17 Pro Tips for Opening an Online Store

 

1. Find a gap in the market

The first step to starting any business is to find a need and fill it. When it comes to starting an online store, you need to find a niche that isn’t being served or is underserved. This can be done by conducting market research, looking at trends, or even talking to potential customers.

You’ll be tempted to jump in without researching competitors or running a market evaluation. Take the time to develop a good unique selling proposition and understand how you’ll provide value in a competitive market.

Online marketplaces like Amazon, eBay, and Etsy will always be competitors, but there are also hundreds of smaller brands you’ll be competing with.

2. Validate your products

Prior to investing time and money into creating a product, it’s important to validate its demand.

Validating product ideas can reduce the risk of failure and increase the chances of success. It allows you to assess whether a product will meet a need or be in high demand before investing time and money.

One way to validate product ideas is by getting feedback in the early stages of development. Customer feedback helps you assess customer needs and make changes to the product before it goes to market. Customers can also provide feedback on pricing, packaging, and marketing ideas, which are invaluable to the success of your online store.

3. Use a free ecommerce website builder

An ecommerce website builder is a cost-effective way to open an online store. You can create a professional-looking website without having to hire a web designer or spending much money upfront. 

Website builders are easy to use, even without technical experience. You can typically create a website in just a few hours with a good ecommerce platform like Shopify.

Ecommerce website builders provide everything you need to launch and operate your online store, including: 

• Hosting
• Security
• Checkout pages
• Payment gateways
• Customer support

With an ecommerce website builder, you can scale your small business as big as you want. There are no limits on the number of products you can sell or the amount of traffic your website can receive. You can also accept various payment methods like credit cards, Shop Pay, and PayPal without any complicated setup.

4. Know who your ideal customer is

To be successful, you need to know some things about your ideal customer. Who are they? What do they like? What do they need? When you know who your target customer is, you can create merchandise, content, and marketing strategies that appeal to them.

For example, if your target customer is a busy entrepreneur, you might sell products that make their life easier, like organization tools, time-saving appliances, or stylish yet comfortable clothes.

5. Invest in great website design

Website design is critical for the success of your ecommerce business. Half of consumers believe a website design is important to a company’s brand. With the rise of mobile online shopping, you also want to ensure your website is mobile friendly. 

You want to invest in web design for three reasons:

• Your website is the first thing a customer sees when visiting your store. If it’s not well designed, it will turn 42% of customers away, and they won’t bother to come back. 
• Websites have a major impact on conversion rates. Good web design helps customers find what they need effortlessly, which increases sales. 
• A good website helps you stand out from the competition. A well-crafted homepage and product pages can build trust with online shoppers and convince them to buy.

6.  Optimize your product pages 

The best way to earn more ecommerce sales is by investing in your product pages. A product page shows shoppers what a product looks like, shares useful information about it, and convinces them to buy. Clean design, captivating product descriptions, and customer testimonials are all features to include in your product pages.

7.  Create a solid marketing plan

Behind every successful online store is a marketing plan. Planning helps you maximize your marketing spend and track your tactics, goals, and costs. Without one, you’re just throwing spaghetti at a wall hoping for something to stick.

8. Take amazing product photos

Take high-resolution product photos when opening your online store. It will help people perceive your products as high quality and can increase sales.

You can take the perfect product photos on a smartphone. Or, use an entry-level professional camera like a Nike D3500. If you’re taking photos at home, be sure to take them in a well-lit area. Your photos should be in focus, highlighting key product features, and should show the product from a variety of angles.

9. Set up your email marketing

Email is one of the most consistently effective channels for acquiring new customers. And while channels like search can take a while to generate organic traffic, email marketing can start working right away. That’s why you should invest in building an email list to promote your store.

There’s no need to spend all your time writing and sending emails. Make it easy on yourself by setting up a collection of automated email marketing campaigns designed to increase your revenue. 

There are many options available, such as:

• Emailing new subscribers and offering them an incentive to shop
• Emailing new customers a post-sale email to upsell and delight
• Emailing visitors who abandoned their cart and reminding them to finish their purchase.

12. Invest in search engine optimization (SEO).

 

Although it takes a while to get going, search engines offer one of the few opportunities to build predictable, compounding web traffic.

An effective search strategy involves several steps, including forming a keyword strategy, conducting more granular keyword research, optimizing your site architecture and performance (e.g., category pages), and building links back to your website. 

It’s an uphill battle, but it’s one you can fight in the background as your store starts to gain traction.

13. Make a return policy

A return policy helps to build trust with potential customers and can increase sales. Be sure to include clear instructions on how to return an item, what types of items can be returned, and how long customers have to return an item. You should also include your contact information in case customers have any questions.

14. Set up a blog

Blogging is a great way to promote your ecommerce site. With the right approach, blogging can effectively drive traffic and promote the lifestyle around your products. One study by HubSpot found that the more you blog, the more traffic your website gets.

