From Clicks to Customers: 16 Online Business Ideas You Can Start on the Side February 19, 2020 bizadmin This isn’t about one simple life-changing trick. Starting a business doesn’t work that way. Instead, to help you find a product idea or business model that fits your lifestyle, we’ve put together a collection of simple ways to start a business without quitting your day job. 16 online business ideas you can start with a laptop Start your own clothing line Launch a dropshipping store Sell your art online Become a freelance writer, designer or developer Teach an online course Flip your thrift store finds Publish your own book Start a blog Become a virtual assistant Try your hand at being an influencer Build apps and websites Launch a podcast Sign up for affiliate marketing Curate subscription boxes Develop a niche product Create handmade goods 1. Start your own clothing line If you have some designs in mind and a little bit of time on your hands, you can get your clothing company off the ground. If you already own a Shopify store, you can set up your own clothing line using Oberlo, Printify, Printful, or a similar product sourcing app. Each automatically links your store to apparel printers and clothing manufacturers. They also handle every step of the retail fulfillment process for you, giving you the freedom to design and ship a wide range of pieces right out of the gate. Why start a clothing line? There’s nothing more satisfying than creating products that people will use every day. As soon as you build your Shopify store, you’ll be able to start selling instantly. Thanks to apps like Printify and Printful, the process of designing and delivering your own custom-made clothing has been streamlined and simplified. You’ll love the feeling of seeing your designs come to life by transforming your creativity into something real and profitable. We used Printful to create THINK PUP, an apparel store for dog owners and ended up making over $1,200 in just three weeks. With some time and research, you could be well on your way to building a successful t-shirt company, too. [abc] 2. Launch a dropshipping store You don’t need a warehouse full of inventory to run your own business. Dropshipping is a great way to start a business on a budget. You can hit the ground running by sourcing a pre-existing product from a supplier and having them take care of things like packaging and fulfillment. This process lets you skip over a lot of obstacles that might be standing in the way of you starting your own business. More importantly, a dropshipping business eliminates the risk of finding out there’s no market for your product after placing a huge order with a manufacturer or supplier. Why choose dropshipping? You don’t need to stock products in a physical location, meaning that your cash flow won’t get tied up in inventory. There’s less of an upfront cash risk. Whenever a purchase is made, you place an order with a third party and they handle the rest of the process for you. Since you don’t have to deal with things like tracking inventory or mailing packages, dropshipping eliminates a lot of potential headaches for budding entrepreneurs. No warehouse means you can run your business from anywhere. Whether it’s your living room or the café down the street, you decide where you want to work from. If you’re interested in dropshipping, read our Ultimate Guide to Dropshipping to help you get started. If you don’t have any online shop ideas, here are some strategies for narrowing down the perfect product: Find products to sell on Oberlo Read our guide Find a Product to Sell: 12 Strategies for Finding Your First Profitable Product Check out 10 Print-On-Demand Companies for Dropshipping Your Own Custom Products Find out how we made more than $2,000 in five weeks with imported gaming glasses Free Webinar: The Right Way to Start a Profitable Dropshipping Store Learn how to find high-margin products, import them into your store, and start selling — fast. 3. Sell your art online Whether you’re a painter, photographer, or musician, there are plenty of ways to start an online store and turn your latest masterpiece into a source of revenue with a beautifully designed e-commerce website. If painting or photography is your forte, you can sell your work as prints, canvases, and framed posters using Printify or Printful. This is a fantastic way to turn your art into something tangible that people can take home and integrate into their space. Is music your thing? You can sell your beats, songs, samples, and more as digital downloads. Just take a look at The Drum Broker, the largest online drum sample business in the world. It created a successful and sustainable business model with the help of apps like FetchApp and ShipStation. Why sell your art? You’ll be part of people’s lives by getting your work into customers’ homes and headphones. You’ll create a platform for showcasing your work by setting up shop online store. As an artist, creating art isn’t just a hobby—it’s a way of life. This is your chance to turn your passion into an income stream and potentially do what you love for a living. 4. Become a freelance writer, designer, or developer Writers, developers, and graphic designers can start a business based on their talents. As a freelancer, you’ll be able to put your skills to good use by helping people across the world with their projects (while making some money yourself, of course). Freelancing doesn’t mean committing to months-long projects that eat away at your free time. You can easily pick up bite-sized tasks that fit your schedule. [abc] To find people that need your help, try freelancing marketplaces, like Upwork and Fiverr. It’s worth noting that Fiverr is a little different from a traditional job board. As the name suggests, all the posted jobs cost five dollars. The key to making big money on Fiverr is carefully setting up your offers so you can easily upsell the client for more money. For instance, you could offer to write a 150-word introduction for a blog post as your initial five-dollar service. As an upsell, you could charge another $10 for every additional 150 words. You can tweak your services until you’ve found a combo that makes it worth your while. If you want total control over how much you charge, create a Shopify store. You can list your services as products and disable shipping since you won’t actually be physically delivering anything to your customers. You can even use apps like BookThatApp and Events Calendar to give your customers the option to schedule appointments. Why freelance? When you freelance, you choose which projects you want to work on and set your own schedule and workplace. Getting paid to do something you’re good at is a rewarding feeling, whether you’re looking to strike out on your own or just want to make some extra cash on the weekend. If you’re new to writing, designing, or developing, freelancing is an excellent way to build your portfolio and get some real experience in a wide range of industries. You might discover that you have a knack or passion for something you never expected. If freelancing sounds like it might be a good money-making website idea for your lifestyle, we’ve put together some great articles that can help you make the most of your time: 7 Ways to Be More Productive While Working from Home 13 Free Tools and Travel Apps That Make Working Remotely Work for You 5. Teach an online course Teaching an online course is a low-investment business idea for generating passive income. All you need to do is put together a video walkthrough explaining a subject you’re familiar with and then host it on your own personal website. Although it requires effort upfront, if you manage to design a popular, high-value video tutorial series, you would make money on an ongoing basis as people continue to enroll in your course. To start creating your first online course, brainstorm a topic that you know well enough to teach someone how to do from scratch. This can be literally anything—music production, social media marketing, web development, you name it. Next, you’ll want to grab a screencasting app, like ScreenFlow, to record your screen and voice while you walk your students through your tutorial. ScreenFlow also comes with a built-in video-editing suite, letting you shoot and cut your videos all on the same platform. Why teach an online course? With an online course, you can literally set it and forget it. Take a few days or weeks, depending on the complexity you’re aiming for, to build an online course, and you could be reaping the benefits for weeks. You already have the knowledge, you just need to share it. Focus on teaching something that you’re already an expert at and the rest will come naturally, whether it’s building iOS apps, creating monthly budgets, or running Facebook ad campaigns. Teaching someone a new skill is its own reward. While there’s definitely money to be made teaching online courses, helping other people is always a satisfying experience in itself. 