Diversify Your Income
Many online retailers have specific industry and target audiences that they work with. While it is important to establish yourself within a niche that is going to support you, there are also ways to diversify yourself from this and grow your profits accordingly. This can be done simply by exploring coincidental merchandise or services that your customers are probably already buying. The goal is to get them buying these extras from you. Here are three quick tips to diversifying your site to increase sales:
- Do some research on your clientele. Find out what they like and what they are already doing with that extra disposable income that they aren’t spending with you. If you sold plants, you’d sell gardening tools too, wouldn’t you? This is more than that, however. What if you developed a class in which you teach new gardeners the best practices for planting and growing? Products that you sell online don’t just have to be tangible goods. Knowledge is a hot commodity.
- Think outside the box. Maybe classes aren’t something that your business does now and isn’t something that is going to make you a household name, but if you made an extra few hundred dollars a month by sharing your knowledge, wouldn’t that help with the mortgage? Be creative in when it comes to boosting your income. Think about what your customers would pay for, or what you would pay for if you were shopping for a specific item. If you had just bought a new pair of binoculars for bird watching, wouldn’t it be great if there was a tour of your local parks on the best spots for bird watching to get you started?
- Don’t be afraid to fail. This experiment in online retail is going to take you a few times to get right. You may not see the increase you are hoping for in the first few months, but don’t let that discourage you. Understand that it takes time to get the traffic you want and in turn see the sales that you are hoping for. By diversifying yourself to encompass a customer’s needs, you are already going to be a step ahead of the competition. Think of yourself as a streamlined part of your customer’s experience. A one stop for not just only product but knowledge and community.
