How To Increase Your My1Stop E-Store's Online Sales

This is an English translation & updated version of my older post, due to request. For a Bahasa Melayu version/ older version) of this post, go HERE.

Many sellers have approached me with the above question … The fact is, there are e-stores which make higher sales than others. When I say 'sales', I'm actually referring to online sales via My1Stop system, because My1Stop is only able to track these sales (unless seller or buyer CC to us their private/direct orders). For sellers who fail to make sales as they hoped, they would wonder … what went wrong? To assist My1Stop sellers, I have made some research into this by observing the different strategies and statistics of top selling e-stores. So carry on reading this article for the keys to having a successful My1Stop e-store …

When sales aren't as expected, some sellers even blame My1Stop for not driving in customers to them. In reality, product sales & promotion lies on the shoulders of the sellers themselves. Picture this ... if you open a physical store in a real shopping mall, and merely wait for customers to drop by your store ... you can bet that out of the many mall visitors, you will only get a small number of them visiting your store. You can anticipate that the scenario would be the opposite i.e better crowd of visitors, if you dynamically promote your physical store by handing out fliers to passer-bys and hanging promotional banners at strategic places.

You just can't blame Mid Valley Mega Mall for your store's poor sales, can you? Bottomline is ... you got to reach out to your customers as you may not be the only seller selling the particular product you are selling, let alone the only e-store in My1Stop. People will not buy your product if they are not even aware that you are actually selling it. If you can't even get a huge crowd to visit your store, what are the chances of making sales (normally, only 10% of total potential customers actually become buyers). It is unfair to think that the sales you make fully reflects the crowd the shopping mall gets. Try visiting other e-stores (especially the Featured E-Stores e.g. e-farmasi, MyIKEA2U, DNS E-STORE, Qasseh-Design Shop) and check out their stats - you'll get what I mean.

Internet is not only about borderless market, more importantly, it enables dynamic web applications to ease your activities at minimal cost. So don't sleep your way through your online business, but be a real business person and put to practice all the typical business DO's and avoid the DON'TS. So what if there are millions of internet users out there? You can't expect or force any of them to buy your product. They've got their own minds, preferences, their own online activities.

Realizing this, My1Stop showers our sellers with useful online tools to assist you in your online business, from e-store shopping cart system that supports online payment (credit card & online banking), easy to use online catalog manager, order manager, online marketing tools like Plug-In Catalog and Catalog Template, to product and e-store statistics. My1Stop e-stores comes from FREE to only RM180 per YEAR. Sooo affordable. What My1Stop wants in return is for every seller to make full use of the e-store features provided. There is no point in claiming to own/rent a store, but you sell like a shopless seller ... when you have a crowd to pull, but you sleep in your own store ... when you have a My1Stop e-store, but you sell like you would in any other virtual platforms that do not provide these dynamic tools!

E-STORE SUCCESS FACTORS

External Factors:

• Good product quality


• Good demand in product - unique products & products not in abundance/ hard to get offline sell better online


• Good/Reasonable price (including delivery & packaging)


• Good after-sales service


• Good luck ... :)

Internal Factors:

• Use/upload attractive/appealing product photos ... enough to increase the probability of visitors clicking on them. The size should not be too small for viewing satisfaction nor too big for fast loading time. The photo has to be of the actual product or at least very related so that your customers do not feel cheated.


• Provide comprehensive item description - complete with sizes/colors available, testimony, photos of the product in various angles, video if applicable. the more information you give your customers, the more they are aware of what they are about to purchase & the better potential they have in making an actual purchase.


• If you have a physical store … use your My1Stop e-store as a credit card terminal for your physical store customers to pay using credit card. Just open a PC or laptop at your store counter! Isn't this a much cheaper option for a credit card payment solution for your customers?


• Send e-mails of your e-store catalog periodically - use My1Stop Catalog Template for an organised display of your products, complete with photos and links to purchase online). No more uploading individual product photo attachments and sending lengthy promotional emails that often get deleted before getting read. Find out more about Email Marketing strategies HERE.


• Attach your e-store link in your signature/footer of emails, forums posts, etc… some sellers even put their e-store links in business cards and fliers!


• If you have your own website or blog, display your e-store catalog dynamically there by using My1Stop Plug-in Catalog. Changes to your catalog will reflect in real-time.


• Do check your e-store stats to know more about your e-store visitors. Unlike with your brick-&-mortar store, whereby you can see with your own eyes, customers coming into the store ... in an online store ... you don't get a clue unless you have access to the web statistics of your e-store - My1Stop plugs in reliable and comprehensive e-store stats to every featured e-store complete with email reports, while the free package sellers get a unique visitor counter (you will be able to explore the numbers you get once you upgrade to featured e-store). The stats can tell you wonders! I will write a special post on the importance of web stats soon :)


• Use your e-store message board to communicate with your customers. The message board acts as a knowledge bank to other customers as more and more questions and feedback are posted. More importantly, it gives your customers the impression that YOU DO EXIST. Some 'human touch' is still needed even in the virtual world. In fact, one of the major hindrance of online business success is uncertainty - so counter this by responding promptly to your customers inquiries & posting latest news & offers!


• Drop by your own store as frequent as possible! Goodness, please check your email if you even want to do business online! Login to your e-store and check out what's there, what's not. There have been cases whereby sellers actually receive online orders but responded only a little too late, customers start complaining and flee. Some customers ordered online, online to find out later that the product is no more available! Let's save everyone the trouble ... !

All in all ... when you decide to open an e-store at My1Stop, you should explore all the features that have been provided for you. It would be a waste to not fully utilize these features, and only complaining why you are not making sales as you had expected. Selling online is not far different from selling in the physical world. Bottom line is you are a seller ... so uphold & practice the common business ethics in the virtual world as you should in the real world.

Good luck to all My1Stop sellers & may your online business soar! :)