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Sunday, 8 September 2019

How to get hot selling physical products for your eCommerce business


When it comes to selling physical goods online, I always like to start with a certain set of guidelines during the product selection process.
Because selling online is completely different than selling in a brick and mortar store, you want to choose products to sell that are conducive to online purchases and appeal to the typical online buyer.
Here are some of my “must have” product guidelines when choosing what to sell.
  • The product should not be fragile and easy to ship – Because we are going to be shipping products through the mail, you can avoid most headaches if you choose a product to sell that won’t break during shipment.
  • The product should not take up much physical space – Certain ecommerce business models require carrying inventory so it’s in your best interests to choose something small to sell and preferably an item that fits in a shoebox.
  • The product’s inherent value should be ambiguous – For example, I would never sell electronics because there is a set value for your goods that everyone is aware of. On the contrary, keepsakes and informational goods are much harder to place a price tag on.
  • The product should be timeless – Once again, I would never sell electronics because they lose value the longer they stay on the shelves
  • Avoid seasonal goods – In general, you don’t want to choose products that are only purchased during a specific time of year. For example, I would tend to avoid selling Halloween costumes.
  • Sell goods that sell from $15-200 – This is the sweet spot for pricing for online purchases.

The following product guidelines are “nice to have” when choosing what to sell so you might want to ask yourself the following questions…
  • Have you chosen a niche with related products you can expand into? – While we primarily sell handkerchiefs in our store, we’ve branded our shop as a linens store so we can easily expand to other markets.
  • Do your products lend itself to customers ordering more than one? – When we sell handkerchiefs to a bride, we rarely sell 1. Instead a typical bride will buy at least 4 and sometimes as many as 10.
  • Can your products be personalized? – The margins for personalized products are always going to be higher than regular products. So if you can offer customized goods, you can charge more for them.
  • Are your products consumable? – What’s nice about consumables is that your repeat customer rate will be high. As a result, your sales will tend to be more stable.
  • Does your niche have a fan base? – I like to choose products that have dedicated blogs or fan pages because you have an instant set of customers to market to.
  • Do your products lend itself to content creation? – When you own your own shop, search engine optimization will be an excellent source of traffic to your store. As a result, the more content you can put out, the more likely you will rank.
  • Do your products have lots of accessories? – Many online stores make most of their margins on the accessories they sell. So it’s in your best interests to offer goods that are conducive to upsells and cross sells.

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