What about an e-shop?

Opportunity: opening an e-shop with photo articles

The success of an e-shop is highly influenced by the products you choose and sell and also by the marketing strategy and the available resources. The advantages of an e-shop are plenty. The flexibility is incredible: customers are able to buy 24 hours a day, 7 days a week. The promotion costs can be reduced and more efficiently optimized than for a physical store. You have the possibility to cover a large market segment for potential buyers at a national level and you don’t need to ensure large stocks of products. There is always the possibility to expand on other markets and deliver products to other countries.

Opening an e-shop dedicated to photography items would be a great, but challenging, opportunity.
The existing e-shops that sell this kind of products in Romania (about 30 –but not all of them are focused exclusively on photo products) are fiercely competing with each other, but there is definitely place for improvement. The difference is made primarily by the price (not all of them have loyal prices) and the additional services. So, the virtual shops tend to forget to (or do not) take into consideration that they are are selling… image. Look at the existing websites, and you’ll notice the e-shops are built by some merchants who are ignoring that photography is an art. Moreover, the language used is sometimes too technical and difficult to understand by the non-specialist clients.

http://www.cameredigitale.ro – offers a variety of products and accessories, but the structure of the website is not so professional. Opening the webpage, the screen is filling up with some recommended digital cameras, that makes you ask yourself:”Hey, why are these recommended… and by whom?”

http://www.camerefoto.ro – has a lighter aspect, but the prices are a little bit higher. Has a plus for the style and information.

To turn an e-shop into “a star”, you should pay attention to the design and structure of the website. Successful Web design means having tactical rationale for the placement of every graphic, image and word. It also means knowing your customers, anticipating their needs, and answering their questions before they’re even asked.

You should also develop a good business plan to cover all the aspects of the idea. The marketing should be well coordinated, offering a good support and service for the clients combined with CRM strategy in order to satisfy and retain them. As the relationships with the suppliers and partners are very important, they must be kept tight and you should find alternative partnerships to expand your business (creating a program for affiliate networks). The products must be delivered in time and in specific conditions.

Last but not least - to guarantee the success of your e-shop you must use and trust your personal values and have a sincere interest and desire to bring in a lot of energy.

What do you say about these tips?

Written by Bogdan

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