Sales don’t happen just because you wish with all your might. You need sales strategies and vision to give your store an organized appearance. That means selling holiday clothes and automotive parts in the same store might be off the table. Buyers need an organized and well-planned appearance for them to take your brand and store seriously. Here are some sales strategies that get results.
1. We’re Going to Sell One Thing and One Thing Only!
This strategy is about focusing all your efforts on promoting one brand with one product. Ideally, this strategy is going to work on long term brand building. This can also work if you are hopping from fad to fad to make a quick buck but the effort put into brand building will be wasted.
Build a Brand
Yes, of course you should have a brand for each store! In this case, you will need to spend more effort and time to create a higher caliber image. That means creating a logo, a catchy slogan, an interesting backstory, and all the other little aspects that give a brand credibility.
Pay for a domain name that doesn’t have “myShopify” in it. Spend some time picking out a theme for your store and make it look as good as an Apple store! Commission or, if you have the equipment, take high quality photos of your product with your branding.
Brand your product! Many suppliers can brand your products with your unique logo as well as provide packaging if you supply the artwork.
Find a Product That Stands Out
By no means does this need to be an expensive or fancy product. There are selfie sticks that have dedicated brands. Keep in mind, the more common or readily available a product is, the harder it is to get your iteration noticed.
Spend some serious time browsing products, check out the Topdser Niche Spy, and pick out something interesting but also uncommon.
Promote Heavily
This step is a must regardless, but you must find innovative ways to promote your product. This means videos, social media presence, photos, testimonials, and everything in between. You have to get people interested in your product and capture potential customers with your Rockstar ads
2. A Genre Defining Experience
You will notice most online stores pick a genre and stick to it. This extends beyond their products and infiltrates every aspect of the store. If you see an outdoor or camping related online store, you can be the theme of the store, the branding, and all the items exude that outdoor lifestyle feeling
Pick and Research a Genre
It’s recommended to find established brands selling similar products to learn from. If you’re selling athletic gear, take a page out of Nike’s book with a clean and eye-catching presentation. You need to pick a category that you understand so you can connect with potential customers.
Find the pain points for customers within the genre or look for holes that can be filled with something new.
Stay in Your Lane
Avoid mixing multiple genres of store unless they are very close, or one encompasses the other. For example, hiking and camping go together well, but if you try to throw golf supplies in, you might be spreading yourself thin. Stay focused on what fits your theme.
Targeted Ads
Part of researching means understanding your customer demographics. You want your ad money to be spent as efficiently as possible. That means you must have a solid understanding of your customer’s personas.
Persona: A fictitious model of an ideal customer. It generally includes demographics (age, gender, location, and occupation) as well as psychographics (motivations, likes, dislikes, and pain points).
For example, a persona of a golfer might be a middle-aged man, living in a retirement-friendly state, looking to exercise and relax. Create a list of personas for your genre and then target them with your ads.
3. Seasonal Selling Spree
Everyone loves a holiday but especially sellers. Take advantage of popular holidays with a store centered around selling holiday themed merchandise. Additionally, you can focus on a particular season, such as selling cold-weather gear for winter.
Pick Your Joyous Occasion
Christmas will usually be the first to come to mind. You have ornaments, gift wrapping, sweaters, and an avalanche of other options. Don’t sleep on Halloween or Valentine’s Day either! Or if you are feeling adventurous, tackle them all.
Prepare Ahead of Time
The double-edged sword of seasonal strategies is that you only have a set time to be effective. However, you need to be ready way in advance of that set time frame. Taking Christmas as an example, you need to have your shop ready to go by October. As soon as the weather cools down, imaginary sleigh bells start ringing in everyone’s brain. Get ahead of the game.
Follow The Trend
Each year, holidays and seasons have a different set of trends. If you plan on creating a Halloween store, research popular costume ideas or upcoming scary movies. Sell products that can be used in conjunction with these trends
4. Trend Hopping
Do you remember fidget spinners circa 2016? They were absolutely everywhere for 6-8 months and then vanished as fast as they appeared. There is a lot of money to be made off of these quick booming fads.
Strike Quickly
Once you see a trend start to form, you must act rapidly to get your foot in the door. This means toning down the time you spend on branding and beautifying your store. Knock the essentials out quickly, get your store running as soon as possible and start making ads.
Know When to Cut and Run
When a trend is petering out, squeeze whatever you can out of what’s left and bail. The great thing about dropshipping is that you can shutdown for a little while, change your shop, rebrand and hop on a new trend.
Keep Your Finger on the Pulse
It’s not uncommon for trends to spawn secondary trends or copycats. Use these to your advantage by expanding your shop to catch these additional fads.
Just because you are targeting one big fad doesn’t mean you can’t also keep an eye out for others. Veteran dropshippers can setup and manage multiple stores using Topdser to help smooth out all the wrinkles. Don’t get complacent with a single trend.