Introduction
In modern days, the majority of companies possess at least some form of an online presence. Your company is one of them, which is a significant advantage over many other stores that have little to no access to the vast potential customer base that is the Internet. However, the current realization of this approach leaves Lou’s Shoes at a disadvantage, implying the need to revise its strategy. Nowadays, the digital era brings an opportunity for small businesses to pose themselves on the market as independent retailers, and Lou’s Shoes cannot miss it.
The key objectives for your company will be social media marketing via small-scale influencers, customer profiling, the expansion of customer services, search engine optimization, and email marketing. These goals are easy to achieve for a small-scale online retailer, such as Lou’s Shoes, and give it an advantage through better exposure and improved customer interactions. This report aims to assist your company in understanding the need for setting up their online store for long-term success and gives recommendations on how to perform this task in the most optimal way.
Basis for Recommendations
Despite having an already established online presence, Lou’s Shoes is set within another company’s digital space. Using such a store format involves critical issues with the inability to direct customers’ attention to the store products exclusively. One of the most crucial missing features is the ability to set the potential visitors’ path through the website’s content in the way that seems to be the most optimal for the store owner. To facilitate such customization of users’ experience and immediately direct their attention to the product they would desire the most, the company should involve other platforms and advertisement types.
Specifics of eBay Stores
First and foremost, having a store on eBay means that Lou’s Shoes does not have the freedom it might enjoy otherwise in terms of advertising, trading, and even price setting. The primary issue is that eBay poses significant fees that inhibit the company’s success. It takes a significant portion of the firm’s total revenue, approximately 10%, or even more if a sale is international. A second issue with eBay is that each product page comes with a set of recommendations for products from other sellers, drawing attention away from Lou’s Shoes. In this highly competitive environment, such a distraction may lead to an eventual bankruptcy, as a store managed by only two people may suffer from slowly updated prices. Other restrictions come from the standardized look for store pages, making it more difficult to present information regarding special promotions in comparison with a personal website. In turn, eBay leaves domain authority, page load speed, and other metrics that often require attention in the best possible state, making store owners less concerned with technical specifics.
Examples of Other Retail Stores
On the example of several footwear online retailers, it is possible to outline what features of a personal store pique customers’ interest the most. Undoubtedly, the price availability and variety of the presented products are one of the primary attractions. However, customers also seek excellent customer service that helps with guiding their decisions. Moreover, a refund policy is a key feature in the majority of the most popular online footwear stores, such as Zappos and Designer Shoe Warehouse. Covering all the popular brands is also essential for attracting the customer base that might be interested in shopping at Lou’s Shoes.
With the number of footwear retail stores in the United Kindom surpassing 11,000, it is a challenging task to stand out in such a crowd. However, while most of these stores prefer physical locations over digital ones, there is an excellent opportunity for Lou’s Shoes to attract the attention of younger generations who prefer to shop online. Nowadays, online presence is something that most companies desire, yet it may be daunting for brick-and-mortar stores to enter this market, as buying footwear online without trying it on might seem as illogical. Since Lou’s Shoes possesses extensive experience in this sphere, additional web pages, preferably independent of eBay, would provide a significant competitive advantage over other stores.
Recommendations
Social Media Marketing
Establishing the company’s social media account is one of the essential actions that can assist Lou’s Shoes with its goal of eventual expansion. By running a Twitter, Instagram, or Facebook page, you will be able to present your products in a place that is relatively free from other competitors’ products in the immediate vicinity of the digital space. Moreover, it will give your current and potential customers a chance to share the products that you offer and discuss them, increasing the overall attention to your store.
