What is cart abandonment?

The definition of an abandoned shopping cart should not cause any difficulties to anyone. The customer reviews the offer, selects the products, sets them up, adds them to the basket and … leaves the store instead of completing the transaction. An abandoned shopping cart is not only unsold hundreds of articles, but also a wasted marketing budget. Overall you not only invest in the products but in marketing campaigns:

• Positioning and Google Ads,
• Cooperation with bloggers and your blog,
• Facebook page.

Above expenses were supposed to boost your sales. Your sales are determined not only by customers decision but also by various steps that led a customer to your offer. That’s why you can not afford to ignore unfinished orders! In order to effectively minimize this process, you need to know where the abandoned baskets are coming from and to what you should pay attention to when searching for the cause of this occurrence.

Where do abandoned carts come from?

The reasons for abandoned baskets can be noticed at every stage of the shopping process. Although the unfinalized transaction may be the result of many inconveniences noticed by the client, they can be generalized to an overly complicated, unclear and purchasing process that takes too much time.

Reasons for abandoned carts happening because of the software:

• Too many steps in the shopping process.
• The need to register on the site before buying.
• Inability to find a field for a rebate code and convenient rebate conversion.
• No purchase summary- which the customer will check the product parameters selected earlier.

The Offerer shopping cart is characterized by the maximum simplification that consumers appreciate.

Reasons for abandoned shopping carts related to your offer:

• No preferred form of delivery.
• Too expensive shipping of goods or hidden costs.
• Inability to pay in a previously chosen way, eg by credit card.
• An incomplete assortment that prevents you from using cross-selling and the customer to buy complementary products.

How to analyze abandoned carts?

Before you start making any conclusions about the possibility of improving the purchasing process, you must take into account the fact that many buyers came to you with the intention of looking at the goods, checking whether the discount coupon work and not necessarily make an order at this moment.

In the analysis of abandoned baskets, individual behaviors should not be taken into account. Only reproducible data will allow us to draw accurate conclusions.

All important data has been included in the abandoned shopping cart tool located in the marketing tab in the store’s admin panel.

1.  The duration of the session

It can be concluded that people whose sessions on the website of the online store were very short-lived, only wanted to check the price or availability of articles and were not about to finalize the transaction. That’s why your observations should focus on customers who have spent a while checking your offer.

2.  The degree of complexity of the purchasing process

Information about the visited subpages by the customer cannot be ignored. Based on this information, you can conclude, for example, about the unclear form of division of goods. Complicated shopping process can be a sign of a reason for not purchased products.

3.  Place of abandoning the basket

The moment of abandonment of basket by customers will indicate what is inconvenient in the purchasing process. The customer leaves the shopping cart in the ordering stage? Perhaps he does not have his preferred forms of payment and delivery. Leaving the store after going through several subpages? Maybe customer did not find the products he was interested in.

4.  Traffic source

Thanks to the visibility of the traffic source, you can examine the effectiveness of your advertising campaign. On the basis of the websites displayed on the right side, you will check the conversion from various traffic sources. Perhaps one of the forms will turn out to be significantly more effective than others?

How to reduce the number of abandoned carts

The data shown in the abandoned shopping carts tool should be divided into two categories:

• Registered customers – email addresses left will help you recover an abandoned shopping cart. It’s good to use remarketing techniques that will remind your clients about unfinished shopping will be a perfect solution.
• New customers and not registered – due to the lack of email addresses you will not able to perform remarketing. This does not mean that the information obtained is useless. On the contrary! Although each of the stores should be considered individually, there are certain rules that are a guide to improving the purchasing process.

 What does it might mean when the cart is being abandoned in the final stage of purchasing?

• Invalid rebate code or difficulty to find the field section for the code.
• Using cart as a wish list.
• Too high prices that the customer did not expect.

The Offerer basket structure avoids the above-mentioned reasons for the cancellation of the purchase.

The reason for cart abandonment in the ordering process

• Too high delivery cost.
• Lack of a convenient form of delivery and payment.
• The need to fill too many fields.
• The requirement to set up an account before finalizing the transaction.
• No shipping to abroad.

Lack of preferred payment and delivery methods is one of the most common reasons for shopping cart abandoned

 

Reasons for returning back to the shopping after abandoning basket?