6. Flip your thrift store finds If you love hitting up thrift stores and hunting down great deals, then one great shop idea is to sell your second-hand treasures online. Your potential customers want to buy cool stuff, but they don’t want to dig through old soccer jerseys and braided belts to get their hands on that one amazing find. Take advantage of this by positioning yourself as a trustworthy curator who can go out and uncover those great vintage pieces for others. Why sell your thrift store finds? Let’s face it, you’d be combing through thrift store racks anyway, so you might as well make some money while you do it by putting your shopping addiction to work. The margins are huge. That two-dollar RadioShack ball cap you found over the weekend? Next, it might be a $40 vintage vaporwave strapback. You’re selling something unique. Nowhere else on the web will people be able to find the vintage collections that you put together. Sometimes a passion for second-hand curiosities is all it takes to kickstart a business. Windy Gaming, an online store dedicated to selling vintage video games, started when its owner received a box of old Japanese games from a friend and wanted to sell them online. Now, Windy Gaming generates $1,000 per week selling retro gaming gear around the world. Want to turn your cool stuff into pizza money? Take a look at these guides to making your products look great in photos: [abc] 7. Publish your own book It’s OK to admit it: you’ve thought about publishing your own book someday. While seeing your name on a list of bestsellers might seem like a pipe dream, it’s actually not that far out of reach. It doesn’t matter if it’s a science-fiction novel, a marketing guide, or a children’s picture book, there are now plenty of options for successfully self-publishing your work. These include releasing your writing as an ebook with the Digital Downloads app to on-demand printing services like Blurb and CreateSpace. To sell ebooks through your online store, install the Digital Downloads app and you’ll instantly be able to stock digital files as products. Once purchased, your ebooks will be sent to your customers via email or as a direct download link. If you choose to sell physical copies of your book, you’ll just need to place an order with Blurb or CreateSpace whenever your work is purchased. They’ll custom print your book and handle the entire storage and fulfillment process. Why publish a book? What’s the point of writing something if there’s no one around to read it? Self-publishing is the quickest way to get your book into the hands of potential readers. Printing, storage, and delivery is taken care of thanks to services like Blurb and CreateSpace. Creative writing is your passion and you deserve to be able to make money while doing something you enjoy. Ready to live out your dreams of being a published author? These resources will help you on your way to the top: 8. Start a blog Blogging has come a long way since its inception. What was once a virtual journal has now turned into a marketing and even monetization tool. Whether you make money from publishing sponsored posts, hosting third-party ads, or selling your products, a blog is a great online business idea. The key to starting a successful blog is to focus on building an engaged, loyal audience. When you start with an audience-centric approach, you’ll cultivate a community that trusts you. And when you can earn trust, you can start to drive revenue. That’s how Mr. Money Mustache started his popular personal finance blog. What began as a movement has turned into a successful business that’s earned national media coverage. Why start a blog? Blogs have unlimited growth potential. You can expand into affiliate marketing, ecommerce, courses, and essentially any other online business venture. Some blogs even use a paid subscription model to drive revenue. A blog is a long-term play. While you won’t see overnight results, they are likely to be more sustainable. A blog lives on the internet forever—or at least until you delete it. It lets you practice your writing—an essential skill to have in business and communication. Use tools like Grammarly or Hemmingway to improve your writing. For more information on getting started, check out these articles: How to Start a Blog That You Can Grow Into a Business 8 Brilliant Blogs Run by Ecommerce Stores (And What You Can Learn From Them) 4 Ecommerce Blog Post Templates To Build Traffic For Your Store How a Blog Became a Physical Store in Two Years 9. Become a virtual assistant Are you super organized and love working behind the scenes? If so, you might be the perfect candidate to start a virtual assistant (VA) business. A VA helps entrepreneurs, businesses, and executives organize their personal and professional lives. There’s a broad spectrum of duties, ranging from appointment scheduling to basic marketing management and everything in between. And everything is done online. Why become a VA? Work with your ideal client. Even if you don’t know at the start, over time you’ll find out who you love working with and what you love to do for them. You can evolve your business to cater to those preferences. Interact with people from all over the world. All you need is an internet connection to do your work, and you can have the chance to work with international clients and professionals. Grow your business into a network of VAs. If you become too busy or have growth goals, you can hire and train VAs to work under you and increase profits. 10. Try your hand at being an influencer Influencer marketing has exploded on the marketing scene, and though consumers are becoming more savvy, there are still plenty of opportunities to be had. Because influencers have gotten in hot water for dishonest practices, there’s been a movement toward micro-influencers—profiles with smaller but more engaged followings. Good news: you don’t need millions of followers to earn money on Instagram. Why be an influencer? It’s an opportunity to get an introduction to marketing—particularly valuable if you’re interested in pursuing that as a career or additional business venture. You’ll learn about new and interesting brands. You might discover products and companies you love that you never would have found had they not solicited your services. It’s so easy a monkey can do it. Well, not literally—but you can make your pet the star if you’re camera shy. Here are our inspiring tips and stories to get you started as an influencer: What It Actually Takes to Become a Full-Time YouTuber: The “Yes Theory” How to Make Money on YouTube (Without a Million Subscribers) The Unfair Advantage of Making a Mega Influencer Your Co-Founder 11. Build apps and websites If you’re tech-savvy, acquire some coding skills and start building. Whether it’s mobile apps, Shopify apps, or websites, you can create digital products for purchase or as a service provider. For example, you can create a custom Shopify theme template and sell it to merchants looking for an affordable DIY approach to designing their website. Or work with clients directly to build websites and apps tailored to their specific needs. Why build apps and websites? Technology isn’t going anywhere, and the demand for the technical skills necessary to build apps and websites will only continue to grow. There’s an endless amount of platforms and systems out there. If you get bored of one, learn and transition to another. For more information on building apps, check out these articles from Shopify Partners: How to Build a Shopify App in One Week 4 Essential Tips for Building Your First Shopify Theme 12. Launch a podcast If you like the sound of your own voice, consider recording it for a podcast. Podcasts are a great online business idea with multiple monetization options, similar to starting a blog. Here’s what you need to start your podcast: A high-quality microphone Audio recording software Call recording software To promote your podcast, consider collaborating with prominent figures as guests on your show. Encourage listeners to leave reviews and share your podcast with their friends and family. Why start a podcast? Podcasts continue to grow in popularity. According to Podcast Insights, 51% of Americans have listened to a podcast. A successful podcast can lead to endless possibilities: turn your episodes into a blog, solicit sponsors and advertisers, and make connections you never would have been able to before. 13. Sign up for affiliate marketing Affiliate marketing is when you recommend a product or service by sharing it on a blog or social media, to your email list, on your website, or on other channels. You earn a commission each time someone converts through your unique referral link or code. [abc] Find an affiliate program that suits your interests, personal brand, and target audience. Affiliate Future, ShareASale, and FlexOffers are a few examples. Amazon has its own affiliate program, and you can also check out the Shopify Affiliate Program. Once you’ve signed up, start sharing. Create social media posts, blog articles, emails, and other content about how great the product or service you’re promoting is. Don’t oversaturate your audience with ads, otherwise, you risk coming across as spammy or inauthentic. Why do affiliate marketing? It’s easy: You likely already promote the products and services you use. Now, you can get paid for it. Affiliate marketing is a great source of passive income. With the Shopify Affiliate Program, affiliates earn an average of $58 for each user who signs up for a paid plan and $2,000 for each Plus referral. 