Sales platforms are what allow businesses to grow. It’s a place where your business can stand and build. Businesses sell from a complete range of different platforms.
For a start it depends what kinds of products you offer. You might not offer products at all and instead offer a service. How you go about promoting these depends on your industry and platform.
A lot of businesses are moving to new platforms. Some do it because they want to pull in some more sales, while others are moving from one to the other.
A lot are having to as a result of the coronavirus pandemic, and is simply a shot at survival. Especially if the business occupied the travel or tourism sector.
Here are some of the top platforms as well as the key methods to promote your business on them.
The Physical Store
Selling out of a physical store, be it product or services, has been popular for hundreds of years.
It’s lost some popularity since the internet came to the fore and has certainly suffered during covid but it’s still a prime platform from which to distribute. You might be deciding to move into selling from a store so that you can hit the ground running when Covid properly dies down.
Promoting a store is quite straightforward, it just depends on who your demographic is. Are you looking for people to just walk in after seeing your sign, like restaurants, or are you attracting a particular person who’d know about the store before going there.
Good leaflet distribution works when you’re just about to set up shop. Make sure you find reliable printing services and that you hand out leaflets or business cards to passers by.
Restaurants need to do this to inform people, and you could do it with giving out a sample of food at the same time. The store itself is a pretty huge advertisement, but it’s simply about telling the right people that it now exists.
Moving Onto Amazon
Businesses who sell products often sell through Amazon. It gives them an established platform from which to push their products off and means they don’t have to spend time and money developing a website and finding a way to drive traffic to it.
Amazon comes with it’s own issues though. It can be quite hard to gain ranking on the site, especially if your product is similar to others. Gaining reviews is a huge part of getting your products more sales because those reviews promote you and your brand, so long as they’re positive.
You’ll also need to do some research regarding ranking your product on Amazon with keywords. Remember, if Amazon isn’t necessarily for you, you could consider other selling platforms like Etsy, Ebay, or AliBaba.
Selling Overseas
Building a platform overseas can completely revitalise your business. If your product or service works well at home, why can’t it in another market with similar qualities.
Of course, the market might differ and due diligence needs to be taken. On top of that, you need to remember that the fees will increase if shipping abroad. Promoting abroad can be easier than you think. It’s just a case of finding a good translation service (if they speak another language). You also need to consider what the culture is receptive to.
Do they interact with social media, or are they better with TV adverts or physical items like posters and flyers? Research is vital to selling overseas but if you hit the right market.
Building Your Own Online Platform
Building your own platform is the ultimate method of service/product distribution. You have control of everything. However, promoting it can be pretty tough. The website needs to be designed well, with great product descriptions and an easy to navigate menu.
That’s half the problem though because first you need to attract people to your website. First off, you need a blog to showcase some top tier content, which will help you rank higher on search engines. You can also bring people to your site through social media.
If you’ve already got a great social presence this is easier but it’s worth setting one up from scratch if you haven’t to support your website. There are people out there who can help you every step of the way provided you’ve got a budget for it.
If you’re moving online from a physical location you can drive up interest by telling old customers about your new venture. Word of mouth is still a pretty powerful tool.
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