• The unintuitive way of navigating the website and inability to find certain products
• Lack of goods.
• Unattractive prices.

Carefully examine and track the movements of potential clients on your website. This is a great way to know their needs- especially regarding the form of payment and delivery. Make your shopping cart intuitive, user-friendly and simple (remember to ask the smallest possible amount of data according to the GDPR regulations). Also, think to prepare a ‘Wish List’ option in your online store. The desire to save products for later is one of the frequent ways of non-standard use of the cart by customers. Providing the dedicated function will allow you to eliminate a large part of the abandoned carts.

Abandoned baskets in the online store

For sure you have visited many online stores, choose products and put it the basket and eventually, you left this store by not placing the order. An unexpected phone call, a long queue, a high price – these are just some of the reasons for resigning from the shopping. The rules appearing in the e-commerce market do not differ from the models learned in stationary trading.

Although the e-commerce market gives bigger opportunities than stationery shops. At the same time, this does not mean that we have to look at the growing number of abandoned baskets with folded hands. Hence, you have the possibility to track the whole shopping process. The knowledge gained from the abandoning carts will help you in the finding of the inconvenience and optimization of the purchasing process.

Do not forget that e-merchandising or an effective presentation of products in the online store will allow you to provide the customer with all the information and encourage them to buy!

How to open a first online store?

1. Do market research

You have certainly noticed that there are more and more online stores on the market, so to achieve desirable success, you have to take actions that will help you stand out from the rest. First, focus on the competition, you can take several factors into the consideration: price, store design, product presentation, promotions and marketing.

2. Name your store and buy domain

After making a decision about the industry, it’s time to choose the name for your online store. The name is a very significant aspect it should refer to the type of business and products you offer. Remember it should be catchy so clients could easily recall your brand in the future.

Have you already chosen a logo for your brand? If so, now it’s a time to buy the domain. Don’t hesitate with this step as there are a number of people who looking to buy a domain and can overtake your name. Make sure the internet address will have the same name as your store name.

3. Choose the best e-commerce software and open an online store

Choosing an effective software will determine the success of your first online store, so take a moment to do careful research and choose the best solution. The market is full of e-commerce platforms on which you can create your online store. Most of the platforms have a free trial period and access to the admin panel. This will help you to check the solution before purchasing it.

The Offerer software you can try for 14 days for free without any obligations

Why Offerer software? First of all, the admin panel is extremely simple and intuitive to use, if you are not a programmer it’s great solution for you. In addition, there is a hint system that will help with the navigation through the platform.

When choosing a proper software, be sure to choose the one that will enable you to integrate with various systems such as payment gateways, couriers, warehouses etc. This will make much easier for you to manage your online store.

4. Create an attractive graphic design

Graphics is very often a deal breaker. Make sure your website is user-friendly and transparent. Take a chance and implement unique and special ideas. Remember about all graphics elements: colors, menus, access to promotions, leading products should look desirable for clients so it will convince them to purchase.

If you are not sure about your design skills, you can always rely on professionals. You can order individual graphic design or use the store template creator available in the subscription price. This will allow in a simple way to manage your first online store.

5. Add statistics system

While considering the constant development of your online store remember to add a tool that will allow accessing to the most crucial statistics about your website traffic. A free and very popular option is Google Analytics, this tool allows to determine which online campaigns bring the biggest traffic and conversation, the worse performing pages, what people click on the most, what people search on your website, visitors location, abandoned carts.

6. Prepare “about us” page

One of the most crucial factors is preparing a good about us page.
About us page usually includes information about your company but also possibilities that you offer for example the type and cost of delivery, accepted payment methods, returns, complaints policy. This type of information is very important to show on your website, it gives transparency to the clients, which builds trust. Your website should include Terms and Conditions and Private Policy ( preparation of those documents should be overlooked by law professionals).

7. Enter products and choose unique descriptions

After fulfilling the above steps you can start your sale at any moment, hence focus on this two steps:

• You can add the goods manually by configuring them in anyway.
• Integration with wholesalers: with a few clicks you can add products database to your online store. Thanks to this function, within 10-15 minutes, more than ten thousands of items can appear in your online store. 

A very important factor to focus on is a product description. Avoid Double Content and do not copy descriptions directly from the producers. The first content is valuable and copied one will be considered by Google as useless. If you want to take good care of your store’s SEO, beware of duplicating text.