14. Curate subscription boxes Subscription boxes are themed packages of various products. There are subscription boxes in pretty much every industry, from meal-prep kits and craft snacks to fitness products and makeup. You can curate subscription boxes around virtually any theme of your choice. Bokksu, for example, curates Japanese snacks and sends them to customers each month. When you curate subscription boxes, you work with brands and artisans to purchase and resell their products in a bundled offering. Typically, consumers expect to be surprised by what’s in the box, though there are some (like meal prep kits) where the customer chooses what they receive. Why curate subscription boxes? It’s a viable seasonal business. Ironically, “subscription” boxes are purchased as gifts more often than for the buyer themselves. So if you’re only interested in running your online business for part of the year, this could be a model worth checking out. It’s a growing industry. Subscription commerce sales grew from $57 million in 2011 to more than $2.6 billion in 2016. You don’t need to create your own products. Instead, you can use proven, successful products and simply put them together in a nice package. Interested in finding out how to start your subscription box business? Learn from these resources: How to Launch a Subscription Box: Lessons from a Successful Korean Beauty Business Designing a Subscription Box That’s Worth Unboxing Every Month 15. Develop a niche product If you recognize an opportunity in a certain niche, you might be on to your next successful online business idea. Niche products cater to a unique audience. When done well, they serve a specific community. Niches could be based on industry, demographics, price point, geography, values, product attributes, and more. Really, a niche could be anything specific enough to target a small group of potential customers. For example: Conscious consumers: think vegan, sustainable, and eco-friendly products and brands. Pet owners: you could even drill down by pet type. Remote workers: these professionals have specific attributes different from the traditional office worker. Why develop a niche product? Niche products are unique and thus buzzworthy. Early success can be all you need to drive press coverage with zero budget. Though niching down might be scary to some, choosing a specific target customer makes it easier to create marketing and messaging that resonates. Rather than trying to speak to a broad, diverse group, you’re talking to a group of individuals with lots of shared characteristics. 16. Create handmade goods If you’re particularly crafty, you can try your hand at selling handmade products. Whether you make jewelry, picture frames, or furniture, one business idea is to monetize your craft skills and sell your creations online. While you can use platforms like Craigslist or Etsy, your own online store will give you more control and make it easier to track and fulfill orders. Why sell handmade goods? Devote as much or as little time as you want. It’s your choice on how big you want to grow. Create your schedule. Make your handmade goods on a set schedule, when you have spare time, or whenever you want. Turn your passion into income. Like many of the online business ideas on this list, an entrepreneurial endeavor backed by passion leads to a more fulfilling experience. How do I start an online business? Once you’ve decided on an online business idea, you’ll want to do your due diligence and, eventually, give it life. Here’s how to start a business, step-by-step: Validate your idea with market research Develop your product or service Set up your business finances Find vendors and suppliers Build your website Shopify Academy Course: Sell Your Homemade Goods Online Have a product you’re ready to sell? The Kular family shares their experience building a business around mom’s recipe book. From selling one-on-one to reaching the aisles of Whole Foods. [abc] 1. Validate your idea with market research It might sound harsh, but it’s true: just because you think you have a great idea, that doesn’t mean there’s a market for it. Before investing your time and energy into starting your business, research how feasible it is and whether there’s any potential buyer interest. You can hire an agency to conduct market research for you, but if you’re on a shoestring budget, you can also take the DIY approach: 2. Develop your product or service You’ve validated your idea, now it’s time to turn it into a reality. Whether you’re selling a product or service, you need to create it. Find a manufacturer to bring your product to life, create packages of your service offerings, or write your book and identify a self-publishing option to bring it to fruition. If you go the dropshipping route, the product has already been developed for you. It’s up to you to choose the products you’re passionate about or that you’ve identified a hot market for. To help you, we’ve put together a guide to finding the best products to dropship. Exchange Marketplace: Buy a Business Exchange is the marketplace to kickstart your entrepreneurial dreams and buy a business. Browse thousands of stores for sale. 3. Set up your business finances “How do I open a business bank account?” is a common question for many new entrepreneurs. After you’ve officially registered your business with your local government, you should have the tax identification numbers and other information required to open a business bank account. As you grow, you might need funding for future endeavors, be it a new product launch or marketing and advertising spend. Having business bank accounts makes it easier for you to manage that capital, as well as track your revenue and expenses. Having a bank account is also helpful when it comes to tax preparation since your business-related transactions will be in a single place. As your business finances get more complicated, hiring a professional accountant or tax professional could be a viable option. 4. Find vendors and suppliers Product-based online businesses, in particular, may require lots of business relationships. For example a manufacturer, a drop shipper, or a third-party logistics coordinator. When identifying which partnerships you want to move forward with, it’s best to shop around and compare your options to make sure you’re getting the best solution for your needs. Other online businesses may require different relationships or contractors. If you’re writing a book, for example, you may want to hire a professional editor and book designer. 5. Build your website If you want to start a business online, you need to have a website. And to generate online sales, you’ll need to incorporate payment processing functionality. First, choose a domain name and verify that it’s available. You can purchase a domain name for less than $20 a year in some cases. From there, you can build your own store on a platform like Shopify and start accepting payments from customers right away. It’s time to bring your online business idea to life If you’ve been thinking about ways to start a business, it’s time to get out there and create an online money-making business in your spare time. You don’t have to go all in. Start small with a side hustle and scale from there. Or, keep things small. The beauty of starting your own online business is that it’s all up to you. [abc]
Google 2020 Core Update and the Impact on eCommerce Websites February 9, 2020 bizadmin Are you an eCommerce site owner who’s noticed a change in your rankings? You may have been impacted by the latest Google update to the core algorithm. The mistake that many site owners make is that they treat SEO like a static tactic. They take the one and done approach to SEO. The truth is that organic search is a constantly moving target. In 2018, Google made more than 3,200 changes to its algorithm. Some changes barely make a dent. Then, there are changes Google will announce and acknowledge. This keeps SEO professionals and website owners on their toes to see how their sites are impacted. That’s what happened this month with the latest Google update. Read on to learn more about the details of the update, how your site may have been affected, and what you can do about it. [abc] Understanding Google’s M.O. It’s difficult to understand Google’s operations without seeing the big picture of the search engine. Google’s search engine is directly related to the company’s largest source of revenue – advertising. In order to keep stockholders happy and to keep revenue growing, it has to continue to find ways to keep people on the site and increase advertising revenue. Company leaders understand that, without a useful search engine, there is no advertising revenue. Google’s goal is to truly understand what users are looking for. That’s why it’s trying to become more sophisticated to learn the context of searches as well as the intent of a user’s search. What Is the Google Update to the Core Algorithm? On January 13, 2020, there was a simple tweet that started to create panic among webmasters. Google’s Search Liaison said that there was a core update rolling out in the next week. Google is infamous for not revealing what’s in the core updates, so it’s up to the SEO community to figure out what’s in the update. There are usually some early signals that can be pieced together in a few days. After a month, it becomes much clearer as to what the update was. [abc] Here’s what’s known so far: the update is a big one. There are a number of search tracking sites that showed large fluctuations in search results. Like previous updates in the last year, Your Money or Your Life sites were impacted the most. These are sites like health, wellness, fitness, financial information, and news sites. Some of these sites have experienced big gains, while others have dropped. Changes to Featured Snippets Results One change to the algorithm that is certain is that there was an update to how featured snippets are shown in Google. Featured snippets are the snippets that try to answer a question related to your search. Let’s say you look up Google update core, you’ll see a couple of search results followed by related questions. One related question is “What is the latest algorithm update by Google?” That result is a featured snippet, otherwise known as Position Zero. Google used to have sites in Position Zero appear elsewhere on the page of organic search results. That is no longer the case, thanks to deduplication. Deduplication is the process to remove duplicate results so a URL won’t appear in both featured snippets and in organic search results. This can be huge for some sites. There is a general consensus that if your site appears in both, you’re likely to get more clicks. However, if your site is in the featured snippets