The easiest methods for making a successful online store

There are so many guides on the internet that claim to teach you how to turn your online store into a success. However, many of them will tell you it’s all in the SEO (which can take months) or building up a social media following (hours and hours of work). What about if we told you there are easier methods for making a successful online store? Here are the quick and easy ways to turn your e-commerce business into a success.

Start right

You know what they say? “Start as you mean to go on.” This means setting up your online store ready for success from the word go. One of the easiest ways to do this, without any specific web development or design knowledge, is to use an e-commerce platform. There are plenty out there, it all just depends what you’re looking for.

If you’re looking for something that has it all in one place, Shopify is one of the easiest to set up. This e-commerce platform has been designed for those who are beginners and includes themes and templates for you to use. This means you don’t need any prior knowledge before you get started.

Clean and easy to use

Once you’ve chosen your platform, it’s time to make sure that your online store is customer friendly. Again, this is easy if you’ve chosen an e-commerce platform that gives you plenty of customisation options – without having to be a web genius. The best thing about this step is that you only have to do it once, then it’s good to go.

Ask your friends and family to test out the site for you, before launch, just so you can be sure everything is easy to find. The less clicking it takes to get from product to checkout, the better it will be for your sales. You can also get a usability test done for your online store, by someone who is likely to be more honest than a loved one.

Putting marketing on autopilot

One of the fundamental ways to ensure your online store is a success is marketing, right? However, that can take a lot of time and energy, especially when social networks change their algorithms so often – unless you put it all on autopilot. Social media is an excellent way to market your e-commerce business, but as already mentioned, it can suck up so much of your time.

Luckily, there are plenty of tools to help run your marketing efforts on autopilot. Scheduling tools like Hootsuite and Buffer will save you a whole load of time, as you can simply queue up posts to be sent out whenever your customers are likely to be online. There are also plenty of free tools that will help you make eye-catching images for your social media.

Who said building a successful online store is hard work? Of course, you are going to have to put some legwork in at some point, but these top tips will help get you started at least. Do you have any other easy methods to add to the list?

Author bio:

Jake likes living life in the fast lane; always looking for the quickest ways to turn pennies into pounds. When he’s not divulging his best business secrets, you can find him watching documentaries on Netflix.