8. Make a few tests of your online store

Before launching your website, make a few tests to be sure that it works correctly.
To ensure that it is perfectly adjusted, check:

• Prepare tests of store operations, which eliminate the occurrence of possible technical errors (e.g the appearance of blank pages);
• Usability testing– examine whether the store is intuitive enough;
• Browser compatibility testing– responsiveness – with Offerer, all available templates are adapted to mobile devices.

9. Promote your brand

Your online store with rich graphics and content works without the smallest complaint? Great, but still not enough to exist on the market. Successful Promotion Campaigns in the online world can be introduced as advertisements or good and effective SEO. One of the most serious and worth considering is Google AdWords ( Google Ads)– sponsored links and so-called Adsense, which consist in matching the content of ads to the content of the page currently being viewed. In this case, the cost will accrue based on the number of clicks.

The most effective “natural” and long-term method to promote the online store is positioning. What is referred to as positioning? In this way, we determine the process of systematically growing in the ranking of search results by key phrases at Google.

Summary

We hope that this article will help you to start your own online store. Remember to start from market research, name your store and buy the domain. Next chose e-commerce software, that will meet your expectations. Also, pay attention to your shop design. If you are not sure about your design skills, you can always count on professionals- order individual projects. While adding products use unique descriptions, and lastly promote your store.

How to make money blogging?

The time has passed, when the blogs were run only for passion. Today professionals and amateurs are working on the highest content quality to reach customers expectations in order to their business growth. As a result, the interest in how to make money on blogging is huge. Here are couple factors to focus on:

• sponsored articles (using various platforms i.e WhitePress),
• affiliate network (income from the sold products),
• barter network,
• ads from the Google AdSense program,
• offers presented in social media,
• sale in your own online store.

What do bloggers sell?

It’s no secret that the influencers often earn on selling:

• gadgets,
• clothing lines,
• online courses,
• books,
• and often on commissions for items bought by customers redirected to the store from their social media.

Increasing profit with blogging doesn’t have to be based on your own brand or focusing on the existing company. Authors in various areas and subjects are experts in their field, nothing prevents their content from becoming the basis for marketing their own online store. Guides, tips, article tests and comparisons are desirable content by internet users.

Bloggers that has become known as reliable photographers or food experts, gain higher trust than the competition. This gives access to a large group of potential buyers even before opening your online shop.

 

Why it’s beneficial to start your online shop from Blog?

Although starting an online shop from a blog is not a standard procedure, but worth considering. Imagine that as the owner of a cosmetics blog, you give your readers reliable tests of products of selected brands, write about the ways of caring for particular skin type, and also inform about industry novelties. As a skilled blogger that opens an online store, you gain:

• You have extensive industry knowledge, thanks to which you gain new readers, and therefore potential buyers.
• You can easily write descriptions of products that contain reliable information asked by customers.
• You have a valuable content base that attracts to your website – including those entering from the search engine.
• It minimizes marketing costs associated with building the brand image.
• You already work in social media, and also have groups on Facebook.

In fact, you already have quite a good marketing base that will boost your sale. What’s more, the ‘know-how’ will enable you to choose the right assortment and anticipate trends for the sales season.

How to promote the product in the online shop?

The vast majority of online stores are focusing on selling recurrent products that consumer already know. The introduction of a new product might cause mixed feelings. Firstly, they are not familiar with the product, and secondly, there are no recommendations. As a result, instead of an expected sales boom,  we can note a drop in sales or even a lack of it!

If you think to introduce a new product to your online shop, especially for a long-term, it should be a well through-out strategy, and focusing on running a marketing strategy by using various communication channels. Make customers want your new product even before it appears in your store, and remember about the promotion. Hence, lowering the price of the product will attract more buyers, and introducing products that are trendy on the market will show high professionalism.

1. Sale new products in the online store

Pre-order is the most popular way to sell new products in the online shop. But what does it mean?  It can be described as an available possibility to purchase a product before is launched for official sale. The customer makes an order and make payment several days or even weeks before its production, and receives it on the first day of sale for a wide range of consumers. Introducing a pre-sale has very positive effects. It gives the feeling of the exclusiveness, therefore the chance that the client will return in the future increases.

What to do to make the pre-sale effective?

• Apply promotion! Everywhere you have highlighted pre-order option, put a clear information regarding the discount price.

