This article examines the characteristics of a successful eshop and the main points that one should pay attention to in order to build an eshop that brings sales.
If we could fit in one article all the points that one should pay attention to in order to create a successful eshop, or list would contain neither more nor less about the 300 or so points (which we at least include when building an eshop) which, indirectly or directly contribute to its success.
But what does “successful eshop” mean?
Listen to the podcast
The ingredients of a successful eshop part AThe ingredients of a successful eshop part B
What does “successful eshop” mean?
A successful e-shop
It grabs the visitor’s interest from the first page
Facilitates the visitor in the search for products
It gives all the information the visitor needs to evaluate the products
It uses mechanisms that make the visitor increase the volume of his purchases
It makes the visitor feel safe to make purchases, converting them from a visitor to a customer
It makes the purchase process easy and fast
It has mechanisms and incentivizes the visitor to leave their details even if they do not make purchases
It gives impeccable service before and after the sale
How do we achieve all this? Well, with the … 300 points that we have to pay attention to.
But since I’m sure that even if I gave you 300 points, it would be difficult for you to read them and even more difficult for you to retain them, let’s look at the most basic of them.
Gain interest
To gain the visitor’s interest, your eshop should
Have something for everyone
To gain the visitor’s interest, your eshop should be made for all kinds of visitors.
Not all visitors to an eshop are looking for the same things. An eshop visitor can be a past visitor, a bargain hunter or a picky customer.
The old visitor needs to find new products and browsing history. For the discount hunter to see a discount on some products or a points mechanism that he can redeem and for the selective customer to find best sellers or limited editions, so we should integrate all of these into our content.
To be Mobile first
Not just mobile friendly but mobile first, i.e. it should be built in such a way as to primarily facilitate visitors who will visit it via a mobile device. Why; But why about 80% of visitors to all sites visit them from their mobile phone and 40-60% buy from their mobile phone.
Be quick
Fast: 3” or faster is perfect, up to 5” good and up to 7” marginally acceptable.
To have fantastic photos and more
If there was one parameter (beyond technical perfection) that we should emphasize, it is visuals in general and photographs in particular. Why; But because the eye sees, imagines, dreams and “buys” before the mind.
And how many photos should I put?
If you sell sunscreen, one photo is probably enough, but if you sell shoes, you should have 3-5 photos to cover the product from every possible angle.
The photography is divided into two parts, in the product photography, the photo you will see on the product page, that is, and in the marketing photography, the photos that someone will see before reaching the product page, which will create “atmosphere” and open the visitor’s appetite to buy the product.
If you want to go the extra step, you can also have a mini video of 4-5 seconds so that the customer can visualize how the product will look on him/her.
Another extra step is the virtual try-on. Do you sell lip gloss? Give the customer the opportunity to see what it will look like wearing the particular color with a virtual try-on mechanism.
Make it easier for the visitor to search for products
To make it easier for the visitor to search for products, your eshop must have smart mechanisms.
Let’s look at some examples
Smart filters: If we sell shoes, show the colors or sizes that are out of stock so that no one is looking for their size.
Smart search: you start typing something and it automatically gives you the results (like Google in search)
Browsing history: the visitor enters the eshop and what could be nicer and more effective than being able to see the products he had seen on his previous visit. Why; Because he’s interested in them, so you make it easier for him to buy them.
Inspire confidence
It is very important that your eshop inspires trust. What does this mean and how do we achieve it? With simple and not so simple moves:
It should not have errors
It should not have misspellings
It should not have pages that do not load
It should have customer reviews
It should mention the history of the company
It should have clear contact details
It should have details of cooperating entities (banks, credit card operators, ..)
And if there is a physical presence, emphasize it, it is another advantage
Make it easy for them to buy
I “hear” you already wondering: “well, there are eshops that make shopping difficult”?
You will find the answer if you do a simple “market research” among your acquaintances. If you have not found yourself in an eshop that has such a complicated shopping cart mechanism that discourages (!!!) shopping, you are in luck.
