Some tips about starting an online shop in kenya

Some tips about starting an online shop in Kenya

 

 Whenever you look around you, have you noticed that everyone wants to sell or buy something? Every day, people place advertisements in the newspapers, billboards, magazines, internet, radio and other platforms of items for sale. You can take advantage of this and turn it into a business idea.

 All you need to do is to seek a platform for all these people to sell their items, and you will make good money. Companies such as Jumia, Amanbo, Rupu, Kilimall and many others have already taken advantage of this by providing an online platform where sellers meet buyers and make sales. It is worth mentioning that, Amanbo is a free platform for starting a online shop, they only get a commission until your order turnover.

 Innovate Your Business and Start Selling Online - following are some helpful tips and advice

TIP 1: - starting an online store can involve some work; you need to manage orders and customers, update and add content, manage marketing and social media, and setup the store. So you need to be able to use the administration and content management system provided. The best way to find out if you can manage it for yourself is to try. Amanbo provide a free system so you can try it for yourself.

What is your business model?

  When you sell online you can support different business models. Typically it will be B2C - Business to Consumer or B2B - Business to Business. Some online stores want to support both. B2C is the basis of most online retail. If you want to sell to other businesses like wholesale or re-sellers then the model will be B2B. The main difference is that not everyone can access and buy from a B2B online store and in general the customer will need a user name and password to login.

What languages and currencies do you want?

  You may only want to sell in Kenya Ksh right now but things can change. The solution that you choose should be multilingual and multi-currency meaning it can support many languages and every currency type in the world. You will need to setup tax, payment and shipping to support your requirements. 

Does your platform you use have legal policies?

 Website terms and conditions and terms of use are a must for any ecommerce website, while a privacy policy is a good idea if you’re planning on using customer information for marketing or to sell to advertisers.

TIP 2: - If you want to accept payment online and collect customer personal information then your online store will need to be secure and support SSL encryption. When taking payment online you will also need a hosting company that is PCI DSS Compliant. If you show that your store is secure it will improve your shopping basket conversion rate.

TIP 3: - If you support multiple channels to market like an online store, amanbo and other shopping portals or even a bricks and mortar store you can improve your results by as much as 300%.

To be Successful selling online you need to have Successful and Return customers

1,Graphic Design - Create a great User Experience .

2,Great Content Means More Customers:CONTENT IS KING

3.Payment Gateway - make sure your customers feel Secure.

4.Shipping and Logistics - get your products to your customers efficiently

5.Connect to accounting systems to automate your business

 

TIP 4:- Return customers cost you less to retain that getting new customers. Return customer's order value is generally higher than first time customers. Offer your customers coupons, discounts and special offers to promote customer retention and loyalty.

 

1,Web Analytics - Visitor and Page Tracking - Know your customers.

2,SEO(Search Engine Optimisation) and ( Search Engine Marketing)- Get your Online Store found by Search Engines

 Search Engines like Google and Bing are responsible for driving 80% of the traffic and sales to your online store. If your store is not set up to be friendly for search engines then you will not be as successful as you want. 

 

 

 

 

 

TIP 5:- Make sure that you understand all of your requirements for your eCommerce business.

 Understand your requirements and learn some of the terminology used by online store vendors. Then prepare a list of your requirements and prioritise them (high, medium, low) this will help you to get a solution that will work best for your business.