A very good catch on customers is to give the exact amount of price reduction. However, with small discounts, it is worth using the percentage rate. It’s more attractive to use a 5% discount rather 5 euros in relation to 100 euros.

• Communicate very clearly, that the introduced offer is a pre-sale option and the attractive pricing will disappear after the product will be placed in the shop.
• Explain that the number of available pre-orders is limited. The introduced limit will increase call-to-action and will stop customers from postponing their purchase.

2. Display new products on the homepage

The homepage is a business card of the online store, and it gives the first impression to the clients about the brand. Remember to include information about the most important promotions as well as new products. When displaying new products consider to include:

•  slider,
•  pop-up windows,
•  fixed elements at the bottom, top or side of the page, for a certain period,
• add section ‘the latest added products’.

During the presentation of the selected product, focus on the distinctive graphics that will attract attention, and provide any additional technical data in the form of a transparent infographic.

3. Run a Social Media Contest

Use new products as an award in the contest, this will give the opportunity to increase their visibility. It will certainly increase the need for purchasing, and people that have not been able to win will decide to buy a product in the future. An additional advantage of the competitions is the involvement of the participants. The necessity to follow a few simple steps translates into spreading the posts, and hence the number of potential buyers increases.

4. Write blog posts about the new products

Another way to promote the new assortment is to include it in the blog posts. Information on the specification and detailed description will increase customer awareness. What’s more importantly, you can add a CTA button, which directly redirects the reader to the offer with a pre-order.

Another very significant idea is to start cooperation with bloggers. The online store may pass the product for testing based on the exchange program. Depending on the adopted strategy, you can ask the influencer to redirect its recipients to the pre-order offer after posting it in a post. Only those who have their own proprietary assortment that is not dependent on an external company and its sales plan will have the freedom to make arrangements.

5. The newsletter will help you reach existing customers

When promoting new products, it is worth using existing customers. This is a wide group that has already trusted your brand. Perhaps they have already subscribed to the newsletter and shared their data on shopping preferences. Thanks to this you will be able to reach them with the most personalized offer. If you want to create an email campaign and will increase sales, remember that the content must be attractive.

Create something that will attract clients. For example, you can send to your customer’s database an email with a special discount on a new product. Even 5 or 10% can make them feel special. In the end, only regular customers can count on the mentioned discount.

Introduce a new product and don’t worry about the sale

If you want to introduce a new product to the store, but you are worried about the demand and interest of customers, you should check the market first. A great way to check if the new assortment you want to sell will be popular is dropshipping. This is a logistic model, in which the goods are sent directly from the warehouse to the customer, and does not require purchasing goods upfront. Therefore, it offers a wide range of possibilities for testing new products.

• Dropshipping enables you to run an online store without inventory.
• Automatic integration with wholesalers allows you to save time and money but also gives the possibility to boost your sales with a wide range of products.

How does dropshipping work?

The characteristic feature of dropshipping is that you do not need to own goods to sell them. Thus, you eliminate the costs of renting storage space. This opens the possibility for you of setting up a company with a low financial contribution and a small risk of entering the market. Sending the purchased goods directly from the warehouse to the customer means that you save time and money spent on packaging products and delivery process. Hence, your main task is to focus on providing effective advertising, which will guarantee a large number of orders.

Dropshipping works in a very simple way. The order placed by the customer in the online store goes to the store’s administration panel, from where it’s being sent to the warehouse. The wholesaler on behalf of the shop owner sends a package to the customer. As a result, commercial relationships occur only between the online store and the customer as well as between merchant and wholesaler. Therefore, all claims regarding the purchased goods are directed to the online store.

 How to start dropshipping?

The first step in starting an online store in any logistics model is to determine the products you want to sell. In the case of dropshipping, the possibilities are endless. However, when choosing the industry in which you want to start to operate, you should pay attention to the following issues:

• the size of the products sold,
• the number of potential returns from the customer.

Why those factors are important if the shipment of the goods is on the wholesale side? Although you are not the one who sends the product directly to the buyer, you have to remember the fact that you are the one who is dealing with the storing all returns. It might happen that some of the wholesalers will agree to receive returns directly to their warehouse, but it’s never a rule. Deciding for the dropshipping model you certainly have not prepared yourself with big warehouse space.