Of course, it makes no sense to talk about one page checkout because it is now self-evident, since the majority of visits and a large part of the purchases will be made from mobile devices, so the ordering process should be done on one page.
Also, no matter how unnecessary it may seem to you, explain the order-execution process, the charges, the product/money return policy and DO NOT ask the customer for too much or irrelevant information.
All of these will make your visitor feel comfortable shopping.
And we come to the mechanisms that prompt the purchases:
Sense of urgency: You will surely have come across at least one of the following techniques: you enter well-known room rental platforms and see that at the moment the specific accommodation or the specific room is being viewed by five others. Or you see, in product eshops, that there is not much availability, 1, 2, or 3 pieces are left. Or a message comes out that says if you give me your order within the next ΄x΄ minutes the delivery will be made within the next day.
All of these techniques want to create a sense of urgency so that, if the visitor thinks about it somehow, they will make the purchase move immediately.
Out of stock notifications. If someone really wants something but it’s out of stock? Here is the notification mechanism: the visitor gives (without leaving the product page) his details and receives a notification when the product is available again.
Up-selling and cross-selling mechanisms: these are the well-known ones that Amazon taught us many years ago. “those who bought this product also got these” or “put another 20 euros in your cart and you will have free shipping”.
Possibility of re-ordering: once a month I order litter and food for my cat. I enter a certain e-shop, I find the oldest order in the order history and I can re-order with just one click!
Reviews: they are EXTREMELY important because they eliminate potential misgivings the customer may have. I remember, when I bought a camera for quite a deep sea 40-50 meters, I bought it from a site that had reviews of people who did diving, and it was more expensive.
… and to buy again
To make your customers come back you should give them incentives for repeated visits and purchases such as discounts, offers, loyalty programs or even some free services or more generally added value content through newsletters, social media posts and advertising.
The most important “ingredient”
I left for the end the most important component for the success of the eshop, which is not directly related to the construction of the eshop.
The success of the e-shop begins with the choices made by the owner of the e-shop before even building it.
For an eshop to be successful, a proper marketing plan must first be made, which means market research to find the market segment to which we will address (because it is profitable, because it does not have strong competition, because there we will have a comparative advantage, .. ), choosing / creating the products we will sell, building our brand to be different from the competition, and pricing policy and practices we will implement.
AFTER we have done all of the above, we build our eshop (distribution channel) in such a way that it emphasizes and strengthens our brand and, of course, we advertise.
Does our eshop have enough range and depth of products? does it have unique products? is it competitively priced? or if he doesn’t want to have competitive prices because he sells luxury, has he built his image so that he can sell at high prices?
All these questions and decisions will be answered with the creation of the marketing plan that must be done so that your eshop has a solid foundation for success.
After first printing 17,000 bags with a typo, ‘onilne’ instead of ‘online’, fashion brand Asos rushed to collect them, and it did just fine.
The company immediately made a post on Twitter, where it poked fun, saying: “We may have just printed 17,000 wrap bags with a spelling mistake. We call it Limited edition”.
Her immediate, human and humorous reaction, where she bluntly took responsibility, came before users could even comment. The latter were quick to deify her, praising her for not throwing away the bags, with the company managing to turn a blunder into a publicity event worth thousands of dollars.
In total the tweet received 590 comments, 8500 shares and 49,000 likes. One user even wrote: “Now I love you even more and I’m dying to get a bag like this.” This incident is taught in seminars as an excellent example of real-time marketing.
Η Just Online, 3600 digital agency, organizes the conference: The Future of Successful Eshops which will be held on Wednesday, October 19 at Mediterranean College, Kodrigtonos 13, Athens (or online in case there are travel restrictions due to Covid).
The main goal of the workshop is to answer the question “how to build an eshop that will bring sales”.
The speakers Arsenis Paschopoulos and Areti Vassou will develop the following key issues.
Topics
The definition of a successful eshop
Sales and eshop: what affects them and how we increase them
The tools for creating a successful eshop
The content of a successful eshop at the product level and beyond
Branding: why it is important for the success of an eshop
How to do online & offline branding for an eshop
Marketplaces: “to put it or not to put it”?
