Online Retail - Where to start?

[RanchoGrande]

Looking to get some advice/help on where to start marketing a online fashion website - the brand has been running for 10+ years and as such we have a great product range and have been successfully trading from 3 UK physical stores for the past 5 years.

The web side of the business has been massively neglected due to many different reasons but we have now turned a corner with it and with the impending closure of some of the physical stores I need to invest all my time in to the online side of the business.

Trouble is, I don't know where to start! Wondering if it's potentially a better idea for me to employ a specialist company who can grow the brand online? I could then potentially learn from this and see how it all works.

Any ideas or leads would be appreciated.

many thanks

[951TSE]

I wouldn't overlook Ebay and Amazon although the clothes niches on both sits are quite large. if you're producing your own products Etsy and 'Not on the High Street' maybe worth a look too. For an integrated solution I would recommend these people https://understandinge.com/

[akirk]

There is a huge amount of detail to setting up an online retail business - but one thing it is worth establishing right from the start is that you need to invest as much money and time as you would in a physical outlet - it is not a magic way of making money... The biggest issue we have seen with clients doing online retail is that they somehow assume that all they need to do is set up a website and they will make money - not true, that is rather like building a shop in a field / not putting any roads to it / not telling anyone it is there / etc.

The same things apply online as they do offline, you still need to do the work to get people to your store and to buy, but there are some positives and negatives:

- the biggest positive is how scalable it is, if a physical store does well it will still at some point hit capacity in the local market - an online store can continue to expand

- negatives are primarily twofold:
- getting people to the store is much harder (someone might randomly walk past a physical store, much less likely online)
- getting people to buy is much harder (the punter is not seeing the physical product, and there is no human to make the sale)

so you need to think about how you will use the positives / remove the negatives...
It is easy to get people to an online store - offer them £500 cash and you will have a million people on there by the end of the week - but far more difficult to get relevant people - interested in your product & prepared to buy, so focus on that as the biggest priority - even more than the look and feel of the store...
Then think about how you plan to convert them from interested to buyers - what is the proposition / what is the trigger to buy - how do you utilise your current customer list - how do you bring people back - etc.?

as for technical solutions - shopify and big commerce are the two market leaders for a hosted solution and a good place to begin - if you get larger then you will need your own server and store - but you can worry about that later...

[RanchoGrande]

We already have the site so we won't need to use any other platforms plus it's already been operating overseas so the frame work is there.

I'm under no illusion that it's going to be easy, working in physical retail has demonstrated how tough it can be but I feel that we can get the products in front of more sets of eyes online as footfall on the high streets and through our stores has been in decline steadily for several years now.

Our products are wholesaled to a number of other UK retailers and we are stocked in several hundred stores across europe so we know that we have a product that sells, we just need to build the UK online presence. I'm wondering if we should employ a company that specialises in getting traffic to websites? or perhaps and SEO company or suchlike.

[LDN]

Depending on what you're trying to do; I'd probably use BigCommerce or Shopify for the online store; they've done all the heavy lifting; then have someone buy and edit a template to match your brand... and then go to town on ads, Google ads, Facebook ads and general SEO / content building.

[DSLiverpool]

What platform is your web site on ? if you dont know ask the guy who built it or use use "built with" it will tell you.
Once you know you can move forward assuming you want the one site for UK / Euro? Magento is very good at multi faceted sites but I doubt it will be - let us know

[STURBO]

Have you considered the impact selling direct will have on your current distribution customers?

[DSLiverpool]

STURBO said:

Have you considered the impact selling direct will have on your current distribution customers?

He is a retailer

[STURBO]

DSLiverpool said:

STURBO said:

Have you considered the impact selling direct will have on your current distribution customers?

He is a retailer

This is from his last post: "Our products are wholesaled to a number of other UK retailers and we are stocked in several hundred stores across europe so we know that we have a product that sells"

I took that to mean that they own the branded product as he uses the term "we are stocked" but on 2nd reading I can see it could mean something else.

OP: Is this your own brand product that you distribute to others?

[DSLiverpool]

STURBO said:

DSLiverpool said:

STURBO said:

Have you considered the impact selling direct will have on your current distribution customers?

He is a retailer

This is from his last post: "Our products are wholesaled to a number of other UK retailers and we are stocked in several hundred stores across europe so we know that we have a product that sells"

I took that to mean that they own the branded product as he uses the term "we are stocked" but on 2nd reading I can see it could mean something else.

OP: Is this your own brand product that you distribute to others?

Lol I read it as "we sell stuff that lots of others sell as well" but I can see that he is a trade supplier "we are stocked in several hundred stores across europe" so OP wants to wholesale and retail the same kit, why? just ramp up your UK distribution OR come on here and set your stall out without ambiguity - interesting.