Dropshipping of garden pools can be a profitable business, but it will require a space for storing the returned items. The situation will look similar in the case of dropshipping of clothes, which is one of the most frequently returned goods. The best idea of the assortment in a dropshipping model would be small products that are rarely returned to the store, e.g. watches.

Dropshipping step by step

Being aware of the sales process from the inside will allow you to plan the time needed to run an online store and generate profits from dropshipping.

• Choose the products you want to sell

When choosing an assortment for an online store, it is worth focusing not only on the size of the products and the expected frequency of returns but also on current trends in the e-commerce market. Be updated about new trends and try to sell goods that are currently on demand. Another good practice is to tie several categories of products together. This will allow you to purchase certain goods with the necessary accessories. Thanks to this you will increase your sales and will make customers return to your store. Dropshipping gives you a chance to have a very wide range of products and the possibility to provide unique products.

• Set up an online shop

In order to start making money in the dropshipping model, you have to have an online store. The best solution will be to use the software in the subscription model, which is fully prepared for dropshipping. Entrepreneurs at the beginning of the journey often choose more expensive dedicated software, that consumes their time on technical issues. Offerer offers full automatic integration, professional team, and low costs of functional software that will allow you to focus on sales development and will save your time on more important issues.

•  Establishing cooperation agreements with wholesales
  

Every warehouse has its own policy. Moreover, the price that will be presented to you will be an individual offer. Remember at the beginning of your adventure with the dropshipping, you probably won’t get any discounts or special offers. In order to get in the future low prices from the wholesalers, focus on gaining as many customers as possible by imposing a low margin. Before starting the cooperation with the warehouse, make sure you know everything about key issues.

• Choose already integrated dropshipping wholesale or integrate with a new one

Offerer platform is integrated with over 50  dropshippping wholesalers that you can easily have access to. What are the benefits of integration e-store with the wholesaler? Firstly, it allows you to sale immediately a wide range of products, because all descriptions, photos, and titles are imported directly from wholesale. Thanks to high automatization, you do not have to provide all goods to the store manually, which saves a huge amount of time and money, and accelerates the entry into the e-commerce market. Integration with the warehouse also allows you to regularly update prices and inventory.

In case you want to cooperate with a wholesaler that is not on the list, we can do a new integration on your behalf.
All you need to to do is provide us with a file of products prepared by the warehouse.

• Promote your shop
  

Remember it’s very essential to promote your online shop and products. Thanks to the effective promotion you will reach a wide audience, which will translate into increased sales and improved brand awareness. Using many communication channels such as social media, including Facebook will definitely help.

• Sale of goods

Sale of products in dropshipping slightly differs from the classic process

1.  The customer places the order and pays it in the online store
2.  The online store sends them to the warehouse.
3.  The wholesaler sends the goods to the buyer.
4.  The online store sends a receipt or invoice to the customer’s email.
5.  The merchant pays wholesaler before or after the order is shipped.
6.  Returns are accepted by the online store and complaints by wholesalers.

The payment model is convenience for people who do not want to invest capital in the purchase of a product to the store. Dropshipping allows you to pay only for goods that have been sold. As a result, there is no risk that unsold goods will remain in your stock.

Having an online shop brings many possibilities. The advantage of having e-store is a reduction in costs due to the lack of necessity to maintain a stationary store, by applying new solutions available on e-commerce. One of the innovative and convenient ideas is to run an online store without using the warehouse. What is dropshipping and what benefits it brings?

Dropshipping is an online sales model that is gaining popularity among e-business owners every day. It allows selling products online without inventory. This model is based on the process of shipment of goods to the customer from an online store to a warehouse. The buyer makes the purchase in the e-store, but the parcel is being sent from the warehouse. Having a dropshipping  gives you the possibility to eliminate the need of having a warehouse as well as dealing with the delivery process.

Now as you know what is droppshiping the question arises how it might look in practice. The sale process in dropshipping, or store without a warehouse, is as follows:

1. The customer places an order in the online store. What is very important is that the store has the current stock list of wholesale, on its website ( this is possible thanks to integration with wholesalers, which ensures the condition of the assortment);
2.  The buyer makes the payment;
3.  The store sends a request to the warehouse regarding the order realsiation, with the set price deducted from its margin amount
4. The wholesaler sends the goods directly to the customer.

