What brings success over thousands of years have to be the same. Though the tools, mediums, trends, and tactics may change. In working with my own marketing department, I have experienced the ten key tips that help people make successful sales online and generate millions of dollars in sales for any product.

Though nowadays the world of e-commerce has come a very long way and competition has soared over the years.

Did your first online selling experience something you will always like to repeat? Have ever created an advert using (Facebook, Google, Twitter etc) before? Did you fancy the achievement you made in the first run?

Selling online can be daunting; my first experience was horrible. I spent so much money and time trying to promote affiliate links on social media. And even when I first started the money invested in designing and promoting it was indeed much because I was more than passionate about tapping from the huge money they said that e-commerce is bringing in to people every year.

Most people must have suffered something more than what I faced but the truth is that from what I faced I finally arrive at the point where I can say that I can successfully sell any product that fi wish to sell online.

Secret To Selling Online

To succeed in selling online, you have to understand the platform that works for you. Each product and services have a medium that it is best fitted for when it comes to selling it successfully online.

Let’s assume that you are selling video courses, the best medium for that is udemy, youtube, cosera, etc. if you are selling commodities then you will have to consider, jumia, konga, Jiji, Instagram, facebook-page Or if you have money to invest in getting a domain and hosting you can consider woocomerce, Shopify etc.

Whatever you do, you are primarily in business to make sells. Your contents, your landing page, your engagements etc should be crafted for that purpose.

Most people believe that the reason their businesses fail is that they do not have enough capital base. Like the case of my friend Kehinde who once set out to leverage online for his business. ‘’I could actually sell my goods online.“ — He said to himself. After a series of browsing and seeing how the online business is promising fortunes to those init, he concluded that he is on the right track to the turn around his business needs.

He decided he could clone an existing eCommerce platform, list his products, engage in online marketing, and cash out his millions—Just like that?

Unfortunately, Kinhinde never made as much progress as he anticipated. In fact, his returns only equalled cost he incurred setting up his online business by a shred. Frustrated and devastated about how the Nigerian eCommerce industry is “hyped”, Kehinde gave up.

Just like Kehinde, most people believe that their businesses fail because their competitors have more than them. The core reason businesses fail is because they have failed to sell the right amount of goods at the right price that will keep them in business. So, the inability to sell is the core reason behind businesses failure.

Selling online is not about being pushy and having charisma. Do you want to sell online? Then, know who your target audience is and figure out their real pain point. Sell a product or service that gives value and relieves them of their pain. So the secrete mostly newbies on online business fails to grab is that they have to communicate and sell value to their audience.

Sad enough, many Nigerians share the same plight as Kehinde. After having invested in an eCommerce website, use their last dime for subscription, done a lot of digital marketing, and spent so much on logistics, the all promising website doesn’t give the expected returns, frustration sets in. This is when giving up becomes quite understandable.

But many organisations like jumia, konga, amazon, eBay, Jiji, etc have proved that e-commerce is not a hype. But just as this saying

To methods, they may be millions and some but principles are few. So following the bellow principles one should be able to successfully sale anything online amidst his competitors.

10 principles On Selling Online

1. Know your customer (KYC)

If you have ever had an opportunity to work in a physical organization, you will observe that its when they treat you well that you will be able to treat their customer with that smiling face all the time. And when this happens the customer will always want to come back.

So in this case, if you are planning on selling anything online you must treat your customers very well and peradventure your online business starts on a multi-form such that you have an employee’s ensure that you treat them very well so that they will treat your customers very well and bring you good results.

This phenomenon is applicable everywhere where a business is named. Now you might be asking, how do my customer? It’s quite simple. When you communicate to someone you know, it will feel personal right? So, from now, when you communicate to a customer, make it personal and this is how:

Don’t complicate things with big grammar. Make the customer feel like he is communicating with his friend from the tome of your messages.

Show them that you understand their problems and have the solution at hand.

Ask questions around your offering that you are sure they will say yes to. For instance, a blogger who is struggling for traffick, you can ask something like, do you know that you can generate traffic by just registering here and submit your blog while they promote it for you and insert affiliate links to it and you will still get paid from the share on the advert? And besides, this is entirely free to join.

The guy will certainly join and from there you will make money and he will make so you have shown the guy the solution to his problem and this kind of offer is irresistible.

2. Make It Personal

What so ever you are doing to yourself, you often try to make yourself happy. So don’t make any mistake of thinking that being online is an avenue to be rude to your audience or try scam people and made away with their money.

Even though you are selling online, you are still selling to a person so maintain the human aspect of your communication. It helps increase the prospect of your audience engaging with you and your product or service.

A salvage of one person may mare you what the testimony of ten cant provide for you.

Also make sure your website, landing pages, forms, emails, and call-to-action buttons are tailored to the audience you’re trying to reach. The call to action button should come in a different colour so it stands out. Your customers will know that you have invested enough in y our business and will have more trust in you.

