The dream of running your own company is more attainable than ever in this technological age. But eCommerce can be more complex than some may believe. Digital entrepreneurship comes with a business landscape that can’t be emulated within other industries. Because of this, you’ll need to be proactive when building the foundations for your online business venture to ensure its success.
First and foremost, you’ll need to look at the methods that established online retailers as eBay and AliExpress have adopted. Using data extracting software such as an AliExpress scraper, will allow you to not only gather a myriad of information regarding the organization and operation of your larger competitors but also provide you with a template for your own site’s initial layout. Like you would use OCR automation to efficiently run larger projects and stop employees from manually searching for information, drawing from data extracted using scrapers will also aid you in correctly pricing your products, gathering leads to further business, defining your target audience and ensuring their satisfaction, and finding opportunities for collaborations to name a few.
IMAGE: ALIBABA
Working off even a rough template derived from HTML codes is much easier than starting entirely from scratch, and having a familiar format will engage customers or clients as well as make your brand well-established from the get-go. Simply convert any applicable information from your scraper software into an Excel or CSV file, and open these up in any spreadsheet programme to create incredibly useful diagrams that can aid in the rapid development of your eCommerce project.
Social media integration is one of the greatest tools at your disposal in terms of outreach, as your online presence being interwoven over well-managed accounts on multiple platforms will have the highest chances of granting you exposure. Bringing your business onto platforms like Facebook and Instagram will also allow interested users to easily share your brand, as well as any questions or reviews. Speaking of your ‘brand’, it’s important that whilst you draw from your competitors, you should definitely engage with your customers in a fresh and unique tone.
Online communication with your audience makes a world of difference as it adds a touch of personality to your business. Online communication should always be light-hearted and informative. Jumping off from here, being active on multiple platforms will further your opportunities. This can be observed in the most successful social media campaigns.
Having a consistent Instagram feed that’s curated to match your tone will also allow your business to make an attractive first impression. Providing a link from this feed to both your Facebook page as well as your website (and vice versa), will allow your customers to explore your web presence with ease, and will ensure that you have a sense of genial transparency.
Finally, using SEO or search engine optimization, when fine-tuning your site’s copy and other content such as product descriptions, will allow potential buyers to discover your business online. Similar to using hashtags on social media to reach out to interested parties, SEO using specifically selected keywords can potentially find your site securing a steady level of traffic.
However, it’s also important to note that search engines like Google regularly update their design of their search engine results pages, often providing the search engine user with a mixture of articles, videos, and imagery. In order to stay above these updates, you’ll need to make sure that your use of SEO isn’t limited to headers, but is included throughout your copy and articles, as well as in your page URL if possible.
You’ll also need to update your use of SEO accordingly, to accommodate seasonal markets. You can outsource your marketing and content, or even use data extraction, to fine-tune your use of SEO. Just keep in mind that adaptation is key, especially in eCommerce where competitors are constantly changing the business landscape, and at a disparately rapid pace to traditional storefronts.
That being said, the idea of ‘traditional’ business is becoming a misnomer. All businesses undoubtedly profit from having any kind of web presence. And despite the prevalence of sponsored posts and online advertising, the internet and its social media platforms act as perfect equalizers, a blank slate upon which you can craft your image. It’s up to you to ensure that you have full control over your eCommerce venture and the image that you’ll be presenting out to what will certainly be a global audience.
If you are interested in even more business-related articles and information from us here at Bit Rebels then we have a lot to choose from.
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