Advantages of dropshipping

• The biggest advantage of an online store without a warehouse is the low cost of setting up and running a business
• If you have a dream to run a business from anywhere, dropshipping is a perfect choice for you. You can manage orders and promote your store by relaxing by the beach.
• Wholesalers that have dropshipping model in their offer are most often large players. That’s why their offer includes a wide range of products. At the beginning of the business, you might not have the possibility of having an impressive range of goods, that’s why it is worth to start selling in a dropshipping model. This will atract more visitors to your website.
• Many entrepreneurs search for certain business ideas on which they can earn money immidtadley. There is no guarantee of success, although you can try to increase your chances by checking what are the risks in the chosen business industry. In order to minimize risk in the very beginning of your business a store without a warehouse is a great idea,  if you manage to make money in this model, you will be able to consider investment in the development of your shop.

Offers provides 209 ready-made integrations with wholesalers. You will certainly find something for you. Lear more HERE

Disadvantages of Dropshipping

Despite many advantages, this model also has disadvantages:

• Dependency on the offer of wholesalers;
• Lack of full control over the process of order fulfillment.

Summary

The dropshipping model has many advantages – the biggest ones are low risk and minimized costs. Can this form of sales work in your business?  We hope this article will help you to find the answer.

Do you want to open an online shop and you are not sure about the cost? Are you worried you do not have enough capital to start? Get to know the low-budget e-commerce solution and see how you can afford your own e-business.

1. How much does it cost to start an online store – low cost of entering the e-commerce market.

You probably read reviews on forums and wondered what are the costs to open an online shop. The good news is- you do not have to invest a lot of cash right away. All you need is focus on developing your e-business within a time.

Get rid of fears! If you create a website on a shop platform, you will limit the initial expenses spent on individual software.

First, register your domain. Some companies provide good discounts, so you can even get the first year of free domain.Then test the e-commerce software for 14 days free of charge. If Offerer software meets your expectations and we are pretty sure it will so, choose the best plan and subscribe. We have good deals for you!

We have prepared individual price packages tailored to the needs of our clients. In the beginning, in order to check how your business will develop, you can choose the basic subscription, and after a time with the development of your e-business, decide on a higher package, which will give you more possibilities. Running your own online shop doesn’t have to be expensive  ????

Check the PRICING and see for yourself that you can start a professional online store at an affordable price!

2. No additional costs related to shop configuration

An online shop for a subscription option is a perfect solution for beginners in an e-commerce market. Because you do not pay additional costs related to the configuration. Say goodbye to buying additional applications or paying for new features.

With Offerer, all the necessary integrations for your e-business are included in the subscription price. You can integrate your online store with couriers, payment systems, price comparison sites or online accountancy programmes.

Life is much easier when you do not need a programmer’s help to configure your e-store. You can handle the whole process with just a few clicks. However, if the administration panel service is causing you a problem, you can always contact our technical support.

3. Professional RWD graphic template for free

You want an online store with professional graphics, but you can not afford an individual solution? You can choose a responsive and modern graphics template, adapted to mobile devices. Use the Template Creator and easily adapt the visual setting to your design idea.

At the beginning of your e-commerce adventure, your funds are limited. Therefore, the Offerer Template Creator feature has been included in every subscription package, at no additional fees. When your store will start to bring profits, you can think about individual graphics project that will improve your brand awareness.

Read more about graphics HERE

 

4. You don’t need a programmer

Offerer store platform is user-friendly. That’s why you can easily navigate in the administration panel.

Functions are divided into logical groups, and each option has a special button with a ‘?’  to help you with navigation. Check for yourself that even without IT skills, you can manage your shop online.

Please note that the administration server, updates, and security are on our side. We are always available for you, our emergency line is available 24/7, so you can contact us whenever you need. It’s all included in a subscription package.

5. Benefits package

At the beginning of your on e-commerce journey,  it can be difficult. First, you are proud that you have your online store but with this comes an overwhelming amount of responsibilities, for example negotiating contracts or planning promotions.

In order to help you to enter the market, we have prepared a special Benefits Package. In this package, you will find attractive offers e.g Google AdWords.

Learn more about Benefits Packages HERE

As you can see, opening an online store does not have to be expensive or difficult. In the case of using the subscription platform, you limit the costs of entering the e-commerce market. You can develop your e-business peacefully over time and with low costs. And what is the cost of running a store? Find the answer below ????