only, you may experience a decline in clicks. That’s because users tend to get the information they need and won’t continue on to your site. The results are going to vary from site to site. You’ll want to monitor if your site appears in featured snippets and look at your analytics to see if there’s a gain or drop in traffic. How Does This Update Compare to Previous Updates? It can be useful to be able to find a common thread among updates. For example, the last update that Google rolled out was in October 2019. This was called the BERT update, which stood for Bidirectional Encoder Representations from Transformers. This update was based on a research paper that Google researchers wrote about how Google’s bots scan and interpret a text. Google’s bots have always read text from left to right, and the understanding text was a challenge. BERT allows the bot to read text from right to left and left to right. The search engine can better understand the context of the words instead of the word itself. Google is trying to incorporate artificial intelligence as much as possible to match the results to what the user is really trying to find online. Where You Impacted by the Core Update? The first thing that you want to do is to look at your site’s analytics. You should start by checking with Google Analytics and Google Search Console to see if your traffic dropped and the source of the drop. If you see a large fluctuation in search results, it could be due to the latest core update. [abc] This is a good possibility if you sell beauty products, fitness equipment, supplements, or financial products. You definitely want to monitor traffic for the next few weeks as the changes are fully rolled out by Google. Through consistent monitoring, you’ll have an easier time understanding how your site was impacted. If your site dropped in rankings, look at the sites that rank ahead of you now. These are pages that you want to run through SEMRush and Ahrefs. These tools will allow you to see what search terms they’re ranking for and other factors like backlinks. If your site was impacted negatively by this core update, the important thing is to not panic. That can be really difficult if your income depends on search traffic. You need to take an objective look at your site and make decisions based on data. Site owners often have a knee-jerk reaction to these changes. They’ll do things to try to get their site ranking high again, but they wind up doing more harm than good. How Can Your eCommerce Site Be Google-Friendly? Whether your site was impacted by the latest Google core update, you want to make sure that your site stays at or near the top of search results. It doesn’t matter what your site your eCommerce site is about, there are best practices to follow to get traffic from organic search. Here are the areas that you want to focus on. Website Performance The foundation of SEO doesn’t start with keywords; it starts with your website. You need to make sure that your site is technically sound in order to rank high in search results. When your store is set up, you have to send a signal to visitors and search engines that your site is secure. That’s done by installing an SSL certificate on your site, so your URL starts with HTTPS. Google made this an official ranking signal in 2014. Another area that needs to be monitored is site speed. This is especially important for eCommerce sites. There is a link between conversions and site speed. You could be losing a lot of potential customers if your site takes too long to load. More people are using mobile devices to find information and make purchases online. On Black Friday 2019, about 40% of purchases were made on mobile devices. Google responded with a change in how it indexes websites. You want to keep search engines and users happy by having a mobile-friendly site. If you’re using a hosted eCommerce platform like 3dcart, you want to make sure that you’re using the latest version of templates, specifically, 3dcart’s Core Templates that keeps users and search engines in mind. Backlinks Do you what separated Google’s search engines from search engines like Yahoo! 20 years ago? Backlinks. The reason why Google became the company it is today is because it wanted to create a way to rank sites based on quality as well as matching search terms. [abc] The algorithm was revised to judge the quality of the site based on the number of other sites that linked to that content. A link to content was considered a positive vote. Backlinks are still a big part of Google’s algorithm, though the algorithm takes much more than the sheer number of links to a site. You want to focus on getting quality and quantity sites to link to your content. That can be done through social media shares and guest blogging. The key is to provide useful content that people want to link to. Expertise-Authority-Trust If you want to Google-proof your site, this is where you need to focus your time and energy. The reason why financial and health sites are targeted so much by Google is that both industries are full of misinformation. Google’s algorithm tries its best to provide useful results that are proven and backed by science. For example, let’s say that you have a site that touts the benefits of the cabbage diet. This is a diet that’s well known to people who want to lose weight, but there isn’t a lot of data that says that it works and it’s a healthy way to lose weight. When someone searches for “healthy ways to lose weight,” there’s a good chance that the site for the cabbage diet won’t appear. Google works hard to build trust with its search results, and it can’t lose that trust. It established guidelines for sites to follow called E-A-T. This stands for expertise, authority, and trust. How can you show expertise, authority, and trust for an eCommerce site? You can show your expertise by writing about why you’re qualified to sell the products that you do. Let’s say that you sell coffee products online. You can build expertise by showing how you source your coffee and talk about your experience in the industry. Collaborating with industry experts is another way to show your expertise. To become an authority in your industry takes time. Authority is judged by the amount of traffic and backlinks your site has. It’s much easier for brands with big budgets to do. If you’re a new site starting out, consistently publish content over time and get quality backlinks. These will help speed up the process of establishing authority. Trust is a huge issue for your site’s visitors and Google. Establishing a trust can be done through online reviews, having several ways for customers to contact you, and having a clear returns/exchange process. Conduct a Site Audit With all of this information, where can you even begin to improve your search results? Start with a site audit. This is where you take an objective look at your site’s content and structure. The goal with an audit is to understand what your site is doing well from an SEO standpoint and where improvements need to be made. It’s All About the Users It’s all too easy to get lost in figuring out the latest Google update to the core algorithm. There are dozens upon dozens of ranking factors. At the end of the day, though, it’s all about users. If you take care of the technical part to tell Google what your site is about and provide a good user experience and have great content, you’ll do well. [abc]
How Tokyobike Synced Their Storefronts and Doubled Sales February 1, 2020 bizadmin With shopping moving online, it’s not unusual to see brick-and-mortar retailers moving into the eCommerce space. But not all brands have been able to move online and boast a 100% increase in sales in less than six months. Meet tokyobike. The independent bicycle company was founded in 2002 in the quiet suburb of Yanaka, Japan, and first made its way to the United States in 2014. The company is now headquartered in Los Angeles, which is where we sat down with Juliana Di Simone, tokyobike’s Partner in America, to discuss their journey to selling online. The ethos behind the in-store experience The tokyobike brand is inspired by the clean, minimalist aesthetic of Japanese design and pays homage to the “Tokyo Slow” movement—an emphasis on comfort over speed and a nod to simpler times. Their stores are designed to reflect this sentiment. With the open space, subdued colors, and thoughtfully-curated merchandising, customers are invited to explore the store at their leisure. Buying a bicycle is very personal, explains Juliana. She adds, “[They’ve] traditionally been purchased in person. You want to see them, touch them, ride them. See if what you’re buying will actually fit your needs.” In fact, tokyobike’s commitment to their in-store experience is so integral to the brand’s ethos that the founders originally had no intention of selling online—they didn’t think they’d be able to mirror the experience or the high-touch service. Up until 2015, tokyobike operated as a brick-and-mortar, exclusively. But when their staff could no longer support the influx of foot traffic in their bustling SoHo shop in New York City, they knew they had to offer an alternative for their customers. Compounding this shift was a challenge specific to its flagship product: tokyobike’s purchase journey was longer than is typical for most direct-to-consumer brands. At $900 apiece, their bicycles aren’t an impulse buy. Bikes are a long-term investment and often an expression of one’s personal taste, so people take their time exploring their options before making a purchase. This wasn’t a problem for local shoppers, who could return to the store once they’d made up their mind. But out-of-towners and tourists didn’t have the same luxury. Instead, they would typically test-ride a few bikes in-store, come