Three Online Retail Tips to Get that First Sale

For a startup online entrepreneur, getting that first sale is a significant milestone that deserves a celebration. This underscores how difficult it can be for an online retailer to seal a deal. It can take time, lots of hard work, and at times luck to get that first real customer.

But it’s completely doable to get a sale in the first 30 days of an online business. It’s especially achievable if online entrepreneurs keep in mind the following pointers:

Online retail tip 1: Tapping into personal networks

This is arguably the easiest for most entrepreneurs. In fact, majority of the established online retailers today got their first few sales from their friends, family members, and colleagues. There’s really nothing embarassing with that. Sharing online store on social media networks like Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram is an acceptable act for any budding online retailer.

Emailing close connections will also help. Online retailers should consider asking their pals, relatives, old colleagues and neighbors to donate a share and not necessarily buy from them.

Online retail tip 2: Joining online communities

Most of the time, promoting an online store in the right place can generate connections and potential customers. Posting on online communities like Reddit and joining Facebook Groups are some of the best ways to advertise an online store in the right place.

There are also numerous online communities catering to a particular niche that online businessmen should explore joining. After building up reputation and creating connections, ecommerce merchants can start sharing a link to their stores and even offering discount codes.

 Online retail tip 3: Tapping bloggers

Bloggers are always on the lookout for fresh stories to tell. The challenge for e-commerce retailers is to pitch a story to these bloggers. The story should not only focus on a store or a product being offered by the online entrepreneur; it should also be interesting enough for the blogger’s target audience.  By following this tip, online retailers can get free publicity on their stores and this can improve their traffic and sales in the process.