The most frequent question we receive from new online merchants is… how do I setup my online store? The answer to that question is typically the same whether you are selling clothing, electronics, supplements, or any other retail product. It is important to note a few exceptions to the typical online store setup. More complex online store setups include sites that sell recurring subscriptions, digital downloadable products, or some other custom calculation that involves the customers input.
OK, so you are ready to start your online clothing store. Here are our top 6 things to consider when it comes to setting up an online clothes store.
- Brandable Domain Name
- Online Store Platform
- Product Photos
- Social Media
- Blogging
- Newsletter
Brandable Domain Name
A short and memorable domain name is ideal. Premium domain names, domain names that are for sale at a premium price, may be the best way to get the exact brand name you desire. Sites like Oro.Domains specialize in the sale of premium domain names. The more basic and identifiable your domain name is, the more likely it will be ranked higher in the search results. For a clothing store, choosing a name that represents the brand or one that represents the specific niche in the clothing market may work well. Your business plan should help guide you in this process. Earth Skater offers a complimentary domain name branding service during our setup process to help choose the perfect name for your business.
Online Store Platform
Setting up your online clothing store can be difficult and time consuming to say the least, not to mention costly. Clothing store merchants do better with an online store platform that can help them set up the website. Questions to consider when choosing your online store platform for your clothing store are:
- Will I be able to design the site to match my brands image
- Will I have help in uploading the products, content, and photos
- Does the online store support all of the product options needed to sell my product line effectively and efficiently
Product Photos
Product photos are extremely important and just as important as having an awesome looking web design. So your product photos must be top notch in order for your brand clothing store to shine online. Taking time to optimize, resize, crop, and re-create product photos so that they are as near perfect as possible can be an easy way to differentiate your clothing store from your competitors. Photos should be consistent in terms of size, lighting, background, to give the most professional appearance. Photo watermarks can be added and most online stores allow for a watermark to be added when inserting products into the online store.
Social Media
Setting up your social media accounts is vital to building your online clothing store brand. It is not that difficult or time consuming, just go over to Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, Instagram, YouTube, and other social media sites and create an account with your business name and information. After you create your accounts you will add the links and plugins to your website to connect your website with the social platforms. Finally, the vital part is to stay active on your social media accounts. This means regular posting to each account. Vary the content posted to each social media platform accordingly based on the audiences you are reaching respectively. Clothing stores can post about things customers are thinking about and looking for. Use keywords in your posts that customers are searching for and focus on the customer always.
Blogging
Setting up your Blog is the other vital part of marketing your online clothes store. Blogging and social media go hand in hand. The blogs you write will also be posted to your social media accounts to create life cycle of marketing content. Blogging is vital to building your online clothing store brand because of the content that you create as the business owner. As a clothing store owner you will post about topics of interest to your customers and include the keywords they are searching for. Also, your customers will see that your website is alive with content through the regular posting being done.
Newsletter
A very important piece of the puzzle in marketing an online clothing store is setting up a newsletter. Adding a JOIN OUR NEWSLETTER feature to your website allows you to build a list of targeted people to market to. You can offer an incentive to join your newsletter like a 5 or 10% discount on their next clothing purchase. The bigger your list grows the more valuable it becomes as a go to source for increasing sales. Your newsletter is a vital way to keep in contact with your followers and increase sales.
Earth Skater specializes in eCommerce with complimentary website setup and transfer. We’ve helped hundreds of merchants make an easy transition into the world of websites and selling online with our online store platform.
