One of the best ways to attract more business to your retail website is to make your website a valuable resource for your buyers.
The more information your site contains, the more helpful and indispensable you become to your clientele, and the higher your search engine ratings will become.
Content that attracts business
What do your buyers need to know?
- If you are selling digital cameras, you may want to include articles with photography tips or instructions on using photo editing software or even reviews of available software. You can add information on how to use photos in greeting cards, scrap booking, advertising and so on.
- If you are selling vintage clothing, you can provide information on the fashion of the time the clothing represents or a discussion of the way button styles or hem lengths or colors have varied over time.
- If you are selling beauty products, write articles on the research behind the ingredients, other ways to improve appearance such as nutrition and exercise, methods of application for day and evening wear, application based on skin type or facial shape.
Now comes the part where you upload your content to your website. Before you do this, you should decide on a coherent, keyword rich and relevant categories structure for your articles. Then ask your programmer to create a form in your administration area to easily list and categorise your articles. Finally, ask that your live articles pages display your product offers most relevant to each articles topic.
Once your articles are uploaded, its time to actively place information in locations that lead back to your site.
Content placement that boosts sales
Your goal is to take advantage of the already established audiences on other websites to extend your reach.
- Place your articles in article directories such as www.ezinearticles.com (or search article submission in google), including with each article a footer with a link back to your site. By doing so, you can take advantage of EzineArticles extensive marketing capability to bring potential clients to you.
- Write a longer article that you can call a report and sell the report on eBay or, give it away for free through pay per click by directing users to your site. Be sure to require that anyone looking who wants to download your article provide their name and email address first so you can build a database of people who may be interested in your products people you can then target in an email campaign. Make sure your signup process indicates that the user receiving the free report will be automatically subscribed to a newsletter, yet clearly state your privacy policy.
- Place a portion of your article on a blog or discussion board with a link to your site to obtain the rest of the article.
- Place your articles on www.clickbank.com where you can sell them and also create a link back to your website and to websites you are affiliated with and possibly earn a commission from.
- Consider placing your article with potential partner sites, a jewelry site that complements your vintage clothing or beauty products, for example, with a link back to your site.
- You can also use your articles as revenue producers by selling them on sites such as www.constant-content.com, an article broker that supplies fresh content to websites and essentially markets you and your products at the same time.
How to produce content for your articles
If you simply arent a good article writer but you think that adding content can improve sales, look for a writer on www.upwork.com who can do the writing work for you. Writer quality varies as well as cost per article, ranging from $5-$100 per article, depending on complexity, quality, etc.
Extend your reach with useful information and watch your revenue grow.
Predicting Demand Trends For Better Profits
Predicting shifts in demand can help you surf the profit waves generated by demand fluctuations.
Whether you correctly forecast the increase or decrease in demand for a particular product, you can profit from both scenarios.
The Starting Point
Unless you have access to expensive market forecast data, you can use less expensive historical data to generate your own forecast model. There are various options to obtain historical data, one example is the gauk Market Research Wizard. Other methods include conducting your own targeted questionnaires and observing demand trends in your area, by asking family, and friends.
Whichever method you choose, if you can correctly predict the demand trend for a product, you stand to gain from your correct prediction, whether the trend is upward or downward sloping.
How To Gain From A Future Increase In Demand
Basic economics explains that an increase in demand for product A will result in an increase in its price. The more people want product A, the higher product As price will be.
Lets say you are predicting product A demand will increase next month. If your prediction is correct, by purchasing and stocking product A today you stand to gain by reselling it next month at the higher price (theoratically, even if you purchased product A today at retail price, you can gain by reselling it at next months higher retail price). A good example of demand led price increases is game consoles at Christmas, which experience a huge demand surge during this period, and a correlated increase in price.
NOTE: another factor that can lead to an increase in the price of a product is shortage of supply. The lower the quantity available for resale, the higher the price of the product. Supply is inversely related to demand.
In summary, if you can correctly predict a future increase in demand for product A, by purchasing product A today and reselling it once demand has increased, you stand to gain from product As future price increase.
How To Gain From A Future Decrease In Demand
Just like a products increase in demand leads to an increase in its price, a decrease in demand leads to a decrease in its price. The advantage of a slump in demand is that you dont have to predict it (unless you are already holding stock of the product). What you will have to predict is: i) how long the low demand will last; ii) when will it reach the bottom; iii) whether and when will its demand increase again.
A good recent example is luxury goods: in some parts of the world buyers are delaying purchases of luxury goods to more certain economic times. Due to this lower demand, prices for certain luxury goods have decreased. By buying lower priced luxury goods now (or as soon as you start noticing that their prices are increasing again) and reselling them once demand picks up again, you stand to earn the difference between todays lower price and tomorrows higher price due to a resurgence in demand for those goods (Christmas will certainly see an increase in demand for quite a few luxury lines).
In summary, you can profit from a product whose demand has slumped, just as you can with products that are about to experience a surge in demand. Your experience, access to the right information, ability to hold stock for variable periods of time, and market research will all play a part in increasing the likelihood that your prodictions are correct.
Conclusion
In conclusion, when you experience a decrease in overall demand, it is always a good idea to evaluate where new opportunities have arisen. With Christmas approaching, there are certain products which will undoubtedly increase in demand, independently of market conditions. Now is the time to evaluate your options and act on these new opportunities.
