Chapter 9. Digital Product Store
The best way to learn about running an online store is from others who have online businesses. Learning tips, tricks, and even mistakes from experienced owners not only saves you time and money, but it also guarantees you business success. You need to learn real-world experience in today's market. How do you build a store? Why did you use this product compared to other products? What advanced features did you use, and did they help with conversions? How do you set up your inventory? Which development company did you use, and were you satisfied with them? How do you import order information into your accounting system? How did you design your warehouse and packaging process? What shipping provider(s) are you using and why? What marketing tactics have you tried, and did they work? Unless you work for an online business or have a good friend in the business, you won't likely get answers to these questions. So, you're left making the same mistakes, throwing money away on unsuccessful marketing campaigns, and spending too much time tweaking your store and not working on obtaining more customers. You can try to consult with a development company, but unless the company has its own successful online store or has built and marketed an online store in your industry, you might not get that real-world experience advice you're looking for. In this chapter and the next two chapters, we deconstruct three separate Yahoo! stores: a digital product store, a manufacturer product store, and a high-volume product store. All three of these online stores have generously agreed to give you the inside secrets and tactics they have been successfully using for years. You will learn advanced tactics in today's market, where you will be competing with hundreds, if not thousands, of other websites. You will also learn mistakes they have made so you can avoid the same pitfalls. We look at everything from the user interface to marketing strategies. After all, the best way to learn is to learn from others with experience. Surfing the Internet and just looking at competitors' websites will not give you the behind-the-scenes strategy that you will need to successfully run your online business. In this chapter, we deconstruct a digital product store by WriteExpress (www.writeexpress.com). Yahoo! Merchant Solutions enables you to sell digital or downloadable products. You can sell software, e-books, articles, PDFs, how-to information, photos, music, and more. Anything of value that can be digitized can be sold online. The great thing about selling digital products is that you don't have inventory and don't need to ship the product. When you create the digital product, you can sell it over and over againthey're virtual products with real profits! The process is all automated. After you upload your digital product, customers can purchase and receive the product immediately. The Yahoo! store has made it easy for anyone to sell digital products. With the Internet and the fast-paced environment we live it, consumers want their products now. For example, the online music industry has seen an explosion of downloadable music. Consumers want it immediately: They don't want to have to go to the music store or wait for a CD in the mail; they want to be able to listen to it immediately on their iPods or other MP3 portable music player, in their cars, and even on their cell phones. |
EAN: 2147483647
Pages: 208