6. How much does it cost to run an online store?

You have already learned about the costs of e-shop, and probably you are wondering how to plan a budget for the functioning of e-business. The cost of running an online store depends on several factors.

Remember that it is not enough to just set up a website – to make your store profitable, you should promote it intensively. The cost of doing business will highly depend on the advertising methods you choose.

Entrepreneurs beginners usually invest in positioning, Google AdWords campaigns, comparison websites, and Facebook Ads.

Another factor that determines the costs of running an online store is the type of industry in which you operate. Some e-businesses need more money in order to start.

The costs of running an online store also depend on the logistic model. The main point is whether you will have a warehouse and what fees you will pay for it.

To minimize these fees, beginner entrepreneurs often decide to run a warehouse at home and sell in the dropshipping model.

What else is important when it comes to the budget of running your online shop?  Fixed costs, such as bills for telephone or internet.

Remember it’s important to specify all expenses and prepare financial resources for the first 6 months. At this time, your e-business should start earning money, and the cost of running your online store will be balanced according to profit.

Best of luck and we keep our fingers crossed for you! ????

If you have any questions or concerns, please contact us: info@offerer.com

1. What is an open source system?

The open source is a generally available software for online stores. Each user can download them for free from the website and install it on the server. The most popular free software are:

• PrestaShop,
• Magento,
• WooCommerce.

2. Is the open source for online stores really free?

 As previously mentioned, downloading the software for the online store is free. However, there are significant hidden costs that the beginning entrepreneur is not aware.

It will be necessary to find a person or company that will take care of technical service, updating the store’s inventory, and also will be watching over the stability of your store. Of course, nothing is for free, which means you will have to properly pay, and their services are not cheap. Depending on the year period, this person will have to work on your online activity from one to several dozen hours. At the same time, the cost of such a service can reach up to 150 euro net per hour. This expense can significantly burden your budget, so it is worth considering whether investing in this kind of software is a good solution, especially in the early stages of running the e-business.

You can not forget about additional functions or modules. Any function, even basic, which normally occurs in the shop platform, may not exist in the open source, and this will require an additional payment. Unfortunately, they are often old or not updated at all.

Another cost that incurs is buying the server and domain. Prices vary depending on the individual needs of clients regarding the hosting. Unfortunately, you can not always choose the right and tested solution. Because after a while it may turn out that the number of products and traffic in the store may be larger than you expected.

It is different with the subscription of Offerer shop platform. With us, you have unlimited web hosting, and price packages are prepared based on our many years of experience in working with clients.

In summary, despite the seemingly free functioning of your online store on open source software, the additional costs that you will have to pay for each functionality or change on the site, can reach up to 1000 euro net a month, and often more! However, if you use the SaaS software, you will pay from 100 to a maximum 190 euro – it depends on the subscription option you choose. The difference is enormous, right?

3. The configuration of a free online shop

Every software for online shop should be adjusted to your own individual needs before start selling. All software for online stores must be adapted to their individual needs before selling. However, the configuration process for the open source model is very long, time-consuming and requires a lot of programming knowledge.

If you want easily manage your website and give your customers user-friendly experience in your store, you need to install plug-ins, create functions and design integrations.

In case you do not have advanced IT skills, you will have to look for information on forums and discussion groups. Implementation of the collected data will cost you a lot of working hours, which will delay the start of your e-business.

Hence, when you have programming knowledge, you will be able to adjust the open script to your individual needs. In addition, the configuration of the e-store should go smoothly.

However, the e-commerce industry is dynamically changing, that’s why installing application once for a long-term won’t be enough. You need to follow trends on a regular basis and change the integration parameters, which may result in incorrect operation of the store’s mechanism.

If you are overwhelmed by the configuration of a free online store, you can commission work to a programmer or specialists from a company or agency. However, before you invest the money, you need to find a trustworthy person who will meet your expectations, which is also not easy. Then you will have to wait for your request to be completed and often pay not a small sum. 

It looks completely different when it comes to the configuration of the online shop for a subscription. With Offerer.com you have more than 1200 functions and extended help system.

From the store’s administration panel with a few clicks, you can integrate with the price comparison engine, payment gateways, and couriers. Thanks to this, you save time and energy.