[BJG1]

I wouldn't outsource the work to another company, it'll probably work out more efficient to hire a good Ecommerce Manager and Developer, depending on the resource you have available for investing in it. A junior Ecommerce manager will command around a £30k salary, up to about £60k for somebody more senior. Similar costs for a developer.

[RanchoGrande]

Apologies, I haven't made it that clear!

I'm the UK partner of a Swedish fashion brand that is stocked in a small number of UK stores and several 100 across the rest of Europe, mainly in Sweden and Germany.

We've been selling the brand through our own 3 UK physical sites for the past 5 years but we are now looking to really push in to the UK online market as it's something we've massively neglected for a long time now.

Yes, we do wholesale to other retailers but it's not going to upset anyone as we've been selling direct for a longer than we've been distributing. It's the same as buying a pair of Nike shoes, you can buy them from the Nike website or you could go to jd sports.

We have a website already, we just don't sell that much through it as it's been run badly for so long. I've now got involved with the online side of the business and will be fulfilling the UK market. I need to grow this side of the business, get some traffic and make some sales. I just don't know how to market the business online or even begin to grow traffic.

Hopefully this now makes more sense.

[DSLiverpool]

RanchoGrande said:

We have a website already, we just don't sell that much through it as it's been run badly for so long. .

What platform is the website? if you dont know PM me the URL and I can get it

[BJG1]

RanchoGrande said:

Apologies, I haven't made it that clear!

I'm the UK partner of a Swedish fashion brand that is stocked in a small number of UK stores and several 100 across the rest of Europe, mainly in Sweden and Germany.

We've been selling the brand through our own 3 UK physical sites for the past 5 years but we are now looking to really push in to the UK online market as it's something we've massively neglected for a long time now.

Yes, we do wholesale to other retailers but it's not going to upset anyone as we've been selling direct for a longer than we've been distributing. It's the same as buying a pair of Nike shoes, you can buy them from the Nike website or you could go to jd sports.

We have a website already, we just don't sell that much through it as it's been run badly for so long. I've now got involved with the online side of the business and will be fulfilling the UK market. I need to grow this side of the business, get some traffic and make some sales. I just don't know how to market the business online or even begin to grow traffic.

Hopefully this now makes more sense.

Sounds to me like you either need to dedicate a lot of your time to learning all about online marketing or make one good hire. A decent Ecommerce Manager will be able to handle marketing and developing the site. If you want any advice on how to find one PM me

[RanchoGrande]

BJG1 said:

Sounds to me like you either need to dedicate a lot of your time to learning all about online marketing or make one good hire. A decent Ecommerce Manager will be able to handle marketing and developing the site. If you want any advice on how to find one PM me

rather than hire an individual to do it would it be possible to outsource the marketing to a specialist company? That way I wouldn't have to deal with an employee - I'd rather work with someone in partnership.

I'm not sure of the platform which the current site is built upon, it's likely to change again anyway as there are plans in place to rebuild and rebrand the website.

[BJG1]

RanchoGrande said:

rather than hire an individual to do it would it be possible to outsource the marketing to a specialist company? That way I wouldn't have to deal with an employee - I'd rather work with someone in partnership.

I'm not sure of the platform which the current site is built upon, it's likely to change again anyway as there are plans in place to rebuild and rebrand the website.

Running an ecommerce business is a lot more than just marketing, even with staff, you'll likely be outsourcing your PPC and SEO to agencies anyway, as well as your design and development to either agencies or freelancers. There are full service Ecommerce agencies though I have no idea if they can be any good or you could potentially find an Ecommerce consultant who'd work with you on a continued basis and find the right agencies for each aspect.

As for rebuilding and rebranding the website, as others have mentioned, look at Shopify, it'll take a lot of the pain and cost out of it and it has a back-end that's very easy to use.

[DSLiverpool]

I can give you a steer on this OP, I have sent a message through PH but I think its dodgy at present.

[RanchoGrande]

BJG1 said:

Running an ecommerce business is a lot more than just marketing, even with staff, you'll likely be outsourcing your PPC and SEO to agencies anyway, as well as your design and development to either agencies or freelancers. There are full service Ecommerce agencies though I have no idea if they can be any good or you could potentially find an Ecommerce consultant who'd work with you on a continued basis and find the right agencies for each aspect.

As for rebuilding and rebranding the website, as others have mentioned, look at Shopify, it'll take a lot of the pain and cost out of it and it has a back-end that's very easy to use.

I checked out shopify a while back and it does look like a super easy solution - it's a bit late though as the guys are already working on a custom built site. By the sounds of it, marketing and operating a site successfully will involve a lot of outsourcing, I guess it's going to be a case of selecting the right people to work with.

[RanchoGrande]

DSLiverpool said:

I can give you a steer on this OP, I have sent a message through PH but I think its dodgy at present.

nothing received!