Introduction to selling your products online

1. Introduction to selling
your products online
Nick Martin
eBusiness Advisor
www.investni.com

2. Agenda
• The Basics
• Beginning to Sell Online
• Marketplaces
• Developing your own eCommerce Website
• Understanding Costs and other fundamentals
• Multi Channel Software
• Measuring eCommerce
Selling Online
www.investni.com

3. What products will sell online?
• Generally easier for an established business to go online than
starting from scratch
• Do your research:
– Google Shopping
– General web research
– Marketplaces
• Understand how and where people buy:
– Marketplaces
– Websites
– Phone
– Email

4. Understanding the Online Marketplace
Products CustomersPhone Email

5. What products will sell online?
• But my products wont sell on . . . . .
You should have a good idea if your products will sell
before putting them online – but don’t make too many
assumptions – test and measure.
• Major factors:
– Where products are listed for sale
– Price of Product and Shipping cost
– Titles, Description and Images
– Speed of shipping and dispatch
– Responsiveness of customer service
– Return policies

6. What Products Sell Online
• Not always obvious what will sell
• Can be tricky to sell online:
– Low value big/bulky products
– Very high value products
• Few extra challenges for NI Businesses
– Shipping costs can be higher
– Although labour is generally cheaper

7. Important Elements of Products
• Product title
• Product description
• Product Images
• Prices
• Variations
• SKU
• Barcode (EANs, UPCs, ISBNs. and ASINs)

8. Beginning To Sell
• Sell on marketplaces first
• eBay is easiest to start selling on
• Amazon relatively easy to setup
• Good Guides on Marketplaces:
– NI Business Info:
https://www.nibusinessinfo.co.uk/content/selling-through-online-marketplaces
– Tamebay.com
Begin to Sell on
Marketplaces
eBay (Usually First)
Amazon (Usually Second)
Then Your Own
Website

9. Beginning to Sell
• Online Marketplace Advantages:
– Gain experience of product presentation
– Customer service experience
– Shipping and Fulfilment
– Returns and Complaints
– Stock Control
• Much more difficult to go directly to selling
through your website without selling on
marketplaces first.

11. Marketplace Selling - eBay
• Getting Started on eBay:
– Don’t assume your products wont sell on eBay
– You need to understand how eBay works before
trying to sell on it
– eBay is generally slightly easier to start selling
– Create an account
– Setup PayPal
– Buy some products and get positive feedback
– Start Selling

12. Marketplace Selling - eBay
• eBay - Tips:
– Research competitors
– Start with a reasonable number of products
– Product Titles are very important
– Pricing is crucial
– Images need to be really good
– You can test the water as a private seller then
upgrade your account to business

15. Terapeak – Competitor Research

17. Marketplace Selling - eBay
• Factors influencing how listing appear on eBay:
– Seller performance (feedback, defects, cases etc)
– Product Title
– Speed of dispatch (usually under 2 days)
– Free Shipping Option
– Express 24 Hour Shipping Option
– How many items you have sold

18. Marketplace Selling - eBay
• eBay Tips
– Consider getting an eBay shop
– Upgrade to Selling Manager Pro (Auto Feedback etc)
– Regularly refine titles, images and prices
– Fill out item specifics
– Multiple good quality images are essential
– Apply for PayPal fee discount (if T/O over £1,500/mth)
– You will need to call eBay to increase the number of
items you can list.

19. Marketplace Selling – eBay Shops

21. Marketplace Selling - Amazon
• Selling on Amazon UK:
– Relatively easy to setup Amazon
– More proof required around identity of seller
– Products need to have barcode numbers
– Products listed in a catalogue rather than
individual listings
– Basic and Pro selling accounts available
– Amazon processes payment

23. Marketplace Selling - Amazon
• Factors influencing products on Amazon:
– Seller performance (speed of dispatch, cases etc)
– Price of product
– Volume of sales
– Amount of available stock
– If you are using FBA (Fulfilment by Amazon)
– Product titling (if you have control over this),
mostly you are listed against the catalogue.

