5 Shocking Mistakes To Avoid If You Want To Sell Online

History repeats itself over and over again: We spend most of our time trying to come out with the best product for the market but forget the most important thing, which is how to sell our products online.

Those of us who work on the Internet are a little smart, don't ask me why that is the fact.

You know it as well as me, right? Any individual is capable of throwing himself the successful "entrepreneur" lifestyle without having done anything in his life, just because he belongs to the fashion guild, selling on the Internet. The internet is full of “fakes” who just get into borrowed vehicles, apartments, just to create an impression on the internet that they are successful entrepreneurs, without having set up a business in their lives.

The problem here is that many people are seduced by the things they see and believe that setting up an internet business consists of landing, raising a flag and, colonizing land plagued by resources. Well, no, I'm very sorry, but this is just as hard, sacrificed and risky (even more) than running a neighborhood bakery.

To avoid the bad drink of having to learn some of the main mistakes of selling online, I am going to share with you some of the things I have learned over the years……………….

1. Thinking Of It As A Technology Business

If Amazon says it, it has to be true, right? Less than a year ago, the Amazon CEO said they were a technology company. Bravo, now we have messed it up! If an entrepreneur like Jeff Bezos says that Amazon is a technology company, how can I contradict it ...

Well, let me try. Amazon today is a technology company but I am sure that in the beginning, it was a people company. Because after all, your buyers, those on the other side, are flesh and blood people. For this reason, setting up an online store and waiting for "traffic" to make a sale does not make sense, there is no magic anywhere to pull traffic to your business.

Instead of thinking about what type of technology to use (WordPress, Magento, Shopify, etc.), focus on seducing people to buy your product. For companies like Zara or El Corte Inglés, selling on the Internet is not so difficult because they already have the trust of people, but you and I are not Zara, someday perhaps ... but not today.

Thinking about the technology and investing heavily in it is not the way forward, rather, looking for your first customers, yes, those who will pay the first bills. I know, it seems somewhat ridiculous, but there is nothing worse than investing thousands of euros in an Online store to not sell anything online.

2. Neglect the importance of sales

Selling is the bloodline of every business, if your business doesn’t make sales you are not in business. As an upcoming entrepreneur or business person, when starting to sell online, your focus should be on how to make sales for your business and not how to design the best product for the market. If you can figure this out, you will never go hungry again.

It is very common for 2 or 3 Engineers to come together to develop a fantastic product but none of them can sell it. Sometimes out of shame, but in most cases due to ignorance of the skills necessary to close a sale.

If you want to sell online, it is better to put aside your pride, technical know how and get down to work to get your company ahead, because at the end of the month what matters are the numbers, whether it is an Internet company or any other sector.

3. Entrusting all your marketing strategy to viral advertising

Using viral videos to advertise is great but it becomes dangerous when all your marketing strategy is based on viral content. For instance, if a girl has gotten millions of visits making strange movements with her lips, our mega-hyper-product will be super viral. This may sound like a joke but I have met people whose marketing plan is based exclusively on "virality."

Don't get me wrong, I won't be the one to shatter your dreams, but it seems much more real to me to get a system which records the number of visitors, conversions and shows you how much it costs to capture a client, where they are coming from and the type of content they interact with. Leaving everything in the hands of virality seems to be a risky and doomed strategy, not for nothing but because people prefer to see a lady dancing and making strange movements before seeing a "spot" of your product.

With all this I do not mean that you shouldn’t invest time and money in promoting your product with viral content, my point of view is that don’t put all your eggs in one basket, get another strategy to market your product or services in case the viral advertising does not work out as planned.

4. Don’t provide incorrect data about your product

When listing your products online, you should give the exact data about the product, you may think that customers won’t notice but you are wrong, customers would be able to tell if the sizes you gave about your product isn’t the correct sizes.

A product with less data is better than a product with inaccurate data. You might stand out with the inaccurate data but shoppers will stop buying from you as it will appear that you don’t know what you are doing.

5. Don’t join a market place without reading their terms and conditions

Reading terms and conditions of market places is very important when it comes to selling online. Some market places have restrictions on selling certain products on their platforms, some do not accept digital products, drugs, etc. so before joining a market place, make sure you know what they allow and disallow on their platform.

Others make huge commissions on the sales you make on their platform, unusual shipping time and fees, unfavorable refund policy, etc. which will affect the performance of your product in the long run.

In the end, you are the one going to be at a disadvantaged position so before joining the market place, make sure you understand everything in their terms and conditions.