How to Get Your First Sale for Your New E-commerce Website

Congratulations if you have finally launched your new e-commerce site. Now you can target a huge audience to sell your product. Getting your first sale will be quite challenging whether you already own a business or have just started off.  Businesses that are already in the market don’t have to do much work to reach their customers online because they have regular customers who are familiar with the brand. All they have to do is let their customers know about their online site.
Here’s a guide designed for those who have just started an e-commerce site. This will help you to increase your sales and will take you in the right direction.

Start a blog

In early days of your site launch, you will notice website traffic. But that doesn’t mean you are getting sales. But more traffic can help you to increase the chances of sales. You need to understand customer conversion funnel The first stage of this funnel is the awareness stage. Blog posts can be useful in this stage and can help to generate more site traffic.

For this reason, blogging is a major tool in the e-commerce business. Most likely people are not going to make a purchase every day but your blogs keep your customers in touch with your site on a regular basis even if they don’t intend to buy anything. Blogging also gives you an edge over other sites in terms of organic search ranking i.e. appearing on top hit when a consumer searches for a product. You can also use blogging as a platform to promote your product. Throw information about your product within the blog. Adding hyperlinks to landing page can also be useful.

Formulate a list of email subscribers

Email marketing must hold a significant role in your content strategy. If you have only recently begun an e-commerce site and don’t host a large number of email subscribers, your first goal should be creating a basic email list, instead of jumping ahead to your first sale.
Although, beginning work at ground level is daunting and scary, but only the first step is hard. Once you get started, you’ll be done with it in no time. If you’re wondering what good generating an email list will do, it will directly lead to production of sales.
Email marketing is the top digital tactic that drives both customer acquisition and retention, says a recent online retailer’s survey. So your email list will not only operate your initial sales, but also increase future prospects of buying by those customers, as once people are signed up to you, they are likely to remain interested in your products. If they still haven’t made a purchase, prime them by starting an actionable drip campaign with a welcome message. Also send promotional emails.
You can access your subscribers’ inbox without restraint, so make good use of that, but play smart and don’t get blocked by sending too much spam. Consumers might not visit your webpage regularly but they always check emails, also start giving discounts.

Send products to social influencers

Influencer market is in vogue this year. People may be completely unaware of a brand or who’s running it but still follow it on social media if it has a great enough influence. The reason behind their success is reduced pay requirements and high engagement rates. Only a couple of dollars could bring your product to the attention of a large number of potential customers. Keeping a low budget is very useful in the early stages of a new brand.
When the cash flow is not steady, it is very hard to survive with little to no sales. Just observe the way Thompson Tee used this strategy to popularize its brand on Instagram, starting a partnership with James Tollefson:
Tollefson used James’ 20,000 followers to give his brand a bigger audience. As is visible, the inclusion of a purchase link and a discount code makes the offer all the more tempting and harder to resist for a prospective customer. Make certain to use cost-effective strategies that benefit your budget in the long run.
Get influencers to advertise your product and explain its use, as shown in the above example. Also make sure to research the influencers before making a deal with them, they should be appropriate for your target audience and brand strategy.

Offer discounts

You need to build a strong reputation to convince buyers to purchase your products. As a new brand, there is little to vouch for your credibility in terms of user reviews or previous sales, so in order to get maximum customers to purchase your products, try slashing the prices. It won’t affect your brand image if you use the old-age marketing trick of showing the price of a product as greater than it really is, and then offer a discount on it as a sale (for example list a 40$ item for 60$ and then sell it for 40$). It is a proven fact that offering discounts greatly increase the chances of a sale because people have a weakness for deals. So familiarize people with your products through this strategy and watch the results.

Market to prospective B2B clients

Businesses often focus on direct to consumer sales. It’s considerable to use this strategy but one should not completely ignore targeting other businesses. Try selling your products to retailers at a wholesale price. For an instant, you have a new e-commerce company that deals in clothing and you don’t own a physical store. The best way to reach out people is through finding a local, national and international retailer. Sell your products in their store. Although you’ll not get much profit wholesales will be much larger than those from consumers who just want to buy one shirt a time.
Once your product will get recognition other retailers will contact you as well, hence more customers will now become familiar with your product and will visit your e-commerce site to make a purchase.
Create social media profiles
Social media profile should be created before launching a site. But it’s never too late to start off if you haven’t yet generated a page. Create a social account on most widely used social channels such as Facebook, Instagram,youtube, twitter etc. You have to actively use all of your social media channels to target a huge number of customers. Prioritize these platforms according to their usage by the people you wish to target. These profiles will help you to get as many people as possible hence increasing the chance of getting your sales.



Create a simple website design
Simple websites have greater chances of conversion rates. Check out your site if its’ simple. Don’t display every product on your homepage. This might give your site a messy and an unorganized look. Try to reduce clutter and get rid of adds as much as possible. Add navigation tools such as search bar and menu options. It would be great to give images of your products for better services but don’t use large images to avoid slow page loading speed.
Giveaways
You can use your media channels to run contests that might interest your customers. The winners of these contests can enjoy a free gift from the company.
You have to be more generous to give away gift hampers in the early days of your business. It’s not necessary to give expensive products but giveaways will keep your brand in the limelight. Moreover, weekly or daily giveaways for putting names on your posts will give you more customers in a few important ways. Firstly, they get a free product in hand. Secondly, they will get to know about your brand and may place an order as a result of the free gifts. These people will spread the words who could also become your valuable customers.
Attend a trade show
Don’t confine your e-commerce business to only online platform. Try to search for local, regional and national events where you can advertise your product and get new customers or a retailer who might show interest to buy your product at a wholesale price. Attending such events gives exposure to your brand name to the people who are not familiar with it. Giving out free products as samples or promotional items with your logo can increase the chances of getting more sales. Also, offering special coupons to people who show up at your booth or a 50% off can get attention of people.
Reduce friction in your checkout process
Do you lose your customers while they are buying a product? You can avoid such shopping cart abandonment by making your client to complete the purchase by following some simple steps.
Here are the major reasons for shopping cart abandonment.

Besides cost, the second major reason for shopping cart abandonment is a complicated checkout process. Don’t get your customers running away by asking them to create an account or too many questions. This will decline your conversion rates. Billing information and shipping info is adequate to ask. Additional questions or steps may force your client to abort the sale.
Conclusion
To get sales on your new e-commerce site can be challenging. Here are a few steps that can guarantee to get your first sale.
•    Begin with blogging to create brand awareness, increase visitors to your website and promotion of your product.
•    Work on getting a list of email subscribers and to promote your brand on social platforms.
•    Offer discounts.
•    Make your website simple and attractive.
•    Attend trade events.
•    Look for B2B brands who can sell your product at a wholesale rate.
•    Actively use your social media channels and offer giveaways.
•    Use a simple check out process.