Use your own blog to drive traffic and promote your products. When done effectively, blogging drives search engine traffic, attracts customers, and captures the attention of the media and high-profile bloggers who could write about you.

15. Offer excellent customer support

Offering excellent customer service is one of the best ways to differentiate your business from the competition. You can offer customer support through live chat, email, phone, or social media.

Be sure to respond to customer inquiries quickly and efficiently. You can also offer excellent customer service by providing helpful resources on your website, like product guides, size charts, and FAQ pages.

16. Partner with other brands 

Partnering with other brands and influencers is a great way to promote your online store. You can partner with complementary brands to cross-promote each other’s products. 

For example, you could partner with a baby food company or mom influencer if you sell baby clothes. Or, if you sell home décor, you could collaborate with a furniture company.

17. Offer free shipping

Offering free shipping is a proven way to increase sales and meet customer demands. Shoppers spend $22 more on a median order when free shipping is available. 

Free shipping creates loyalty among customers who appreciate not having to pay for shipping costs. If you can offer free shipping without losing money, it could be a great marketing strategy for your ecommerce store.

Family offices are paying executive assistants up to $190,000 a year as demand for talent spikes

 Family offices are paying top dollar to compete with Wall Street, not only for C-suite roles but also for administrative positions.

Executive assistants can command base salaries of as much as $190,000 at family offices with billions in assets.

These well-paid assistants are expected to go above and beyond for these ultra-rich employers.

Good help is hard to find. Family offices, the private investment firms of the ultra-wealthy, are increasingly willing to pay extra for it.

The talent war between family offices and Wall Street has driven up salaries not only for top investment roles but also for administrative staff. While compensation depends on the size and scope of the family office, executive assistants now often command base salaries exceeding $140,000, according to three recruiters who spoke to CNBC. This is well above the industry average of $81,500 for a senior executive assistant post, according to staffing firm Robert Half.

There are about 8,000 single-family offices worldwide, with nearly 3,200 in North America, according to a survey by Deloitte Private. Family office administration roles can come with sweeping responsibilities well beyond typical duties, such as compiling expense reports and managing correspondence. Mandates to organize travel for the entire family or coordinate household staff at multiple personal residences, for example, are frequently fair game. 

“You will have to do anything for this person, and you don’t know what that will be,” said Jonathan Hova, recruiter and senior vice president at Career Group. “If a pipe bursts in Southampton in January, that’s where you’re going.”

The median base salary for executive assistants at family offices is $100,048, according to a survey of 436 family offices and family investment firms by Botoff Consulting.

The larger the family office the more executive assistants can expect to be paid. At family offices with at least $2.5 billion in assets under management, that median pay is about 35% higher, the survey found.

That’s before annual bonuses, which typically range from 10% to 20% of the base salary, according to Botoff.

The top 10% of administrative assistants at family offices regardless of size make $188,800 with a 20% bonus, according to the survey. Among the largest family offices, which are more likely to use long-term incentive plans, the top 10% of assistants can see all-in compensation of up to $240,000.

“Certainly for some families there is going to be some sticker shock,” said Trish Botoff, founder and managing principal of Botoff Consulting. “But I think they also find that when they can control services that are being provided, how it’s being done, who it’s being done by, they’re much happier with the results they get.”

Executive assistants to family offices are often required to travel with the executives they support, both on personal and professional trips. 

Recruiter Dawn Faktor Pincus is looking to hire an executive assistant who will travel with the family office principal at least once a month, including on holidays. She estimated the total compensation for the role would top $200,000 between a $170,000 base salary, travel pay and sign-on and yearly bonuses.

The travel and time commitment are just part of why the role pays so much, said Faktor Pincus, a senior recruiter at Howard-Sloan Search. These ultra-rich employers are often picky, desiring candidates with top-tier or Ivy League degrees or previous experience working with high-net-worth individuals, which comes at a premium, she said. For one family office seeking an executive assistant with a creative background, she placed a graduate of a prestigious university who was an aspiring novelist.

“It’s a small pool,” Faktor Pincus said. 

Most of these family offices seek at least five years of related experience, with some requiring at least eight to 10 years due to the complexity of the role, according to recruiter Fira Yagyaev of Larson Maddox.

“They are really in the weeds of what the family experiences day to day so it is probably one of the most crucial hires,” said Yagyaev, head of wealth management, trust and family office services at the recruiting agency.

At the same time, these accomplished assistants are expected to take on any task, big or small, without complaint. Hova said executive assistants can expect at least 10% of their work to verge on personal assistant duties.

“It is always a service role,” he said.

Plus, the work comes with thorny personalities, said Faktor Pincus. 

“A lot of times the ultra-high-net-worth individuals could be difficult,” she said. “People don’t become as successful as they are by being so nice and sweet.”

His hotel chain is worth over $200 million!

 Growing up, Ho Kwon Ping didn’t think he’d become a businessman, let alone a hotel tycoon.