24. Marketplace Selling - Amazon
• Amazon Selling Tips:
– Easier for limited and VAT registered businesses to
register on Amazon
– Comply with strict customer service policies
– Certain products will sell better on Amazon
– If you make/manufacture products, get barcodes

25. International Marketplace Selling
• Get a good grounding in supplying to
UK/Ireland first (Many NI couriers also do ROI
next day)
• Relatively easy to open up international selling
• eBay - Global Shipping Programme
• Amazon – Fulfilment by Amazon
• International courier prices

27. Your Own Website
• Do Not Spend Too Much Money on Your first
ecommerce Website (a very common mistake)
• 2 Main Options:
– Hosted Platform – Best Option for Most Businesses
– Own Platform – Still a Good Option

28. Your Website
• Hosted Platform
– Still can be setup by a web developer
– Costs from around £25/month
– Wide range of features including limited multichannel,
courier integration
– Updates and backups done automatically
– Large range of templates to choose from (mobile ready)
– Relatively quick and easy to setup
– Proven ecommerce model
– A great first ecommerce website choice

29. Your Website
• Own Platform
– Usually setup by a developer using either an open
source of proprietary system e.g. Magento
(developers very rarely write complete systems
from scratch)
– Very customisable with almost limitless
integration possibilities
– Usually more costly than a hosted solution, typical
entry level costs are £3-5K

30. eCommerce Design
& Best Practice

31. Website Design
• Own website tips:
– Customers are not impressed with over designed
websites. Stick to the ‘Cookie Cutter’ design
– Do not customise too much
– Make sure someone is patching, backing up etc
– Functionality is important
– Who owns the website code if you want to move?
– Concentrate on the fundamentals of your
products, price, delivery, customer service etc

32. General Website Best Practice
• Regardless of hosted or bespoke:
– Plan you website on paper first:
• Categories / Sub Categories
• Info pages
• Take time to learn the system
– Trust signals:
• Business name, address, VAT number, policies (Samples on NI
Business Info).
• 3rd Party Reviews
• You will need an SSL (essential to do Google Advertising)

33. • Search Facility
(that works)
• Keyword Rich
Title
• Obvious call to
action
• Multiple
images
• Obvious
delivery costs

34. • Layered
Navigation
• Promises
• Reviews
(consider
3rd Party
Software)
• Clear
images

35. Mobile / Responsive Design
• Test your website on
a mobile device(s)
• Make sure everything
works (especially
checkout)
• Try the search

36. Checkout
• Do I really have to fill all this out – help!!

37. Checkout
• Simple Checkout
• Only ask for the absolute minimum info
• PayPal Express Checkout is a good option
• No required registration before ordering
• Postcode lookup
• Visible simple delivery cost (presented early)
• Customer phone number for your courier

38. Search Facility
• Do not underestimate the importance of a
good search facility on your website
• Try it yourself on your site
• Most ecommerce platforms allow for upgrade

39. Understanding Costs
& Calculating Profit

40. Understand Cost and Profitability
• Important costs:
– Cost of your products
– Marketing/Sales costs
– Fulfilment costs
– Packaging
– Labour costs
– Return costs
– Courier damage costs

41. Understanding Costs
• £35 for 36 rolls of Packing Tape
(including free delivery)
• eBay
– Cost of Acquisition 10% = £3.50
– PayPal fee 3% = £1.05
– Packing Box = £0.50
– Courier Cost = £6.05
– Cost of Stock = £17.50
– Gross Profit = £6.40 (18% of Sale Price)

42. Understanding Costs
• £36.99 for 6 Rolls of Pallet Wrap
Free Delivery
• Sold Through Own Website
– Cost of Acquisition 8% = £3.00
(10 Clicks of Google Shopping @ £0.30 each)
– PayPal fee 3% = £1.11
– Packing Box = £0.50
– Courier Cost = £6.05
– Cost of Stock = £15
– Gross Profit = £11.33 (30% of Sale Price)

43. Understanding Costs
• Start a Product Costing Spreadsheet
• Concentrate on the most profitable products
• No point in selling products that don’t make
profit

44. The Fundamentals:
Packing, Couriers, Payments &
Customer Service

45. Packaging
• Packaging is a cost to factor into each sale
• When starting out it’s possible to buy small
amounts of packing online e.g. Cardboard
boxes, packing tape
• Good packaging can save you money –
reducing courier damage/resends.

46. Packaging
• Try to predict what you will sell (Size, shape,
weight etc)
• Understand what packaging you may need
• May be able to get used packaging from other
businesses
• Understand the packing requirements of your
courier.

