To reach new customers, select the sales channels where your target audience is already shopping. The best combination of sales channels depends on the products you sell and your target audience, but there are numerous options that can complement your store.
Increase sales with Instagram Shopping
Facebook shop
4. Preparation for launch
To prepare for the launch of a virtual shop, organize yourself with shipments and returns. Here are some useful indications:
Free shipping or flat rate? Shipping strategies for ecommerce
Beginner’s guide to shipping and delivering products
How to implement a winning return policy for you and your customers
If you want to avoid leaving out some important steps, take a look at our list of things to remember when launching a shop:
Checklist: things not to forget when launching a Shopify store
5. Post-launch phase
Start selling in a virtual store
Acquire the first customer
After the launch, the marketing phase begins. In some cases, it may be advantageous to open a physical store , but other than that, digital marketing is essentially based on one point: generating targeted traffic . So here is a series of marketing tactics that will help you in the first few months of activity.
How to make the first sale in 30 days: marketing checklist for new entrepreneurs
9 strategies to win public trust from scratch
How to generate leads with content marketing
Promote your virtual store
At this point you are on your way and you have probably already made sales. The time has come to focus seriously on marketing. Here are some methods you can use to generate traffic and conversions:
Email marketing
Email marketing guide
Social media marketing
How to create effective social media marketing strategies: beginner’s guide
Instagram Marketing 101: hashtags, stories, highlights and other tools
How to do marketing with Instagram Stories
How to use Facebook Ads for ecommerce: guide
How to make money with YouTube
10 tools to exploit the potential of Pinterest marketing
Optimization to increase conversions
A / B test: complete guide and advice from Google and HubSpot experts
Customer service 101: guide to providing excellent customer support
How to optimize product pages to increase sales: 11 expert tips
Exploiting analytical data
5 Google Analytics segments to make your ecommerce more profitable
This is just the beginning
Opening a virtual store is as exciting as it is challenging. It allows you to learn many things at a very fast pace: how to choose a product, understand how to produce it, create an online store, do marketing, make sales, acquire new customers … Coping with all this is difficult, but also extremely rewarding.
We hope our collection of resources will help you, if only to offer you a clearer roadmap to follow. As always, the best advice we can give you is to start and above all have fun on your business journey.