across one they loved, only to return home without an easy way to finalize their purchase. All roads lead to eCommerce [abc] At first, tokyobike’s sales associates tried to solve this problem by writing names and emails on the back of business cards for shoppers to take home. This allowed tokybike’s staff to then follow up with an invoice and credit card authorization form via email and gave would-be customers the chance to buy the product. But this manual process was time-consuming, fraught with error, and introduced the joys of paperwork into what should be an exciting purchase. “When you’re a small team, time really matters…If your team is taken away from things that grow the business to do small, laborious things, you need to find tools that make it easier…If you’re looking to scale, you really have to find platforms and systems that can help you do those things,” Juliana tells us. Launching an online store was the clear next step for the retailer. But not all platforms are created equal, and in three years, the cracks were beginning to show. “We knew there were things we wanted to do that we couldn’t, and that’s mostly because of the way we fulfill our orders and the way we wanted the online experience to be. We thought somewhere in there we were probably losing customers,” says Juliana. They needed something more robust. According to Juliana, the ease of Shopify’s mobile POS system was a big selling point. tokyobike Taking Shopify for a test ride In early 2019, just six months after moving onto Shopify, online sales would surpass tokyobike’s brick-and-mortar sales, with the physical locations increasingly being used for test-rides only. For Juliana, the synergy between their storefronts—and the role tokyobike’s physical spaces would come to play in driving online sales—was an unexpected, but a welcome shift in the company’s business model. And the relationship is a two-way street. Juliana shares a typical scenario where a customer buys a bike online and opts to pick it up in-store. Once they’re in the store, they might realize they need a lock, and a helmet, and maybe a bell. All of a sudden, an online purchase has driven in-store sales, too. The idea that each channel should complement and influence the other to nurture customers through the sales cycle is the foundation of a unified commerce strategy, and ultimately, the goal for every retailer. Switching from Lightspeed to Shopify POS The journey toward a harmonized online and offline experience wasn’t without hiccups. “Until recently, we’ve always had different point-of-sales and a different platform for our online store,” admits Juliana. [abc] When they switched to Shopify’s eCommerce solution, they decided to switch their Lightspeed point-of-sale (POS) systems to Shopify POS, as well. The separate systems were creating a messy experience—from minor frustrations, like not being able to redeem gift cards across sales channels, to bigger issues, like the inability to see inventory across locations. Switching to Shopify’s POS allowed tokyobike to sync their online store with their physical stores, and manage the entire business from one backend. “There are very few steps with Shopify. It’s a one-click kind of thing.” “We integrated everything, it just made more sense logistically to have everything in the same place. Especially because sometimes, we’ll have customers who are interested in things that we only have in-store. So if you need a new set of wheels, we don’t have those on the website…but we can easily email a cart to a customer with items that are only in the store and they can complete that purchase as if it was an online sale,” explains Juliana. For multi-location retailers like tokyobike, having an up-to-date inventory that could be moved on demand, with flexible payment and fulfillment options is often a turning point. When asked about her staff’s experience with Shopify’s retail technology, Juliana says the platform’s ease-of-use was a big selling point. “In terms of our team, I think everyone thought it was way easier. The transition was actually really, really easy for us. There are very few steps with Shopify. It’s a one-click kind of thing.” Free Webinar: Introduction to Shopify POS Get a step-by-step demo of Shopify POS and hear success stories from fast-growing retailers. The team has also benefited from a faster checkout experience since moving to Shopify POS. “Our transaction times are way quicker now. From the moment you decide which bicycle you’re going to purchase, to actually inserting your card or tapping your phone, is a much shorter period of time than it used to be before,” adds Juliana. Beyond ease-of-use, Shopify’s unified platform allowed tokyobike to provide its customers with a consistently delightful experience across every touchpoint, staying true to the brand’s origins, and their commitment to white-glove service. The future of commerce is unified It’s impossible to think of retail as separate…this idea of unified retail is the future. Today, customers can begin and complete their journey with tokyobike wherever and whenever they want. “It’s impossible to think of retail as separate. You have to be able to bring the physical into the digital, and the digital into the physical. From an experience perspective, but also in terms of systems. Connecting the two is important…this idea of unified retail is the future,” says Juliana. The company continues to use its brick-and-mortar locations as a showroom for its products—an opportunity to get in front of new customers who are intrigued by their beautiful storefronts, and to give potential customers the option of experiencing their unique products in-person before ordering online. For the folks who aren’t ready to purchase on the spot, tokyobike’s sales associates can keep the conversation going by re-engaging these shoppers online with cart reminders and e-gift card offers. Across the board, this strategy has helped them boost sales and scale across the United States. Since switching over to Shopify, tokyobike doubled their online sales in under six months, and shrunk their sales cycle from 14-30 days, down to a single week. Their brick-and-mortar presence is growing too, with 13 flagship locations around the world, including stores in London, Berlin, Bangkok, and Mexico City. You could say they’re moving at a pretty good clip. Photography courtesy of tokyobike [abc]
How to Choose the Perfect Name for Your Store January 27, 2020 bizadmin [abc] Coming up with a name for your online business might seem like a pretty simple task, but trust us, it isn’t always easy. In fact, it can take days to come up with a name for your business. That’s because most entrepreneurs have high expectations for their businesses. They want their business name to be instantly recognizable, and to leave a lasting memory on their shoppers. Essentially, they want their business name to be perfect. And perfection is rarely simple. But, seriously, choosing a name for your business is a lot easier when you’ve got some tips & tricks from experienced entrepreneurs who can guide you in the right direction. And that’s exactly why we’ve created this post – we’re going to show you exactly how to come up with the perfect name for your store. So grab your thinking hat and read through our list of the most important things to consider when you’re choosing a name for your online business. Let’s dive in. [abc] What Goes Into a Great Business Name? When it comes to naming your business, we can’t stress one thing enough; there isn’t an exact science or formula that you can use to come up with a great name. It’s a creative process, so you need to give yourself some time to think. That said, there are some pretty important points that you should take into consideration when you’re at the drawing board that’ll help you to avoid choosing a bad business name. And believe us, you can choose a bad business name. So, let’s take a look at how you can make sure that you’re choosing a stellar name for your business. Keep it Simple and Straightforward [abc] Generally speaking, when it comes to starting a business keeping things simple and straightforward is key. And that’s true when it comes to naming your business, too. Why? Well, when you’re looking for a memorable name for your business, you need to make it easy for people to remember. That’s especially true when you consider that it normally takes up to seven impressions – that’s seven times when shoppers see or interact with a brand – to actually remember your business name. That’s quite a lot. That’d be seven Facebook ads you’d need to run or seven Instagram posts. And, using a long, or complex business name in the first place is going to make it even tougher for your audience to recognize your brand in the first place. So, it’s no surprise that the names of some of the biggest brands in the world are usually just one word long. They keep it simple because they want to be remembered. Choose a Future Proof Name When you’re starting your business, you’re probably thinking about hitting milestones like launching your store, getting your first sale, or making your first $1,000. Now, there’s no doubt that those are pretty big, impressive milestones for somebody who is just starting their business. But, the idea is that you’ll hopefully be hitting much bigger milestones than that eventually – think $1,000+ in sales every single month. And that’s why you need to think big when you’re naming your business. You need to think of a business name that’ll work in the future as you grow, too. You could opt for a name like “Dog Bowl Emporium” – that might work while you’re running a small business. But, you could also opt for something like “Premium Pet Supplies” that’d offer you a business name that you can grow into. You might want to