your social media accounts to share relevant and interesting content, such as your latest blog posts, or to feature influencers who use your product. If used effectively, your social media pages will become a valuable resource for generating traffic and revenue for your online store. Here are the most popular social media platforms to market your business on:

• Facebook: The most popular social media platform around, with 1.5 billion active daily users. Facebook offers the most diverse audience to appeal to in a wide variety of ways.

• Instagram: This popular social media platform has over 500 million daily active users. Instagram is a photo-sharing app, so it's a perfect place to share images and videos of your store and products.

• Twitter: This platform has over 800 million users. 81% of Twitter users have made a purchase decision based on products they've viewed on the app. Twitter is a great place to share information about sales, links, products, and events.

• Pinterest: It's a visual search engine and a great place to share your product images. Pinterest has over 200 million monthly users. 93% of Pinterest users use the app to follow creative ideas and plan their purchases.

Send free samples to social media influencers

Sending free samples to social media influencers is something you might want to do when launching a new store and product. Leveraging social media influencers is a proven method for generating online foot traffic to your store and achieving conversions. Everyone loves free stuff, especially social media influencers. To promote your brand through influencers, simply offer them free samples of your products to promote. If you can't afford a well-known influencer or a macro-influencer, then micro-influencers are your best option. Micro-influencers are ordinary people on social media who have built a small, loyal audience (10,000-50,000) with strong, similar interests. Find a micro-influencer who's passionate about what you do and your niche, and you could find yourself developing a great working relationship. Micro-influencers sample your products and photograph themselves using them in real-life situations so your products can reach their followers in a meaningful way. Many of them also run their own blogs, create video tutorials, and more. Micro-influencers may have a smaller reach than celebrities and macro-influencers, but they have a passionate, authentic following and are more accessible to individuals and businesses.

Start blogging

You need to start a blog, one that has something to do with your niche, your store's products, and your services. The purpose of your blog should be to provide value to your readers, improve their lives, and provide them with valuable knowledge and insights into the things they care about. For example, if you run an online organic pet store, you'll find that many people online want to find more natural ways to care for their pets. So, why not start a blog to provide knowledge and content for these types of people with similar interests? You can use your blog to offer tips, advice, and promote your products and the lifestyle associated with your niche. Having an online store that runs a helpful blog is also a great way to generate search engine traffic.

Choose paid advertising

One of the best ways to get your first sale and drive traffic to your online store is through paid advertising. Paid online advertising is a cost-effective and effective way to not only generate sales but also increase brand awareness. Here are some of the best platforms to use to advertise your store:

• Google Ads. One of the most popular forms of online advertising is Google Advertising, which allows you to place your ads on Google search results pages, YouTube, and partner sites. Google Ads works on a pay-per-click basis, meaning you only pay for ads each time someone clicks on your link and visits your site via the ad.

• Facebook Advertising. Facebook ads are great because you have control over who sees them. You can target people based on age, gender, location, interests, and more. Because they're narrow and specific, this makes Facebook advertising ideal for business owners who know exactly who they're trying to sell to. Facebook ads, however, will only appear on Facebook. This isn't necessarily a total disadvantage, considering Facebook is the social media platform with over 1.5 billion active users.

• Advertising on Instagram. Instagram is a visually-focused platform that's popular among younger audiences. You can use Instagram influencer marketing and post your products for free, but paying for Instagram ads is another way to reach more people and sell your products outside of social media. Instagram has been shown to influence customer behavior and purchasing habits, particularly for fashion, beauty, and lifestyle products. It's been found that 75% of Instagram's 500 million daily users make purchasing decisions based on products viewed on Instagram.

Offer discounts

People love the feeling of saving money when they make a purchase. Most people can't resist a good deal, which is why people shop online in the first place—to find better deals. What you can do is offer them just that. When you run a brand new online store, you haven't built any kind of reputation yet. You haven't made any sales and you don't have any product reviews for your store. Launching your site with your first sale is a hurdle you can try to overcome by offering people reduced prices on your products in the early stages of your store, just to give people a little push towards the checkout. You can start offering people special deals, discount codes, and limited sales. If you're not willing to lower the price of your products, you can list them at a higher price, then offer a discount that will reach your ideal profit. For example, if you want to sell an item for €20, mark the price at €25, discount it by €5, and still earn €20.

Have an easy and intuitive payment process

All those successful product announcements, promotions, and blog posts that drive traffic to your site will be hindered by annoying checkout processes. You've brought your customers to your site, they've added products to their carts, but the checkout process is complicated and not worth the effort. To avoid this, you need to eliminate as many unnecessary steps as possible and make the payment process seamless, straightforward, and complete in just a few clicks. Here's what you can do to offer a smoother checkout process:

• Offer guest checkout. This way, you won't force your customers to register for anything. This streamlines the checkout process, allowing them to go ahead and enter their email, shipping, and payment details without any hassle.

• Use a progress indicator. Progress indicators show your customers where they are in the checkout process and how much remains to complete their purchase. Being able to monitor the checkout process is a visually pleasing and reassuring tool for your customers, allowing them to see how long the process might take.

• Cart Contents Summary. People want to see the contents of their orders, the total cost, and any additional charges. It's a way to show and reassure your customers that their purchase with you is in perfect order before they complete the transaction.

Persevere

We all have to start somewhere, because there's no single, solid way to make your first sale and continue to make more sales in a highly successful online business. Exploring, trying new things, failing, and evolving to become better is all part of the great process. Perseverance is what will make your store grow.

Get in touch

Are you planning to implement some of these strategies from our list for your new online business? At Yastime, we help entrepreneurs like you build better and more successful e-commerce and dropshipping businesses. We not only help you build the foundation, but also take your online business to the next level. Have a question or a project in mind? Feel free to start a conversation with us today: https://www.yastime.net/contact/