Influencers
As Lou’s Shoes focuses on famous fashion brands, it could be helpful to invite an influencer figure to promote your website. This method is one of the most popular ways for an online retail store to reach the vast majority of customers. The example of a successful social media marketing campaign by ASOS in November 2021 reveals that achieving billions of views is not an impossible task for an advertisement. Furthermore, your company needs to find a way to personalize the message for the audience in accordance with their tastes and preferences, such as the key message of the influencer’s posts. Even a small-scale influencer needs an individual approach, so Lou’s Shoes can, for example, offer free products in return for a review. However, the vital effect of this marketing approach depends partially on factors outside of your company’s control, making it less reliable in terms of engagement rate. Allowing influencers to have complete creative freedom and providing them with pointers towards viable content personalization tactics is a key to a successful social media campaign.
Viable Platforms
Since the customers have already shared photos of the products purchased in your store over Instagram, further expansion into that direction seems like a good choice. With over 1 billion monthly visitors, this website can give Lou’s Shoes both a place for advertisement and customer interactions. Promotion for customers who want to show their creativity is also possible. For example, the company can give a discount for future purchases to customers who make a post with their most recent product from Lou’s Shoes on their Instagram page. There are numerous methods that can increase brand mentions across platforms, raising customers’ engagement.
One of the most crucial tasks that the company has to perform is transferring its customers from other places for the advertisement to its eBay store page. There are several ways such a feat can be achieved, although their selection depends on the platform and the scope of an advertising campaign. For example, even a small TikTok influencer has the ability to reach thousands, most of which will be in the age range of your target customer base. An influencer can be given a promotional code that gives a 5-15% off of a customer’s first purchase, which will be added to the description of the piece of promotional content.
Hashtags
Hashtags would play a vital role in this type of promotion. These short keywords help customers who seek posts regarding a particular type of content with finding your posts on social media. There are seasonal and trending hashtags that can work exceptionally well for your company in terms of customer reach, such as #BlackFriday and more creative ones. They can be set easily through sharing applications for many social media platforms at once, making work for your employees significantly easier.
Search Engine Optimization (SEO)
Using a platform such as eBay comes with the issue of a highly competitive environment. To negate this factor, at least partially, your store can adopt common practices that allow products to come on top of the platform’s search results. Due to the reliance on eBay, standard search optimization methods would not help, so typical techniques for local SEO will be necessary for selection. First of all, new listings have the potential to appear in the top positions, meaning that constant updates to the shop inventory with the most popular products are a critical task for Lou’s Shoes. Upholding the top position in terms of customer ratings also helps the store to have its listings stay ahead of those of its competitors.
SEO Considerations
Descriptions must be as complete as possible, with most vital keywords being placed in the first few sentences for further visibility. Product titles must remain clear and concise and have no redundant and overused words. SEO activities must remain within the bounds set by eBay since its search engine can penalize unnecessary spam. Including relevant links to other products from your store can also help with retaining customers’ attention. A reasonable amount of keywords should be included to avoid triggering anti-spam algorithms.
Product Page Analysis
Moreover, it is critical to analyze each product’s performance individually. Underperforming listings might have difficulties with showing up for potential customers during searches. You should consider responding to a low number of views with quick action. Thankfully, eBay provides listing insights that allow you to compare your product with similar ones on the subject of price, description, and how long does it take to sell each piece on average. While the company is knowledgeable regarding the eBay listing processes, it might be beneficial to ensure that each product page presents the most extensive data that puts it into the top position among similar ones. Related statistics, such as the average time on the store page, checkout abandonment, and the conversion rate, may shed new light on products that require addressing. By resolving each of their deficiencies in time, your shoes will remain in view of the platform’s visitors.
Customer Communication
According to the description I have been provided with, the company’s employees have little to no knowledge of technologies related to digital marketing. However, putting them in charge of posting short stories over such platforms as Twitter or Instagram with photos of the company’s products is a fundamental skill that does not require additional training. While it might not bring the attention of significant crowds, such posts eventually make a buzz when made constantly with original content. It is not necessary to start discussions with other users online, although conversationalists would bring additional attention to the company’s social media accounts. The impact of this digital marketing feature can be measured with the number of customer-service communications per day. Moreover, managing customer relations is a task that can damage your company’s reputation if done improperly,
Customer Transfer
Another challenge that you will have to face is the additional environment to operate in. This is quintessential to be able to keep advertisements in such places to the best of the company’s interests, as the primary competitive advantage will lie in Lou’s Shoes’ ability to stand out. Customers might need assistance with transferring them from an influencer’s page to the store’s website. Essential statistics that can reveal the efficiency of the employed methods include the number of shares, new followers, and click-through rates. Employees might have to monitor posts under paid advertisements in order to assist willing customers with their intentions. This new formula will require minimal expansion of your employees’ knowledge base, but encouraging them to improve their communication skills will benefit your company in the long run.
