Successful in e-commerce - tips and tricks for a successful online store

You want to get started in e-commerce, but don't know exactly how? Or maybe you've already started, but you're not making any progress? Then you've come to the right place. We have ten helpful tips for you that will make your e-commerce project a complete success. We at EXWE are happy to support you as an e-commerce agency. The creation of individual online stores & e-commerce support including optimization and SEO - are part of our daily business and help you to increase the sales of your online store with maximum performance. In addition, our team has years of expertise in the development of Shopware stores and plugins.

1. A sophisticated business plan
2. Analysis of potential competitors
3. Focus on uniqueness
4. Networking and learning from professionals
5. A high quality online shop
6. Choose the right software for your online store
7. Get help
8. Become visible
9. Do not give up
10. Set measurable goals

A sophisticated business plan

Before you get started in e-commerce, your first step should be to create a business plan. This will not only help you formulate your goals, but also identify any gaps in your plan. You will discover which areas still need work and how you can prepare yourself even better. Maybe you already realize at this point that your idea is not as good as you originally thought. But that's not a bad thing! After all, you are still at the beginning and can adjust your idea to make it better. Often, however, small changes are enough to give the idea the final polish.

If you have already entered the e-commerce industry, you should not neglect this tip. Even in retrospect, you can uncover mistakes and notice the areas that still need to be developed further. Maybe these are the very points that have prevented you from making it online.

Analysis of potential competitors

If you have a business plan in mind, you should check if there are any competitors in this field. You will probably find that this is the case. As a rule, almost every product has been sold online. However, this does not mean that you should not try it anyway. For that, it's important that you get to know your competition so that you can simply do better than them.

Put yourself in the position of the buyer and find out what you like and don't like in the competition's online stores. If you find it difficult, you can also ask people you know. What features do they like and what do they think is missing? You should definitely take these points into consideration for your e-commerce business. This will help you stand out from the competition and be better. The point is to get inspiration from your competitors. Of course, you should not copy them.

Focus on uniqueness

This tip is closely related to the previous point. As we explained there, it is important not to copy the competition one-to-one. Apart from the fact that this is not legally possible in some aspects, it is also not the recipe for success for your business. You should rather take the good aspects of the competition, make them better and work out your own unique selling proposition. You can then use these features in your own marketing to show your customers why your product is the best choice and what makes it special. Show that your product is only available from you and why it is the best the way it is.

Network and learn from the pros

For your success in e-commerce, it is important to connect with like-minded people and learn from their mistakes. The people who are already or have been successful in e-commerce usually have the best tips, advice and information for you. Be inquisitive and always ready to learn. Because in e-commerce, there will be constant innovations and trends that can affect your online business and perhaps make it even better.

A high quality online shop

Your success in e-commerce starts with a professional online store creation. After all, you want to sell your products. And this is only possible if your customers feel comfortable in your online store and find their way around. I'm sure you agree with us that there is less trust in merchants who sell on a website from 2002? A decent website is definitely the be-all and end-all.

If you don't know how to create an online store yourself, that's not a problem. Meanwhile there are professionals for all tasks, who take over things that are not in your own field of expertise. We at EXWE, for example, have specialized in online store creation in e-commerce. So if you need help with your professional online store, just contact us and we will bring your store to a new level.

Choosing the right software for your online store

Not only the look of the online store should be professional. Also for easy administration, maintenance and editing of the online store you should choose a high quality system. For example, we work with the Shopware software system. It not only facilitates the creation and management of the online store, but can easily be supplemented with additional functionalities. These functionalities can be added with the help of plugins from the Shopware Store. The store already contains 3,500 plugins. If individual functions are still missing, we can also create your own plugin. This is then tailored exactly to your wishes!

In general, you should make sure that the software of your choice can still be managed in a few years. Even if your online store grows and you suddenly have to manage several hundred or even thousand products. The e-commerce store should be able to grow with you. With a system like Shopware you should have no problems. Since Shopware regularly releases new updates and new versions, your online store will always be up to date.

Get help

Just because you now own an ecommerce business doesn't mean you have to do everything on your own and not get help. For some topics, it's just smarter to bring experts on board. The experts know what they're doing, have years of experience, and get the tasks done much faster and probably better than you do. It is then much more worthwhile for you to put your time into topics that you are comfortable with. Just always look at how efficiently you are working and if it doesn't pay off to have someone else do the task.

Be visible

Visibility is essential to your success in e-commerce. You need to show yourself to your customers and get them excited about your product. You can achieve this with marketing measures in the social networks or in Google search. For social media, you can place ads to promote your products. This option is also available for Google search. Of course, you can also try to achieve attention without advertising through a good content strategy. However, this is very time-consuming.

But once you are visible for your customers, you should also bind them to you. A satisfied customer may not only visit your store once, but several times. To build a customer base and make the customer journey as pleasant as possible, there are a few tools. One of them is HubSpot. There you can manage all activities of your customers, if you connect the tool with your Shopware online store. All you need is the appropriate HubSpot plugin and you can define your target groups and retain your customers.

Don't give up

Don't give up and have great stamina are tips you've probably come across many times. Maybe you can't even hear them anymore. But most success stories are based on perseverance. Unfortunately, the well-known overnight success is simply the exception. In most other businesses, the way to success is to not give up, to try new ways if the old way leads nowhere, and to not let yourself get frustrated. Every single task you accomplish in your ecommerce business is a step in the right direction. It helps immensely not to measure your success in one day, but to look at larger periods of time. What can you do today to achieve a measurable goal a year from now?

Set measurable goals

If you want to answer the question of what you can do today to be able to achieve a certain goal, you need to know how to set measurable goals. And that's not so easy. You always have to be realistic when setting goals. What is even possible in a year? How many hours a day can I work effectively and how long will it take me to complete a task? If you don't know what is realistic for your business at first, it doesn't matter. With time, you will realize which tasks require which effort and how you can best manage your time.

Once you've figured this out, it's important to keep your goals measurable. What does that mean? For example, you don't set yourself the goal of selling your product many times, but rather a concrete sales figure. This would be, for example, the sale of 1000 products within a year.

This will help you to determine whether the goal has been reached or not. Hopefully, these tips have provided you with new approaches to making your e-commerce business more successful. If you have any questions about the individual points or would like personal advice and help for your e-commerce or your Shopware store, then we are happy to be your contact. Just contact us via our form or give us a call - our team is looking forward to it!