add more products to your business in the future as it grows, so keep your options open when you’re choosing a name for your business. Choose a Name That’s Available When you’re looking for a name for your business, it’s essential that you check your ideas are available. And when we say available, we’re talking about domain names specifically. We always recommend trying to secure the .com domain name for your brand – especially if you’re targeting your products to an English-speaking audience. Why? It’s simple, ‘.com’ domains are trusted so much more by the typical shopper. It’s because of the ‘.com’ domain is familiar. It’s been around since the start of the Internet, and most professional brands use this type of domain as well. If you’re looking for a tool to check domain names, you can do it on Shopify. You can search for domain names, check how much they cost, and buy/install them to your store too. And don’t forget to check that you can find social media handles related to your business name, too. Always try to secure a Facebook and Instagram account to go with your ‘.com’ domain too. BONUS: We recommend checking your business name on the U.S. Patent Searcher as well, it’s another great resource that you can use to check if your business name has already been taken by another company. Convey Meaning [abc] Once you’ve got your creative juices flowing, we recommend trying to convey meaning with your business name. Now, we’re not saying that you need to go super abstract with your business name, because most people probably won’t make the connection if you do that. Seriously, think about it. Most people don’t think about the Greek goddess of victory when they see the Nike logo, even though that’s the inspiration for the companies name. Equally, you can bet the average person doesn’t look at Nivea skin cream and think “Oh that’s white because it’s named after the Latin word Niveus, which means ‘snow white’”. We’re not saying you should dive down the rabbit hole of trying to find a deep meaning for your business name. But, try not to be super generic. Try to avoid business names like “Andrew’s Sports Store”. Instead, you could use words that are related to working out, like “Power Sports” or “Reflex Apparel”. These business names simply have more meaning – they evoke more emotion, which is going to go a long way in helping shoppers to remember your business. 5 Examples of Great Business Names Okay, now that we’ve gone through our top tips for coming up with a name for your business, it’s time to highlight some of our favorite store names. These are real-world examples of companies who’ve nailed their store names and hit on the points that we mentioned above. We’ll dive into the meanings behind these store names, so you can get a better idea of how successful brands think about naming their businesses. Bulletproof One of the first things that you see when you land on Bulletproof ’s homepage is “Health Upgrades”. And that copy is totally aligned with their brand message – Bulletproof sells products that are designed to make you feel bulletproof. They blend butter into their best-selling coffee products, which are meant to work to elongate the effects of their products and help you to avoid the usual crash that comes from caffeine. Essentially, they’re selling coffee products that are “more than your average latte.” And we love their business name. It’s simple yet effective. Every shopper has a clear idea of what they can expect from this business from the get-go, and it’s memorable too because most shoppers typically don’t associate the word ‘bulletproof’ with coffee. They’ve been able to branch out from their initial offerings of coffee too and expand into other health supplements, which underlines the beauty of coming up with a future proof business name. Colourpop Ultra successful makeup brand, Colourpop, landed on a fantastic name for their business. The LA-based beauty outfit is offering high-quality makeup products to shoppers who are looking to add a ‘pop of color’ to their routine at drug store prices. They’ve got a simple, straightforward business name that is undoubtedly futureproofed – under the Colourpop umbrella they could move into clothing or jewelry as well, and it’s fit perfectly into their brand. It’s a fun, playful business name, too, which is aligned with what their audience prefers. KITH Lifestyle brand KITH has quite the backstory for their business name. According to the founder of KITH, Ronnie Fieg, the business name originates from the term “Kith and Kin”, which is an old saying that means “Friends and Family”. And, according to Ronnie, he always wanted to build products for people like his friends, so he dropped the “Kin” part and named his business “Kith”. All in all, KITH is a unique business name with a lot of thought behind it. It’s clear, simple to remember, and works well to convey meaning. SuitSupply SuitSupply is a tailoring brand that prides itself on being “straight to the point”, which is definitely evident in their business name. This business name does a fantastic job of conveying exactly what they’re selling – suits. We love that this brand has used alliteration in their business name. Both of the words in their name start with the same letter, and this is a clever marketing tactic that can actually help people to remember your brand. If you can add some alliteration to your brand name, don’t hesitate – it can really work well, as shown by SuitSupply. Gymshark If you’re looking for inspiration when you’re naming your own fitness brand, Gymshark is a great example. The successful clothing & apparel brand came up with their name by cleverly blending two common words together. First off they used ‘Gym’, which is the bread and butter of their business. They exclusively create fitness apparel targeted towards gym-goers. [abc] Then, they added ‘Shark’, which is an animal that is often associated with power, and strength. Honestly, it’s a pretty simple name, but it’s also quite unique. Its simplicity is key here though – it’s super easy to remember, which is exactly what you want when you’re starting a new brand. Still, Stuck? Use a Business Name Generator If you’re still struggling to come up with a name for your business, worry not. You can always use a business name generator to point you in the right direction. If you’re wondering what a business name generator is, it’s pretty simple, actually. You can enter a word, or term, that you like into a business name generator, and it’ll provide you with dozens of examples that you can use for your business. Take a look at what happens when we enter ‘running’ into a business name generator: Pretty neat, right? Of course, there’s no guarantee that all of the names that the business name generator comes up with are available – you’ll need to check that yourself – but they’re great tools if you’re still struggling for ideas. Interested in using a business name generator? We’ve got just the thing for you – Oberlo’s Business Name Generator. It’s free, so take advantage of it when you’re naming your business. Now It’s Over to You Okay, now you’ve got all the tips, tricks, and tools that you need to come up with a great name for your online business. Now it’s time to use all the information that you’ve gleaned from this post and come up with the best name for your business Oh, and if you’ve got any questions about naming your business, or if you want feedback on your business name, leave it in the comments section below – we read them all! Andrew Roach Andrew Roach is a Content Marketer at Oberlo. He is passionate about eCommerce and creating insightful content to help entrepreneurs launch and grow their businesses. [abc]
How to Deal With Returns and Refunds in 2020 | Oberlo Dropshipping January 18, 2020 bizadmin [abc] This is Jessica from Oberlo 101 that links to Shopify and AliExpress to source your winning product in a jiffy. Here she talks on how to deal with returns and refunds in 2020 as a drop shipper. Mind you, e-commerce is not easy, you have to blog, attract paid traffic via Facebook, Instagram social influencers, handle complaints and wait for sales in the beginning. It is tough work and you are hearing from someone who has tried and been there before. Since I cannot allocate my full attention to Shopify that charges USD 29 per month and only 2 sales for 8 long months, I decided to quit and cut my losses while continuing with my full-time job as an IT executive. But after all these precautions, if you think you have what it takes to start an e-commerce platform, then I would suggest using the free WooCommerce like WordPress. You need to experiment around and play with the main features available on WooCommerce. Al I know is that it is like WordPress and that is it. [abc] So good luck to any of you who are reading this article on the said video. There are many ways to make money, but you have to choose which method is most suitable for you to leverage the hard work you put in. As for me, I love writing and blogging, so I am going to concentrate on these. [abc]
