Newsflash: eCommerce is not reserved for the massive corporate companies out there.
Your business may very well be compatible with eCommerce; and if you’re like me and want to work less with more free time to yourself, then this article is for you.
In the interest of balancing work and life, I’ve given you seven reasons to switch over to eCommerce with your online business.
Here’s why I think you should.
1. Your Main Time Investment is at the Start
Launching an eCommerce website can be a large project. But fortunately eCommerce builder platforms like Shopify have made this process a lot easier.
As a business owner you already know a fair amount about investment. You recognize the value in spending a lot of time building something so that it generates long term benefits for you.
That’s exactly what I want to talk to you about today.
Building up an eCommerce site will probably take many hours out of your day in the beginning. The whole point of eCommerce is automating a process so that you require less time and less staff to run your business.
So if you’re looking for future free time, I’d recommend switching over to eCommerce to sell your products.
2. Welcome to Your 3 Hour Work Day
Now that my eCommerce site is up and running, I no longer have that much to do in terms of management or marketing.
Imagine working a three-hour work day! You can if you play your cards right. While a conventional business runs approximately eight hours or more per day, the system I developed only requires you to work three hours per day.
The way I manage my company is threefold.
First, I tend to the marketing of my business through social media.
Then I tend to the blogging side of the business to improve my eCommerce site’s SEO.
Finally I spend some time on affiliate marketing, creating backlinks and creating awareness for my business.
Let’s look at these three areas of management more in-depth.
3. Social Media
You’ll agree that it’s important to market your company. Even the popular eCommerce websites do so extensively. So should you.
Social media is the most fundamental way to market your business—especially if it’s online.
Your first hour each day should be spent doing this. if you’ve just written a blog, share it on social media and if you think it’s a really good post, open a small advertizing budget to promote it to more people.
I like to spend some time building my audience on Facebook. If I have a large audience, I have more people I can ultimately market my products to.
And yes, it only takes an hour or less to schedule a few posts on BufferApp, reply to a few comments and promote a post of two.
4. Blogging
The second hour of your day should be spent writing. Now this isn’t everyone’s forte, but it is essential to the Search Engine Optimization of your eCommerce website.
Blogging adds valuable content on your site and helps users find you through Google.
It also helps Google to rank you better so that users find you easier.
Take an hour to write a post of between 800 and 2000 words—depending on how fast you can write.
Remember to add the following to each blog post you add:
Relevant keywords and search phrases that pertain to your niche.
An internal link within the blog that links to another page on your eCommerce site (preferably a product page).
One external link linking back to an authoritative website or an affiliate blog.
5. Affiliate Marketing
Your final work day hour can now be spent on something equally important: affiliate marketing. Although this is super important, it’s actually the easiest thing to do—which is why I do it last.
Affiliate marketing involves a whole range of fun activities that create awareness of your brand as well as an online presence. This includes searching for keywords that could help with your domain name and boost revenue.
Here are some areas you can work on:
Browse the internet casually and find articles, videos or even podcasts that relate to your industry. Which words or phrases are being used the most?
Make comments—not for the sake of commenting, but real thought out comments generate engagement and conversation.
Where relevant, add a link in your comments to a product on your site; or to a blog you’ve written that’s relevant to the conversation.
Without spamming comment sections, give people real advice and set yourself up as an online personality who knows and discusses your niche.
This kind of activity—if regular—will peak people’s interests and get them interested in your site. They follow your pages, purchase your products and sign up to read your content.
Remain consistent in this third hour of your work day and you’ll soon see your sales go up.
6. Sales are Automated
One of the biggest time saves you’ll ever enjoy from switching over to eCommerce is the time it takes to make sales.
eCommerce sales processes are usually fully automated. The initial part is the sales part; which entails showcasing and describing a product. Then the purchasing of that product takes place and payment & invoicing are done via the system. Finally delivery takes place, which is another automatic part of the entire process you don’t have to worry about.
All these steps used to be manually processed by you or your staff. Now it’s time to give yourself that free time you crave and fully automated your online business.
7. Payment is Automated
The admin part of payments and invoices can be a time consuming one. The best eCommerce platforms always include this process into their automated systems to make your customers’ buying experience a happy one.
This process is not only automated, but 100% accurate in calculating stock shortages, tax amounts and discounts.
So if you’re looking to save time while increasing your overall sales, perhaps eCommerce is something you should look into.
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