Metaverse: what changes will it bring to the way of communication and approach to the consumer.
Target Audience
For eshop owners who want to improve the image and performance of their online business
For entrepreneurs who are thinking of creating an effective and efficient eshop and want to give appropriate instructions to their partners and also to successfully supervise the process of creating the eshop
To marketing people who are directly or indirectly involved with the operation and success of an eshop
Speakers
Arsenis Paschopoulos
Arsenis Paschopoulos is one of the first internet marketers in Greece, with activity starting in 1996. He is Managing Partner at the internet service company Just Online.
He is the author of the books “Fortunately I was fired” (2021), “Social Media Marketing“, 2010, “Electronic Commerce” (3rd edition 2007). For 4 years he was training manager for banking online payment systems at First Data. He has worked in the marketing departments of Shell, Johnson & Johnson, Fiat, Boston University, D. Angelopoulos Group.
One of the first (1996) to create E-Commerce seminars for small and medium-sized businesses and conducted a series of e-commerce seminars for ESEE. He has teaching experience since 1996. He teaches digital marketing at Mediterranean College. For 4 years he was responsible for promotion and training of small and medium-sized enterprises in e-commerce matters at ASDA (Development Association of Western Athens). He is a graduate of Deree College with a master’s degree from Boston University.
When he’s not over the keyboard, he’s cooking, traveling or scuba diving.
Areti Vassou
Areti Vassou is Digital Strategy Director of IDEADECO SEO Copywriting Agency and Founder of Greek Online Content Creators Association – GOCCA. Implements business ideas through SEO, Copywriting, Blogging, Branding, Social Media and Email Marketing. As a Digital Nomad along with her laptop she has traveled to 191 countries, has published books and has taken part as a Speaker at many Conferences. She loves music, cats, great food, books and painting.
Learner feedback
Elsa Soimoiri – Facebook Marketing Seminar
In Mr. Paschopoulos’ Facebook Marketing seminar, we learned a lot more than some of the experts we looked to for social media marketing services seemed to know.
Andreas Ziambakas – Google Adwords Seminar
I have participated in other Internet Marketing seminars and I found this one to be the most informative of all, as the speaker not only referred to the tools, but followed a step-by-step instruction for setting up a fully integrated campaign, thus fully understanding all the parameters who carry out a campaign, in practice, thus eliminating any question that was pending from the previous, more theoretical seminars.
Michalis I. Tzikas, Managing director, Tzikas Advertising
The seminar “Advertising on the Internet with a small budget” is the 3rd seminar of Mr. Arsenis Paschopoulos that I attended. Excellently qualified in the field of advertising, e-commerce and new media, with a directness and simplicity that makes the student easily and quickly assimilate what he has to say and with an important written work on the specific topics, Mr. Paschopoulos is a very useful helper and advisor for my business and me. I personally wish Mr. Paschopoulos and his entire team to continue the important work they are doing, especially in this period of crisis, where valid and correct information is the best weapon for the businessman.
Katerina Danou – E-tourism Seminar
Thank you very much for the opportunity you gave me to attend the seminar. It was a unique experience – high level – timely – prompt – perfectly organized. I have also attended other similar seminars which were clearly of a lower level and at the end you had a chaotic picture of options and solutions. I will be very happy to watch what you organize in the future. Mr Paschopoulos was excellent – direct – concise – focused and humorous!
Mata Marinidou, General & Creative Director at Two Yellow Feet advertising
Arsenis, as a speaker & author, has a lot to offer; With a variety of skills and knowledge and with exceptional professionalism, he provides his audience with insights on a large subject area concerning the web. I would recommend anyone to attend his seminars.
Anna Kotzia – E-shop & site construction seminar
Very interesting and very useful. I learned quite a few things I didn’t know. If I make a site it will definitely be of use to me.
Mina Gioni- Google Adwords + SEO + Social Media Advertising
The seminar ‘Google Adwords + SEO + Social Media Advertising’ by Mr. Arsenis Paschopoulos fully met my expectations! The coverage of the topic was detailed, complete and above all essential.