Nevertheless, in case of doubts or problems, you can always contact the technical support team. In addition, specialists from Offerer.com continually develop the software, update and control its proper service.

4. Will you pay additional costs?

Unfortunately, in the case of a free online store, you pay a fee for each new integration, function or the smallest graphic element. Developers of open source software often do not keep up with the introduction of new changes in line with market trends. So will you pay additional costs?

That’s why launching the function and integration on the website involves programming them, which is time-consuming and very expensive. This step is a must, you will not skip this process. If you want to succeed in the e-commerce market, you must meet customers needs and expectations.

Free online stores often do not offer free templates, so buying a ready one and implementing it exposes you to additional fees.The same is when it comes to graphics.

What does it look like in the SaaS model? With Offerer you do not pay additional costs. Integrations, applications and current updates are included in the pricing of software subscription. In addition, you can use the free RWD graphic template, which you can adapt to your ideas using a webmaster’s editor.

5. Advantages and disadvantages of open source software and shop platform

Advantages of open source:    

• open and flexible source code
• community support on the web
• free installation
• high efficiency for many products

Disadvantages of open source: 

• the requirement to finds and buy a server
• paid additional features
• lack of free graphic templates
• time-consuming configuration and creation of new integrations / functions
• a need for high programming skills or to hire an external company

Advantages of online shop software subscription:

• hosting and server administration included in the subscription price
• additional features included in the subscription fee
• free RWD graphic design templates
• a fast configuration of the online store
• technical support and software development

Disadvantages of online shop software subscription:

• limited source code
• no adjustment to specialized online stores
• subscription fee method

6. Which software should you choose for your e-store?

Consider your options and analyze your budget, evaluate your programming skills objectively.

Free open source platforms have a lot of fans and supporters. But they are mainly recommended to people with IT skills who can devote a lot of time to configure the online store.  They are also a better choice for large e-businesses with a wide and specific range of products.

Whereas, having a shop on the Offerer platform gives you a wide possibility not only in terms of features and functionalities but also provides excellent technical support, and all of this at a subscription price. This system is recommended for beginning entrepreneurs as well as medium, and small online stores.

 Think carefully about the best option for you. Take into consideration mentioned above factors and start your adventure with e-commerce!

1.  Manage product inventory

Regardless of whether you import goods from a producer or wholesaler, you should constantly look for new products. Some goods cease to be manufactured or become difficult to access.

Therefore, you should constantly monitor sales statistics and be in contact with suppliers. Make smart decisions – don’t buy an unprofitable assortment and invest in a new one.

Gold products:

Follow the principle of golden products, ie: for specific products on which you can have a high margin. It’s easy to implement into the store 100 or 1000  any products from the warehouse. The trick is to select 10 pearls that will sell very good and bring a high profit at the same time.

2. Select suppliers

Apparently, the more products in the online store, the better. If you have a wide offer and you reach the recipients’ tastes, you can generate profits.
Don’t choose blindly. For example, if you import 100,000 products from wholesalers and you will have no demand for those products? As a result, this will not drive high sales, rather to the bankruptcy of e-business.

Choose wisely! Remember to check all beneficial factors while choosing a supplier for your business. Decide to cooperate with companies that will influence your sales performance and will bring you real profits. Integrate with the warehouse only when you know that its products match your industry and wanted by the customers.

Pay attention to the price of goods, so you won’t overpay.

3. Follow the product trends

There are times when there is a ‘bum’ for a certain product. That’s why it is worth following the trends and know what goods are desirable by your target group. Even when the certain product will stop be popular, the profit will remain, and in the minds of consumers, your e-store will become an attractive website.

4. Update the information on the store’s website

Consumers are discouraged by an online store if they see outdated content. Take care of your positive image and update information on a regular basis!

If you stopped to sell a particular item, remember to remove it from the site. However, when the product is temporarily unavailable, inform about it. It is not acceptable for the store to display a banner with an outdated promotion, hence remember to delete it. The potential customer will compare prices and will think that you are unreliable, and will purchase elsewhere.

Therefore, control the content and keep updated new products and sales, even in a few short and catchy sentences.

The above tips might be obvious. However, many entrepreneurs forget about them. Do not be one of them! Take care of the development of your product base and online store. After all, you’re on the Offerer.com store platform, you can afford to succeed!