How to Sell Online to Generation Z
Generation Z (Gen Z) is no longer the future, it is the present. Let's learn about their shopping habits, what makes them unique, and how to sell to them.
If you’re feeling inspired to start an online store, you’re not the only one. Recent statistics suggest that e‑commerce sales in Europe are expected to surpass $560 billion by 2025 with similar numbers in the US.
Whether you’re looking to take your brick-and-mortar business online or you’re a newcomer with a home-run product, it’s important to set a strong foundation for your—hopefully—profitable business.
To stand out in this crowded market you’re going to need an efficient and intuitive way to manage your backend, evaluate which platforms to market on, and track it all as you go. In this blog, we’ll give you the tips you need to get started and show you how using project management software can help you achieve your e‑commerce dreams faster.
How does an online store work?
In layman’s terms, an online store is a website where customers can place orders for a product or service. An online store could represent a small local store, a major retailer, or even someone who sells products through a third-party site, like eBay or Etsy.
To get an online store up and running, you’ll need a product catalogue, a shopping cart, and more. But we’ll get into the building blocks a little later.
Online stores and e‑commerce: Not as similar as you think
Before we launch into the meat of this blog, it’s important to brush up on a few key terms—namely, the distinction between e‑commerce and online retail.
Both of these markets revolve around the sale and purchase of goods between a merchant and a buyer. Online retail is pretty similar to shopping in a physical store; clients can browse products and “bring them home”.
E‑commerce includes all aspects of operating a business online, such as providing a space for multiple merchants to sell their products for a fee (Shopify, anyone?). Online shops, on the other hand, are simply the online selling and purchasing of goods and services.
Is an online store profitable?
In short, it can be.
It’s projected that the percentage of global retail sales that comes from e‑commerce will keep shooting upward. This rise in online shopping is a result of many factors, such as:
- Increased use of social media and social commerce
- Online marketplace offerings
- The change in shopping behaviours amongst generations i.e. Baby Boomers vs. Millennials vs. Gen Z
Source: Statista
Your 9-step plan for starting an online store
You’re probably thinking, “With so many sales, there must be a lot of competition. How can I do things right from the start to be relevant and successful?”.
When it comes to starting an online store, there are certain items that should certainly be in your plan:
- Choose an e‑commerce platform: Not only will this choice affect you and your team’s user experience as managers, but it will also ultimately affect your customer experience i.e. can they browse comfortably on mobile as well? Evaluate every platform’s options for tools, pricing, design capabilities, and other special needs you may have, like the ability to set up a subscription service.
- Identify your target audience: You may already know what you want to sell, but in order to build and promote a store that really performs, it’s important to know who you want your buyers to be. As a part of understanding your customer base, consider their buyer personas—their ages, interests, location, and more.
- Pick what you will sell online: With the information you have gathered about your target audience, you can determine what unique or optimised products or services you can offer, or pain points you can solve.
- Connect a payment provider: A payment provider processes all transactions securely. It’s recommended to offer customers multiple payment methods.
- Give your store a name and a domain to match: You can create a unique and memorable business name by researching competitors and doing search engine research. It’s a good idea to consider SEO as well. Professional domains can run around $10-15 per year.
- Design your website: Your website is your online storefront, so make it count. Some core components of your design should be:
- Clarity of what you sell
- Clear calls-to-action (CTAs) so customers know how to navigate your website
- Navigation bar with information like return policies
- Create a brand strategy: The devil is in the details. Decide and be consistent with your brand palette, logo, and content style when you design anything related to your business.
- Determine your business structure: Stumbling over the legal aspects of starting your online store can be a real bottleneck. Each market/region is different, so consider consulting a business lawyer to determine the best fit.
- Launch a marketing campaign: Time to bring the customers to your online store! There are a plethora of free and paid marketing strategies for growth out there—dig in.
Recommended reading:
How to Start an Online Shop: A Beginner's Guide
Project management software for your online shop
Project management software is used for scheduling, project planning, resource allocation, and change management. Project managers (PMs), stakeholders, and team members use it to stay organised and on track while managing budget, quality, and documentation for a given project.
Choosing the right software will impact your ability to create, run, and grow your online store. The basic functions of project management software can help you with the core functions above, but it might not always be enough as your online store grows and your needs diversify.
Shutterstock/fizkes
Supporting your online shop with a Work OS
Running an online store goes beyond choosing the right software or branding. Throughout the ongoing process of building, managing, and promoting your online store, there is a whole bevy of communication and procedural needs that must be met with efficiency and ease of use.
You can get to the next level with a Work OS.
A Work OS, or a work operating system, is a cloud-based software platform geared for organisations of all sizes and across all functions. Even non-technical users have the flexibility to adapt it to any workflow, project, or process.
Let’s zoom in on a few core functions of building an online store and look at how a Work OS like monday.com can help you grow faster by improving your marketing, sales projections, and inventory management efforts.
Managing your marketing with a Work OS
By nature, spreading the word about a new online store takes a small army of people and/or tools. A Work OS provides a collaborative environment to bring all of these people together on one platform in real time.
Whether it’s vetting e‑commerce platforms, nailing the copy and digital assets for marketing campaigns, or creating a content calendar, a Work OS provides the ability to communicate within the context of a task, instead of several scattered conversations or threads.
You can integrate third-party tools as well, such as Adobe or Shopify. By bringing an entire workflow into one place and assigning owners, you’ll never have to guess or check in with who is doing what.
Managing your sales projection with a Work OS
The old adage, “To know where you’re going, you have to know where you have been” could certainly be your motto here. An important part of growing your online store is finding the right way to track and measure your success.
With a Work OS, you can set milestones and deadlines to track against your incoming and outgoing expenses and then reference them in multiple views, such as timelines, Gantt charts, or traditional calendars. You can track each stage of a sale by updating the status, and then pre-set automations will move the item through the pipeline easily.
The data tracked in your Work OS can then be converted directly into meaningful dashboards and reports, to let you know where sales stand and help you make sales projections that are supported by data, not hunches.
Managing your inventory with a Work OS
Online stores are not exempt from the general risks a brick-and-mortar store faces. One crucial way you can stay on top of them is to be well-informed of important numbers, especially your inventory. A Work OS can capture any kind of data with ease—both manually or by integrations with other tools— thus making data capture complete and digestible.
As your orders come in, you can automatically see updated quantities and set automations to remind you when it’s time to fill another bulk or special order.
Another bonus of a Work OS like monday.com is the ability to use it as a vehicle for customer requests and feedback about your products. By creating a simple form, customers can let you know what they want to see more of. For example, if you get a significant amount of requests for the restock of an item, you can justify a reorder with hard numbers.
Laying the foundation for success
As the world of online commerce continues to flourish, it can be worthwhile for many businesses to transition online, or to start a new online store altogether.
In order to get set up and running rapidly and build off of this momentum, individuals and teams alike should seek tools and methods to do this efficiently and as easily as possible. A Work OS provides the ideal platform to collaborate in order to manage an online store, from its conception to tracking and analysing progress.