Consumer Profiling
An online retail store for a small business can meet significant issues with the lack of attention to its website if no other options are explored. However, with the already strong online presence due to its age, the company should have no issues with creating a basic profile of its customers. To get an idea of what your customers also like, it is possible to look for recommended products that your customers often purchase. Knowing whom do you sell your products to gives you the chance to tailor specific discounts and promotions that will be highly effective.
Having a complete profile of a regular customer of Lou’s Shoes might require some generalization. It is beneficial to begin by exploring what the primary reason for a customer to purchase footwear online is. For example, customers from the UK are attracted to this method of purchase for its availability from any location, having more products to select from, and lower prices. These factors are essential for upholding even if the company would eventually switch to the global market.
Email Marketing
The last method that the company should consider utilizing is email marketing. Aside from being inexpensive and accessible, it is a popular and highly cost-efficient way to attract both old and new customers. Digital marketing research shows that this method’s return of investment is as high as 4400 percent. Another essential feature of email marketing is its ease to use, so none of your employees would have to take any significant burden to manage emails. Moreover, there are third-party tools, such as AutomaticSeller and EmailMarketingFX, that allow eBay stores to collect user emails with zero effort and knowledge of the technical specifics of this task. These services also provide key metrics, such as signup, open, and unsubscribe rates.
This approach can also increase the number of reviews for your products. Automatic eBay emails can ask customers to express their opinion for others to see when viewing the product page. Thus, setting up email lists would give your store more points of interaction with customers, increasing its visibility and appeal over your competitors’ shops. Emails are easy to send en masse and give your customers an option to opt out of unwanted listings.
Potential Obstacles
When establishing an online presence, it might be troublesome for a small business to reach its intended customer base with the tools at hand. However, since Lou’s Shoes is already somewhat renowned on the Internet, the only problem that is to be expected is the transfer of customers from eBay and online forums to the store’s personal website. Bringing attention to your website might look like a challenging task ahead, yet there are many tools available for small businesses to assist them with it.
The choice of platform presents another issue: it is impossible to perform an in-depth search engine optimization for a store page that is located on such a website. Customers who search for products on Google or other similar websites might be unable to reach your store without additional links to it from outside resources, including social media promotions and forum posts. Otherwise, it is more likely that your potential customers will stumble into independent websites, which might be a way to move forward from eBay once the company grows sufficiently.
It is vital to understand that running a successful store in a highly competitive environment is a task that requires creativity as well as price availability and delivery fees. Platforms such as Amazon, eBay, and Etsy allow setting a complete product listing that only requires setting up a photo, price, and description, the work does not end there. The constant evaluation of the competitors’ stores and products will be the most pressing issue as long as the store does not own a website. Thankfully, there is a multitude of made-ready solutions and services that can assist with that, as eBay possesses some of the most sophisticated tools for analytics and comparison.
Future Prospects
A solid online presence opens numerous opportunities for its owners, including expansion to other regions and brand building. As you have expressed the willingness to expand internationally, an online retail store with easy global access to payment tools is a step in the right direction. While eBay has additional transaction fees for international sales, such an issue can be resolved with sufficient advertising and the expansion of your customer base. The presented opportunity perfectly aligns with advertisement campaigns suitable for global reach.
