This article is going to share with you a useful guideline on how to manage an online store for all dropshippers or any online business owners. People might tell you a lot about how to start your business, how to find a good sourcing agent dropshipping, how to run your ads, etc. But they rarely tell you how to manage an online store effectively. Based on the experiences we got from dropshipping, we are glad to share our “little secrets” with you on how to manage an online store so that you can have some ideas to solve your problems and run your business better along the way. Let’s get started!
The basic step to manage an online store
The first thing you should remember is that you don’t need to spend the whole time on your online store. We understand that when you first run your business, you want to be available 24/7. As soon as you wake up, you are eager to respond to your customers, handle your orders,…
But we would advise you not to do that. Instead, plan your day and draw up your work schedule so that you can both manage your business and enjoy your day. You don’t want to get exhausted and burnt out at the end of the day, do you?
Ok. So now, what are you going to do to manage an online store? The first thing would be checking your inbox every day. And there are a bunch of things you should concentrate when you do that:
Changes to orders
This happens all the time. A customer may place an order and then send you a message: “Oh, hey, I ordered a dress, but I want to change to a bigger size. And can you add this shorts to my order as well?” When you read this, you might feel puzzled. Nobody wants to make things complicated in that way. But that’s your work. And you will soon get used to it. You will soon find ways to deal with this kind of issue like working with your supplier, working with your team. Things like that.
Refund letters
There are times that people just change their mind and want to cancel their orders. Or they didn’t receive their orders due to delayed delivery, lost items and they just want to cancel. This may seem disappointing to you. But again, this also happens.
Payment confirmations
This seems to be the most exciting thing to all of us. But you need to check every detail of the payments carefully. Sometimes stuff just happens. Double-check your buyer’s name and the name of the card holder, the country of delivery and the country of card holder, etc.
If there is anything wrong, you could require more documentation from your customer to verify. If there are more than 3 payment attempts that were declined, you’d better cancel that order. As this seems more like a fraud.
The core step to manage an online store
Proofreading
Before transferring the orders to your suppliers or dropshipping fulfillment agent, you need to check the customers’ mailing details, like checking their names, Zip code, and other additional details. Sometimes your customers may fill incorrect information due to typos, misspelling mistakes, and so on. So your job is to check everything carefully before processing.
Promoting
We could not say enough about this. If you want to learn more about promoting tips, you can read other articles on our blog. In this part, we just sum it up briefly.
First, it’s important that you advertise your products on social media. This sounds like an old story. But it’s always true. Sales mostly come from social media beside other tools like SEO, blogging, Google Ads and so on.
Since social media has a large number of users. Things on social media get popular so fast and easily. The network is big. And that’s why when you advertise your products on social media, more people know you and buy from you.
You could also boost your sales through email marketing. You could send emails to your regular customers, to previous buyers and new leads. This is a very efficient method for re-marketing.
The last step to manage an online store
As you can imagine, most of your daily job to manage an online store is order processing. But you can make this process automatically then you can save a bunch of time for other activities. Your system and your dropshipping fulfillment agent could do the rest for you.
It’s also essential that you track your statistical data every day or every week. You calculate the net profit, overall revenue. You gather the data of buyer’s behaviors. And so on. The data you gather can help in forming your marketing and advertising campaign as well.
The bottom line of how to manage an online store
When you manage an online store, you should keep in mind one thing: work-life balance. You don’t need to sacrifice your personal life for your work. You don’t have to be a workaholic person to get rich. You run a business to make money and enjoy your fruits, right? So don’t ruin the fun. Just work out a plan and decide how much time you would like to spend on your business. We think that if you find your work interesting and rewarding, you always want to work more. If you are energetic and happy, you will work better.
Private Agent for Dropshipping Success