How to Get the First Order for Your New E-commerce Site

Opening an online store is only the first step in developing an e-commerce business. Getting the first sale can be a real challenge.

You have set up your online store, customized it in your favor, and added products to your store. Then you might not know what you should do next. Just sit back and wait for sales? No, you should bring traffic to your store and products to get the first sale. So how can you achieve this goal? The article will introduce 11 top effective ways to help you.

How to Get Your First Order

The whole point of running an online store is to generate sales. You might get more energy and courage to continue after receiving the first order. Understandably, you want to achieve this goal immediately. You can do through the following 10+ ways:

1. Simplify Your Website Design

By simplifying the design of your website, you can make it easier for potential buyers to use. It is the key to converting interested visitors into e-commerce customers (in other words, your first sale!).

The first way is to reduce the number of products displayed on its page. Customers might be tired of spending too much time discovering what they are going to purchase. You should ensure that the interface of your website is not complicated so that visitors don’t have to work hard to find what they want. It is one of the reasons for having a prominent search bar and clear menu options for easy check.

You can leave blank spaces for some necessary buttons. That means you should remove distracting and unnecessary elements and avoid the temptation to include too much information on each product page. It’s better to only leave some necessary clicks, like “call to action buttons” - [Add to cart] as well as [buy it now], etc.

Last but not least. It’s important to make your store display mobile friendly. Mobile phone is the most used device that consumers place orders on. So make sure that your site is compatible with mobile phones.

2. Design Customer-friendly Site Layout

Keep in mind: Most of the consumers may make their sales in 3 seconds. That’s to say, the first impression of your website matters when making orders.

Complex layout and color mixture might make your site less attractive. So while designing your website, you can search for some successful online stores, you can check them in our 8 Best Shopify Dropshipping Stores in 2021 article and learn the layout of their store. However, don’t forget to choose the one that is most suitable for your products.

3. Post Blogs

The blog is another way to attract customers. It is also a platform where you can better present your products to your audience. The more visitors you can bring to your website, the more likely to make a sale.

Some examples of the blog content you can create on your site include:

• Articles about how to use your products.
• Post showing consumers the best solution to a specific problem. That means the benefits your goods provide.
• FAQs that answer questions for people who may be interested in your product.

4. Improve Product Description

You can only get your first order when your site lets visitors understand what your products are and what benefits they will get. Product description should include all the relevant details and specifications, as well as high-quality images and videos.

Some new users might make the purchase based on the description. So it’s important to tell your visitors what they would like to know directly, the price, the coupons, the shipment, the payment method, the function, etc.

Always make sure that users can learn all the information they need to know about your product without leaving them to find more information on your website. To do this, you need to understand the questions raised by your target audience and provide these details for your product.

5. Provide Giveaways

Everyone is interested in free things. When you are trying to get your first sale, you can use this way to attract visitors. When your potential customers visit the website, things free of charge bring much-needed attention to your products. This way doesn’t mean giving out your most expensive products. Instead, you only need to be willing to offer a few starter products for free. An easy but effective way, right?

Giveaways indeed can help to generate interest in your goods because you can draw the attention of participants to your paid products. Participants can also share their experience using your products or information about the gift itself with their friends and network.

6. Give Coupons

Since you are a starter, and you don’t have a high budget. This way may be more suitable. Unlike giveaways, you only need to make discounts for your potential customers.

It may be difficult for new buyers to justify buying from your store at full price, especially when you don’t have an established reputation or past customer reviews. Offering some of the best or most affordable products at reasonable discounts can be a powerful incentive to reduce risks and attract visitors to you.

7. Build Your Brand on Social media

Known to all, social media is an effective way to get traffic when doing online business. Building a brand on social media helps potential visitors to find and learn about your brand and your business.

You can catch the attention of users on social media by sharing something relevant to your brand from time to time. But remember, don't share just for the sake of sharing. Goods displayed on these platforms should be things the potential customers may be interested in.

What's more, there are many groups for specific interests and needs. You can join these groups to discover them and then share your relevant content there. When they have enough awareness of your brand, they may come to your e-commerce site and make a purchase.

For more details about benefits of social media, you could check in The Benefits of Social Media Advertising article.

8. Promote with Your Network

Your family members and friends are more likely to be your potential customers. Since you are familiar with them, and you know what they need to solve their problems, you get the unique selling points for your products.

It is nothing different from promoting your products to strangers. You can share your products with them, introduce them to the functions and benefits of your commodities, and allow them to try out your goods. What's more, you can even provide them some free samples.

9. Market to B2B Clients

Another way to generate your first sale is to sell your products to other businesses, rather than (or along with) sell directly to individual customers. Ultimately, what you need to do is getting your product into the hands of customers, no matter who they might be.

You could market by selling to wholesale retailers at local, national, or even international levels. Selling to businesses may not bring high-profit margins, but it is a way to show your products to the right consumer audiences. Once you have enough exposure to your brand, you may target customers directly.

10. Attend Trade Shows

Although you operate an online store, offline advertisement is necessary. You may find regional and national events relevant to your market and audience. Trade show is one of these great events to get target audiences.

At these events, you will meet both individual customers and wholesale suppliers. You can attract them by offering free samples, exclusive coupons, or promotional codes to anyone who comes to your booth.

11. Provide Extra Services

Professional and timely customer service matters.

Before customers make the deal, they might visit your website to find more details about your products. Professional support services give the answers to questions visitors have. What’s more, through these pre-sale services you can understand the needs of your potential customers. Then support services will help them to make their final decision.

Another service is shipment. Free shipment is a vital factor in attracting potential customers. When you provide free shipment for new users, they are more likely to place the order since it can help to reduce the cost.

Pro Tip for Managing Your Orders - DSers

Dropshipping is a popular way to run your online business, you accept the orders and your suppliers will help you to fulfill the sales. Easy, right? However, how can you manage thousands of orders? DSers, the most popular dropshipping tool on Shopify can help.

Find Better Supplier For Products DSers Supplier Optimizer - One click to filter out the most proper suppliers for your products TRY DSers FREE

It provides you store management, order management, products listing import, 24/7 service and more. With it you are able to place and manage many orders only in a few seconds. So when you dropship, don’t forget to choose DSers as a useful tool to help you.

Final Thoughts

Stepping into the online world may not seem to be difficult, but getting the first order for your online store can prove challenging. However, once you get the hang of it, you will know exactly how to keep your inventory rolling. Whenever you try any method to drive traffic to your website, whether online or offline, check how it works out for you. The main factor that influences online marketing is optimization.