Expansion of Social Media Presence
Having even a basic social media presence is one of the first steps towards the creation of a strong brand image. From this point onward, your company can grow into becoming a recognizable footwear retailer in your area and then slowly work its way up. Your target audience can become your greatest ally in this endeavor, as young adults are more likely to engage in online discussions, share their opinions, and create content that adds to your brand image.
Going Global
If Lou’s Shoes truly aims for the global market, customer communications, especially the company’s return policy, should be comparable with other online footwear retailers. Many global stores have set this bar very high, putting a 365-day return period as a norm. In addition to this feature, many stores have customer support available almost at any time through contractors. High-quality responses to customers’ inquiries would give the company a significant edge over its competitors.
I must advise you that the expansion of online presence cannot be done sufficiently from your current standpoint, as digital marketing tools available for an eBay shop are limited. As a standalone online retail store, you will be able to configure almost all aspects of shoppers’ experience, even tailoring a specific approach for a customer depending on their location. Moreover, such expanded tools would allow you to create a detailed profile of your target customer base, allowing you to set up new products and sales more precisely. For example, it will be possible to detect what types of content are the most attractive for first-time visitors and what deals are more likely to draw a customer to visit your store again. With such data, it is only a matter of setting up the shortest path for a successful purchase in each case.
Conclusion
In conclusion, Lou’s Shoes will be able to improve its performance by employing social media marketing, upgrading customer service support, optimizing its products’ positions in search results, and profiling its customer base. While there are severe obstacles on the way to the improvement of its performance presented by eBay, Lou’s Shoes can garner new attention through influencers and promotions on social media platforms. Moreover, the customers will remain focused primarily on the company’s products when they are brought in from other digital spaces, such as Twitter or Facebook. It will be critical to keep the interactions with these newcomers in an updated format that is more alluring to the intended consumer base.
With the proper attitude towards the exploration of new places for advertisement, this approach should cover its expenses and set the company for long-term success. The intended digital marketing elements are to be implemented simultaneously and utilized in conjunction with each other to build up momentum for the company’s popularity rapidly. Moreover, their implementation must be supported by the company’s personnel. Therefore, the expenses should include either hiring another employee for a part-time place or increasing weekly working hours for the existing ones.
Lou’s Shoes can expect to get several benefits from digital marketing elements proposed in this report, including increased revenue, more advertisement opportunities, greater customer reach, more options for store configuration, and better access to future expansion. Expanding the store’s reach outside of eBay gives Lou’s Shoes higher creative freedom and the ability to establish special promotions that will reach its target customer base with ease. There are numerous metrics that can reveal the digital marketing campaign’s success, making it possible to adjust employed strategies along the way. Keeping an eye on them might require additional efforts and expenses, yet they provide extensive data for further analysis.
All of the recommended actions give the company a solid foundation for future expansion. Since your plans expand outside of the country’s borders, your competition will only get more challenging. While eBay provides you with a store that does not require technical knowledge, such skill might be necessary when moving forward. The company might need to be transformed entirely to be made ready for global expansion, as that industry is even more saturated than the UK footwear market.
Reference List
Charlesworth, A. (2018) Digital marketing: A practical approach. New York, NY: Routledge.
Charlesworth, A. (2015) An introduction to social media marketing. New York, NY: Routledge.
Diamond, S. (2019) Digital marketing all-in-one. Hoboken, New Jersey: John Wiley & Sons.
eBay Marketing: How to drive more sales to your eBay store (2020) eDesk. Web.
FAQ (no date) ReferABuyer. Web.
Hartup, A. (2021) Best online shoe stores 2022: Where to buy shoes online, TopTenReviews. Web.
How to get more views on eBay to increase sales (2019) The Mini Millionaire. Web.
Kotler, M. et al. (2020) Marketing strategy in the digital age: Applying Kotler’s strategies to digital marketing. Hackensack, NJ: New Jersey World Scientific.
Smith, P. (2019) Consumer reasons for online footwear shopping UK 2018, Statista. Web.
Statista Research Department (2021) Topic: Apparel market in the UK, Statista. Web.