This Millennial Entrepreneur Is Carving Her Own Path to Success January 14, 2020 bizadmin Millennials, huh? Those avocado-toast-loving, Instagram-influencers, selfie-taking young’uns. They’re always too busy disrupting industries to get to the business of making themselves a proper career. Just kidding. You’re safe here in the knowledge that I, too, am planted firmly within the age range that defines me as a Millennial. And personally, I think we’re great. And as for traditional careers, who needs ‘em? Today, more and more Millennials are rejecting traditional career paths and stepping out on their own, and entrepreneurship has always been an appealing alternative. According to a study by the Kaufmann Foundation, 54% of Millennials want to start their own business or have already started one. With the promise of setting your own hours, not having to call anyone boss, and the satisfaction of watching something grow from the ground up, it’s easy to see why Millennials are drawn to the idea of starting their own businesses. Jenny Lei is proof that despite their age, Millennial entrepreneurs are ready to play in the big leagues. With no formal business training and a single internship on her resume, this self-taught entrepreneur has grown her e-commerce business to an enviable success. Her business, which sells handbags and accessories, has recently passed the $600,000 revenue mark despite launching less a year ago. I called her up at her apartment/office/temporary warehouse in New York City to talk to her about finding her feet as an entrepreneur, her biggest mistakes, and the little details that have made all the difference to her success. [abc] The First Steps as a Millennial Entrepreneur Jenny Lei is 22 years old, and brimming with energy and enthusiasm. She’s a self-described optimist, a trait she thinks is crucial to her success as an entrepreneur. “I’m a very positive person, I think that helps. You have to be optimistic when doing this because a lot of things are going to go wrong,” she says. Then after graduating college early in December 2017, she found herself out in the real world with the prospect of her entire career spanning before her. [abc] “This past year I was trying to figure out what I want to do with my life, and how I’m going to make money, so I was interviewing a lot,” she says. “But I realized that the jobs I was interviewing for, I wasn’t really interested in.” Unsatisfied with the idea of falling into an office job, she started to look for projects she could pick up to make some money to support herself. So in April 2018, in between interviews and job applications, she started dabbling in her e-commerce businesses. She’d tried running an e-commerce business before in college, selling avocado slicers to her Instagram followers. Her followers (all 800,000 of them) were part of a healthy recipe page she’d spent most of her high school years building. “I was thinking, I have a recipe Instagram page, and people love avocados! Let’s do this,” she says. In the end, the store made a few sales but didn’t take off in the way she’d hoped. But this time around, she went for a different approach. First came the clothing store. Then the jewelry store. Then the bangle store. Then the luggage cases. “My original goal was to start one store a month,” she says. While she had some success, most of the businesses didn’t amount to much. [abc] “I don’t remember how I stumbled on the idea of selling bags,” she says. “But it appealed to me, I collect handbags, so I thought it would be a good idea.” She quickly launched her store with Shopify and used Oberlo to source the product suppliers and help fulfill the orders. She chose to dropship the products from her supplier in China so that she wouldn’t have to buy inventory upfront. Then, once a customer had placed an order from her store her supplier would take care of the delivery of the items directly to her customers. In May 2018, she launched her handbag store. And her success was quick. After advertising a couple of the bags on her Instagram page, she scored her first sales. And once they started, they flooded in – she made $1,000 in sales in the first 24 hours. [abc] “I was with my boyfriend at the time and he was like, ‘Woah, what are you doing?’” she says. “He works in finance and works really long hours. He was like, ‘I’m sitting next to you and you haven’t done anything and you’re making money!’” “At that point, I told him that my ultimate goal was to get to $200,000 per month because that’s what I see all the YouTubers doing. He was like, ‘That’s impossible!’” she says. “Well, I got to that in November!” The Journey from $0 to $200,000 a month When it came to marketing her bags, she began with the area she knew best. “I started with Instagram influencers because that’s what I was doing during high school so I was familiar with that space,” she says. She paid influencers in the fashion space to promote her products by sending them samples to pose within photos. Then, she and offered them an affiliate code to incentivize them to promote the brand even more. [abc] “I dabbled in Facebook advertising in the beginning too. But in the first week I did it I’d be like, ‘Oh, I spent $10 and nobody has bought anything! I’m going to stop this ad, I’m losing money!’” she laughs. Eventually, she grew tired of constantly coordinating promotions with influencers, and was looking for a way to run marketing that could be automated to keep pulling in sales 24 hours a day. She thought back to some fatherly advice. “Like my Dad says, ‘You have to lose money to make money,’ so I thought I’d give it $200 to try Facebook ads properly.” (Click to expand) At first, she struggled to find a formula that worked. “In the beginning, I was doing my ads wrong, they looked really bad,” she says. “I was basically using the product description as the ad copy. Then I was scrolling through Instagram and I was like, ‘Hey! Nobody else does that, I’m going to stop doing that.’” Eventually, after tests upon tests upon tests, she found her winning format. A carousel ad showing a collection of her best-selling bags, with simple copy inspired by the ads of fashion retailer Revolve. “People say that video marketing is the best thing, but for me personally, my best ad has been a carousel post of different products. My best performing ad is the simplest,” she says. Then everything started to click. “My first $1,000 day was at the end of August, that happened on my Dad’s birthday. Then the first $2,000 day was a week after that! And then the first $10,000 was the day before Black Friday in November. These little milestones keep you going,” she says. Although Black Friday turned into the biggest weekend in her store’s history, Jenny says the weekend was, “actually kind of calm.” She had planned to be on a cruise with her boyfriend over the weekend of Black Friday, so she started planning early to make sure everything would be in place for the weekend. In September she hired two virtual assistants to help with customer service and order fulfillment, so she could focus on the marketing. [abc] “I didn’t do too much prep for Black Friday, but I had three different ads set up to run the day before Black Friday. Then we just kept the best running one and scaled that up for the following week.” On the day of Black Friday, as she was cruising around the Bahamas, she kept an eye on the Shopify app on her phone as the orders flooded in. Midway through the weekend, she realized that orders were coming in faster than she expected and she quickly hired another virtual assistant to help with the workload. In the end, the day was a huge success. “I did $18,000 on Black Friday, so that was our best day,” she says. The sales from Black Friday helped tip her revenue over the $200,000 mark for the month – the very amount she was told was impossible. “I think anything is possible now after the past few months. Because my boyfriend said that I could never get to $200,000, and I got there while we were on a cruise!” she says, grinning. What Makes Her Store Successful? So what makes this store, out of all the stores, stand out? For Jenny, the answer is in her dedication to the details. She knew from the beginning she wanted her store to feel premium, so she went looking for inspiration from some of the world’s best designer brands. “I went to Celine’s website and decided I want my website to look like that. So, in the end, it doesn’t look like that, but it was a good inspiration,” she says. Determined to make her website and products feel just as cohesive as the designer brands, she spent hours photoshopping all her product images to make them match perfectly. [abc] “If you’re selling a physical product, you need to have really good product images. Even better if they’re cohesive. You need to make all the images the same size, and you need to position all the bags at the same spot. So when you’re scrolling down all of the items you can see it’s consistent. You know when you click on it that it’s going to be the front, the side, the back, someone wearing it. That’s something that I think is very important. If I went to a website and all the images were different, I wouldn’t buy. The websites that I personally use are very easy to use, easy to navigate, the product images look beautiful. That’s a sign of trust to me.” [abc] The level of dedication to cohesion not only builds trust with her store, but it elevates the feel of the brand, allowing her to charge higher prices and make a healthy sales margin. The bags in her store cost $80 on average, with a sales margin of 66% thanks to the premium brand image she’s built. “In the beginning, it took a lot of time to write the product descriptions, but now I have a good idea of how to write them. I write a little blurb of what the bag is, and how to use it. Then I write what it’s made of, dimensions and suggestions of what you can fit in it.” But unlike designer brands that can come across as cold and clinical in the way they describe their products, she wanted her to feel more approachable. “There are some brands like Warby Parker, where you can imagine someone reading the product description to you, and you can imagine how it fits into your life. That’s the direction I’m going for,” she says. [abc] To make her products feel personal, she took the descriptions one step further. “I gave all of my bags names, so it will be something like the ‘Annie tote’ or the ‘Lauren bag’. I didn’t use to do that, it used to be like, ‘Round Circle Bag,’” she says. “I think that made a big difference too because people will say, ‘I like the Annie!’ or ‘Do you know when the Annie will be back in stock?’ I think that’s something worth considering doing, I noticed a difference after doing that.” Ignore Everyone’s Advice, Follow Your Gut Sure, Jenny’s success sounds exceptional, but I know from experience that it’s never smooth sailing to get to this point. “So, what were some of your biggest mistakes?” I ask her. “Oh let me count the ways!” she replies, laughing. Then she pulls out her phone, where she has compiled an actual list of the mistakes she’s made. She learned the hard way that there are good suppliers and bad suppliers and that choosing a good one is crucial to making your business a success (and reducing the amount of stress-induced freakouts you experience). “I learned that on AliExpress a lot of the suppliers carry the same items, but they’re not necessarily the same quality. The first batch of bags I had, some people said that they smelled bad and that the zippers broke a lot. So I ordered the same bag from five different suppliers to my house to compare, and then I picked the one that I thought was the best quality. There actually was a visible difference between the bags.” In the end, the situation turned into a positive one. By ordering samples of the products she was able to determine the best supplier in terms of quality and delivery service. “After that, I built up a relationship with this supplier and now he sources all of my bags for me,” she says. She’s gotten better at trusting her own instincts too. In the beginning, it was tempting to follow the advice of e-commerce gurus and experts, but she found that their suggestions often just didn’t feel right for her business. So she ignored them and went her own way. [abc] “Don’t listen to everything that people tell you,” she starts. “Do your research and follow your gut. Don’t do it unless you feel like it’s the right thing to do in your heart.” Why Dropshipping Works So Well for Millennial Entrepreneurs Because e-commerce businesses built with the dropshipping model are so lightweight, they’re flexible enough to let you start, stop, or change course if the direction of the business isn’t matching what you need from it. And for a Millennial entrepreneur who is still trying to figure out both business and adult life, that’s kind of perfect. Jenny’s the first to admit that if there’s one thing that’s certain about her life, it’s uncertainty. And she’s okay with that. “The idea of having a set career path is scary to me,” she says. “But someone like my boyfriend, he’s got a great job, and it’s a job he’s wanted since he was five. I’ve never been like that. I don’t buy plane tickets months in advance, I buy plane tickets a week before when I’m sure I want to go. Then I’ll buy a one-way ticket there because maybe I’ll want to stay a few extra days. I’m that kind of person. I don’t know what I’m going to be doing next week, let alone five years from now.” So she’s keeping her options open. This year, she’s headed to grad school to study information science and will keep running her business on the side. Thanks to the help of her team of virtual assistants, she’s been able to scale back her work on the business to only 5-10 hours per week. As for any other Millennial entrepreneurs thinking of following in her footsteps, she has one piece of advice: “Honestly, don’t give up. It’s not easy, but it’s also not as hard as people make it out to be. As long as you keep at it, you’re bound to succeed sometime. I succeeded on my seventh try or something. You’ll find a product that sticks.” [abc] Venetia Anderson Venetia Anderson is a content marketer at Oberlo. She’s passionate about discovering great stories from entrepreneurs, as well as plants and disco music. Follow Venetia on Twitter at @venetia__a.
WooCommerce eCommerce Development for Your Business Use January 7, 2020 bizadmin WooCommerce is an eCommerce module for WordPress. It makes dealing with an online store straightforward, with easy adaptability and a few highlights, for example, stock and tax management, secure installments, and shipping mix. WooCommerce is the well known and best eCommerce plugin for WordPress, and it consists of both extraordinary SEO and eCommerce capacity. From the following, you’ll discover the reasons to pick WooCommerce and its focal points over other eCommerce stages. 1. WooCommerce Pricing At the point when a new retailer is picking a stage, the cost is probably going to be the main consideration. ECommerce applications extend from free to a huge number of dollars every year, but the capability of the application is nothing to do with its cost. [abc] WooCommerce is highly competitive with other leading eCommerce applications, but since it’s free, any business or entrepreneur can take advantage of its capacities without focusing on costly agreements or restrictive programming licenses. You should take note that any third party involved in the process of installing applications may involve cash, yet this won’t be directly related to WooCommerce themselves. 2. WooCommerce Is Modular It is the same as WordPress. WooCommerce eCommerce Development includes rich arrangements that can be reached with the expansion of plugins. Retailers who use WooCommerce get an advantage twice from this modulation. They approach a large number of WordPress modules and topics just as many eCommerce-specific forms only for WooCommerce. WooCommerce eCommerce Development measured framework is that it develops a network of designers who carry out expansions to include specific usefulness, something that is beyond imagination with solid applications. With the privilege modules, WooCommerce can be the ideal eCommerce stage for each retailer. Modules grow usefulness with respect to delivery, installments, how items are taken care of, and the sky is the limit from there. WooCommerce themselves have created and prescribe a few extra modules when utilizing their store. 3.WooCommerce Is WordPress “In any case, WooCommerce is just not a WordPress?”. As a general rule, WooCommerce’s WordPress module is really a strength. WordPress is extremely famous on the grounds that it’s so adaptable and practical. A large number of organizations use WordPress in light of the fact that it gives the best establishment to their goals It’s quick, secure, and simple to utilize. WooCommerce acquires the majority of the quality of WordPress and provides the facility to construct a world-class eCommerce experience for retailers and their clients. 4. WooCommerce known toSell Things WooCommerce eCommerce Development is awesomely adaptable. In the event that you need to sell something, you can sell it with WooCommerce. That incorporates physical items, advanced items, memberships, arrangements, and significantly more. Regardless of whether you plan to sell physical items or digital products of physical items. WooCommerce is the Swiss Army Knife of eCommerce applications. 5. WooCommerce Has A Vibrant Developer Community Both WooCommerce and WordPress are open source. This implies that retailers can change or include center highlights, manufacture new expansions, and make custom subjects. For some less well-known eCommerce applications, it is hard to discover engineers fit for doing that work. And in the event that you can discover a designer, they are costly to procure. [abc] WooCommerce retailers profit by an enormous pool of designers and WooCommerce experts. On the off chance that you have to make changes to your WooCommerce store. It won’t be hard for somebody to take every necessary step for you. 6.WooCommerce Includes Powerful Analytics The more you think about your clients and the manner in which they associate with your store and its items, the better. Out of the container, WooCommerce gives a broad arrangement of examination showed in a reasonable and natural interface. Also, it’s clear to incorporate WooCommerce with outside examination administrations like Google Analytics with expansions. 7. WooCommerce Grows With Your Business When picking a WooCommerce eCommerce Development application, it gives a smart thought to consider the fate of your business. It may be little now. Yet at the time of development and you have to pick an application that is fit for supporting a busy store without forcing a lot of complexity in the good ‘old days. WooCommerce supports stores extending from the modest to the immense. It can scale from a couple of items to a huge number, and from a bunch of customers daily to many customers every second. [abc]
eCommerce Sports and Fitness December 22, 2019 bizadmin I was browsing the internet this morning when I came across an eCommerce website here >> Sports &Fitness. Now it is important to be fit and healthy so that you can continue to generate an income and prosper. The Bible states that we ought to work for as long as possible until we are called home. Hence it is good to get some form of exercise to be fit and in the healthy BMI range. BMI is an acronym for Body Mass Index. The link above leads to an eCommerce site with a safe and secure payment gateway. Your personal details will not be shared and you can be sure of privacy, especially your credit card details and such. It is a robust system with a very well developed site that navigates to all working pages. Even for me, I am trying to cut down on my food intake and do some form of light exercise to burn extra calories. Health is wealth and you cannot take your health for granted. Therefore, eat wisely and do some exercise to live a healthy lifestyle. You can even purchase things like sports and fitness items for this Christmas for your family members and friends whom you think need them most. In the meantime, Merry Christmas to all and enjoy but don’t overeat.