47. Choosing a Courier
• Prepaid/ Pay as You Go Courier Services:
– Sometimes it good to start out using prepaid type couriers
e.g. PayPal offers discounted Parcelforce/Royal Mail
• Most courier will want ‘guaranteed’ volumes e.g. 50
parcels per week
• Most will want packages boxed in cardboard
• Some will only take certain lengths or volumetric size
• They will want to know the typical size & where you
will be sending to (location & home/business) and
what you are shipping.

48. Choosing Courier
• Couriers
– It’s good to have multiple courier options
(remember City Link)
– There are significant variations in price for sending
to certain areas e.g. Channel Islands, Highlands
– The best way to judge a courier is by the number
of issues you have e.g. Packages not arriving etc
– Larger items can be palletised

49. Shipping
• Shipping can be complex
• Make it easy for the customer
• Build in shipping to selling price if possible
• Average price charged for shipping is £3.99
• Price areas such as Highlands, Islands, ROI

50. Courier Integration
• Printing Shipping Labels is a big daily task
• Rekeying info takes time
• Relatively easy to integrate with couriers
• Ask this question to couriers
• Partial integration via CSV or full integration
via API
• Label printers are a good option, but not
required.

51. Payments
• PayPal is good when starting out
• Amazon use their own payment processor
• Hundreds of other options available
• Understand Payment costs, apply for any
discounts e.g. PayPal

52. Payments
Example Sage Pay Fees
Example PayPal Fees

53. Customer Service
• High expectation from online customers
• Typically looking for under 4 hour response
• Amazon expect within 24 hours (including
weekends)
• Staff need to be competent with authority to
negotiate prices/bulk discounts

54. Returns
• Returns is a cost of doing business
• You need to have a returns policy
• 14 Days Cooling Off
• Doesn’t apply to all products (e.g. customised)
• Who pays for returns? (eBay / Amazon)
• The Consumer Contracts Regulations 2013 (combined the law
on distance and doorstep selling)
• Consumer Rights Act 2015 (Come into force Oct 2015)

55. Customer Disputes
• Sometimes things go wrong
• eBay / Amazon / PayPal Disputes
• Remain calm and objective
• Most of the time it’s not worth arguing
• Think of the bigger picture
• Protect your feedback
• Resolve issues quickly before the escalate

56. Hidden Costs
• Some Costs to Monitor:
– Fraudulent Claims
– Couriers loosing/damaging
– Currency fluctuations
– Consumables
– Utility Costs
– Labour

57. Multi Channel

58. Multi-Channel
• What is multi-channel?
• Plan for multi-channel from the outset
Multi Channel
Software
Orders / Listings/ Shipping / Inventory / Customers

59. Multi Channel Features
• Synchronisation:
– Inventory
– Order
– Product data
– Customer details
– Integration with accounts
– Courier integration

60. Multi Channel Costs
• Multi-Channel software is a requirement for
selling online in volume.
• Setup can be quite complex
• Costs vary significantly from free (M2E Pro) to
several hundred per month. The average cost
is around £60/month for a small company.

61. Marketing & Measuring

62. Marketing for eCommerce
• Many different ways to market:
– Marketplaces – product optimisation
– Google product feed (paid search)
– Other PPC e.g. Adwords
– SEO / Social
– Email marketing

63. Paid Online Search

64. Measuring eCommerce
• Key Metrics for Online Selling
– Try to drive up average order value
– Look at how to improve conversion rates
– Control CPA – cost per acquisition
– Monitor fees and charges
– Best measure of success = profit
Increase
Order Value
Improve
Conversion
Control Costs
Turnover – Costs = PROFIT

65. Measuring eCommerce
• Main ways to measure:
– Google Analytics (Don’t forget to link Adwords)
– Marketplace Sales Reports
– Shopping Cart Sales Reports
– Payment processor reports (e.g. PayPal, Amazon)
– Data from your accounts package e.g. Sage

66. Measuring eCommerce

67. Measuring eCommerce - Email

68. Measuring eCommerce
• eBay / Amazon provide data on product views,
watchers of products (eBay) and sales.
• Check competitors and amend products
regularly – always looking for the ‘perfect
product’
• Google Analytics for website products, email
campaigns etc

69. Summary
• Sell the products your customers want
• Sell first through marketplaces
• Learn the fundamentals (there’s a lot to learn)
• Work from a solid technology platform
• Don’t spend overspend building your website
• Spend time on your products
• Measure, adjust and re-measure - continuously
• Understand the financials
• Always look for other opportunities
• Enjoy the challenge!

70. Questions