3. Provide Detail And Communicate Value

Customers often do plenty of reviews about a product before buying it. For instance when you go to jumia to buy something like android you will check for vital features like battery capacity, RAM, ROM, a memory carrying capacity, processor speed and some other vital things. So providing in-depth information about the product you are selling when selling online is akin to telling your customer that you have what he wants. Information like size, dimensions, colours, who the product is meant for, etc are very important

Take good pictures of the product. Often, you see people just upload a picture of their product on social media and go away. Prospects want to know exactly what they are buying. Help them decide to buy from you quickly.

Also, provide the year of manufacture if it’s important as this will make the customer know that he is not buying something that is outdated or is no longer trending.

What is the value your product is providing? Have you thought about the competition? What differentiates it from competitors? What about your prices? Are they right for the market you are selling to? When your customers understand the value of what you are offering, they will know they are receiving a good return on their hard-earned money.

4. Leverage existing platforms

If you have been to online classes about selling widely online you must have heard this if the teacher knows about it and wants to teach it out to his/her students.

This happened to me when I started selling online, having to be a Jiji fan, so I was busy posting my products on Jiji and generating little sales but when I paid for an online class, our teacher expounded how we can both sale on Jiji, konga and jumia and as well how to drive traffic to our products.

A lot of things gained I from the lessons and I documented it and as well added my own experience and it’s available for purchase.

There’s no good reason for you to start off on your own when you can easily leverage an existing platform to soar? Take chances, build, make the name, then you can break away if you wish to. By then, you are not just a merchant leveraging another platform, you are a brand yourself. People get to trust you then.

As a starter who doesn’t have such capital in setting up a separate website, spend money to include all that will be great to your users, maintaining it and so on and so forth. All you have to do is leverage an existing platform and make name for yourself.

5. Sell a wide range of products

I made a little mistake when starting out:

Forget the cliché of being known for just one thing. I mean, how will you even know what moves best if you do not give your customers variety?

Well, some will tell you to research about a niche and venture into it, I only advise people to research for few niches and if they have the capital buy the goods and try the market.

So have a wide range of products, it will really give you a better edge out there, plus, you give the impression that you are the go-to person for all your customer needs. (Some will call this jack of all trade master of none). But to tell you the fact I tried it and its working for me.

6. Be your own first customer

When starting out to sell things online, ensure that the product you are starting with is what you can use conveniently. This will urser you the opportunity to invite your friends to purchase from you and give a constructive review about the product. Remember that first impression matthers a lot, so if you ever start with a shaky product which you don’t know how quality it is, you will end up getting bad reviews from your customers and this can mare your reputation online.

Jack Ma, the founder of Alibaba. At a conference in Asia, he mentioned that

‘’when he set out to start selling online, he (and his friends) had to practically buy everything people listed to sell on the platform (Alibaba.com)’’.

So a lesson to draw from this is, patronise yourself, possibly, allow your close friends, families, relatives to buy on whatever online platform you are leveraging. However, for credibility, they should give candid reviews.

7. Reinvest in the business continually

At the start, your business money is partially not your money. The money is owned by what you own. So you have to reinvest the money until the business will be mature enough to take care of you without dying. Otherwise, if you doubt just squander the money and see the business collapse. You invest the money back into the business, you make the business grow. It’s not easy, but it worth it.

8. Have a physical address

Starting your store online is not a gurantee that you wont have a physical store. This will help you to gain more trust from your clients as llong as what you are selling online is not only digital products.

This is all about location. You can open a rent your shop at any place and make sure that people will find you if they ever come they to make an enquiry. For instance, depending on your capital you can rent store at markets, shopping malls, galleries, and any other place people gather. Just make sure you’re set up in an area that is clearly visible and where your target market will be wandering.

9. Secret 5: Promote your store

To upload your products online either in your own blog or another listning website is not enough to bring in traffic and sales. You still need to attract people to your store and convince them to take the step towardsmaking a purchase.

Take yourself as a buyer and make your listing look the way you will loke it then as your friends to help check it out.

Search on Google for something your customers are looking for.

Also asking for advice on a forum or from other people on social networks like Twitter or Facebook or whatsapp sometimes brings help.

Seek recommendations or reviews from other websites or social media.

You will need to invest a considerable amount of time and energy each week to promote yourself. Try writing relevant articles or blog posts on your site, or finding guest posting opportunities on other websites that your prospective customers will visit. Get other people to review your products on their website.

If you have your goods on a listening website that offers affiliate marketing ask people to recommend your product as they share their affiliate links.

10. Build An Email List

Being able to communicate offers to your customers is very important. With an email list of your old customers, you can be able to communicate future offers to targeted clients and as well new ones who just signed up to your email list. This is where an email list comes in handy. Include an email subscription button on your website.

This can be quite possible if you have your own website.

When people make enquiries through DM, ask them nicely for their email so you could send them promos and offers that will benefit them.

For instance, before you can make a purchase at Worldtok.com/shop you must sign in and we will be able to document your email and communicate with you properly, this is also the case with other e-commerce platforms like Jumia, Konga, Jiji, amazon, etc.

The truth is that, if you are offering value, the email list will grow as people will tell friends, colleagues and family about you.

You don’t need to be a genius to learn how to sell online, you just need to study people who are good at it or come talk to us at worldtok.com