The gift market is a vast and diverse one, which is why many new ecommerce operators are starting new gift stores online. Here, we will show you how to set up your own gift store online for success so that you can sell more.

Imagine being the go-to online gift provider for corporates and individuals similar to the success of other huge online gift stores.

Starting a store online takes little to no experience. As long as you have an idea of what you want to sell and who your customers should be, there are some simple steps to starting an online store. Here, we will tell you how to start your own gift store online store in no time at all. 

1. What will you Sell?

There are lots of different gift products out there, so you need to be aware of what you will be selling. Will it be catering to bulk products that can be customised for corporates to use? Will it be cute and quirky gifts for individuals to use? Will it be normal flower and cake deliveries? Whatever you choose, remember your customer base will also different vastly. This will also impact the pricing of your products. Choose your types of gift products well to cater to the niche you have in mind and you have what you need to get started. 

2. How will you be Delivering Products?

There are two options when it comes to order fulfillment: dropshipping and warehousing. In dropshipping, you have the product housed and delivered by a third party vendor, whom you purchase the goods from on a bulk pricing model. In this model, you will have little to no control over the quality of the products and how they are delivered. So, it might work as you start out, but after that you might want to switch to owning your own products. 

In the warehousing model, you will need your own space to house your products, and then have a tie up with a delivery services provider. This way, you can exercise full control over the quality of the shipment as well as make sure that the customer receives them on time. This is vital if you want your business to have an expanding customer base in future. 

3. Register your Domain and start Selling on Shopnix

Creating your own ecommerce site and registering your domain online has never been easier. Thanks to online service providers like Shopnix, you can now get your own domain and set up a website with basically no information of web hosting or any of that other complicated jazz. All you need to know is your product and you are ready to start. If you have already registered your business, this should be a simple next step. 

Take a look at the available domain names and register it on Shopnix. You can also choose an attractive template that will showcase all of your products. These templates are of different kinds, with some templates available for free, while the others are to be paid for. The entire hosting service works on a subscription model, making it very simple for you to get started even if you have little capital.

4. Set up your Inventory and Payment Methods

If you have a lot of gift items you want to offer, you will want to place them in a strategic way on your online store so that people can see what they need. Shopnix makes it easy for you to arrange your products into easy menus and catalogues so that your customers will find it simple to shop. You can organise your items with a search bar so that people can find a product they like more easily. 

When it comes to payment methods, you want to make sure you offer your customers a wide range of options. Apart from the standard debit, credit card and online banking features, customers also tend to enjoy the convenience of online wallets. You need to make sure you can offer support to popular ewallets like PayTM, Amazon Pay, Google Pay, and so on. Fortunately, Shopnix makes it easier for you to quickly select the payment options you would like to offer and get started from there. 

5. Market your Store

Marketing your store is really your way of making your store more popular and well known. How are people going to buy your product if they don’t even know that your store exists? To that end, there are different kinds of marketing that you can do so that your store gets the hits it needs. 

Social Media Marketing

Social media marketing allows you to reach out to your customers on social media like Facebook, Instagram, etc., which is where they are most likely to be. You can have influencers post about your product and tag you in their posts. You can also have interesting updates made online so that people keep returning to your store. 

Pay Per Click

When advertisers go in for a Facebook Pixel or Google Adwords account, they only need to pay every time someone clicks on an ad created through the site. This kind of advertising is effective because of the ad placement and reach of these companies. It can be quite expensive. Therefore, you need to be mindful of how much advertising budget you have available. Once you have a rough idea of how much you are comfortable to spend per month, then you can set up an ad campaign, which pushes out your ads making the maximum use of your budget. 

There are several other types of marketing also available, including the use of Search Engine Optimisation, email marketing, SMS marketing, which you can also look into using to broaden your customer base. 

In Conclusion

With this, you should have all the information you need to get started with your online gift store. Just focus on how you can set up your store online and marketing it, and watch as it practically runs itself!