“I had not always wanted to be an entrepreneur,” he told CNBC Make It. “It’s just that the few times where I started working for other people, it didn’t really work ... I’m quite individualistic. I became an entrepreneur more by the lack of other avenues.” 

Today, the 72-year-old is the founder and executive chairman of Banyan Group, a hospitality company with a portfolio of 12 global brands, more than 80 hotels and resorts, along with spas, galleries and residences spread across more than 20 countries.

The company, which is listed on the Singapore Stock Exchange, brought in about $328 million Singapore dollars (about $242 million) in revenue in 2023. Banyan Group has a market capitalization of SG$300 million, according to LSEG data.

The formative years

Ho shared something about himself that some may find surprising: He was jailed in his youth.

He said his early life was largely defined by a strong zeal for social activism.

While working toward his undergraduate degree at Stanford University in the early 1970s, he was an outspoken student activist against the Vietnam War (also called the “American War” in Vietnam).

He joined other protests on campus — notably, one against American inventor and physicist William Shockley, which ultimately got him suspended from the institution.

“I was thrown out because of my attending with the Black Students Union, a protest they had against a guy called William Shockley, who won the Nobel Prize for creating semiconductors, but who also had a strange view about eugenics. He wrote several books saying that Blacks should be sterilized,” said Ho.

As a result, Ho was tried in a campus judicial panel and found guilty of suppressing academic freedom, thus leading to his suspension from the university. Subsequently, he decided to leave Stanford and returned to Singapore, where he completed his national service and restarted his university studies.

“I had to start from zero and it was really boring, so I started writing as a freelance journalist [for] a now-defunct magazine called Far Eastern Economic Review,” he said. “I started writing about Singapore politics, which the government didn’t like. So, I got jailed under the Internal Security Act for being pro-Communist.”

That was in 1977, and he was put into solitary confinement during his two-month prison sentence — a time he describes as being “scary, lonely, depressing and reflective.”

After his release, Ho rejoined the magazine as a journalist and moved to Hong Kong with his wife, Claire Chiang. The newlyweds moved to a small fishing village on Lamma Island there called Yung Shue Wan, which translates to “Banyan Tree Bay.”

“I wasn’t paid very well, so I couldn’t afford to live on Hong Kong Island or Kowloon ... so we had no choice but to live on Lamma Island,” Ho said. “Although we were not rich ... we had three very idyllic years there.”

Ho was born in Hong Kong and spent most of his childhood and adolescence growing up in Thailand before moving to Singapore. His father, Ho Rih Hwa, was a businessman who co-founded the Thai Wah Public Company and headed the Wah Chang Group, conglomerates with operations across Asia.

“Although my parents were pretty well off, I’ve always been a bit rebellious and wanted to be independent and so on,” he said.

An accidental businessman

In 1981, Ho’s father had a stroke. As the eldest son, Ho assumed the responsibility of taking over the family business.

“That business was a real microcosm of overseas Chinese businesses, meaning a jack of all trades but master of none,” said Ho. “We had about 10 to 12 different businesses from construction to contract manufacturing of televisions ... even Adidas shoes, and so on.”

After several major failures and lessons in running the family business, Ho had an epiphany — rather than running a “hodgepodge of businesses,” he wanted to focus on building his own brand.

“I decided then that contract manufacturing is not a long-term solution. You have to own the customer, and you could only do so by owning a brand or owning a technology, and I’m not a technologist, so I decided we had to own a brand,” he said.

When the ‘lightbulb went off’

The stars aligned when one day in 1984, Ho stumbled upon a vast piece of coastal land in Bang Tao Bay in Phuket, Thailand. He decided to purchase the stretch of over 550 acres, which turned out to be an abandoned tin mine, according to an official company statement.

After years of restoration, Ho worked alongside his wife and his brother — who is an architect — to design and develop several hotels and resorts on the property. Laguna Phuket, Asia’s first destination integrated resort, was opened in 1987, according to the statement.

“We designed the first hotel, and we managed to get a Thai company to manage it. A second hotel — Sheraton managed it, and third and fourth and so on,” said Ho. “And then the last piece of land had no beach [so] nobody wanted to manage it.”

“That was when the lightbulb went off, and I said: Well, since nobody wants to manage it ... why don’t we start our own brand?”

To make up for the lack of a beach, Ho decided to build private villas with a pool for each.

“This was 30 years ago, so the notion of an ‘all-pool villa’ hotel didn’t exist ... we’ve also pioneered the ‘tropical spa,’” he said.

In 1994, the group’s flagship luxury resort “Banyan Tree Phuket” opened its doors, including the first Banyan Tree Spa — a name inspired by the blissful years Ho spent with his wife in Hong Kong’s Banyan Tree Bay.

“Innovation doesn’t drop from the sky ... it was a response to a need,” he said.

In 2006, Banyan Tree Holdings Limited debuted on the Singapore Stock Exchange, and in 2024, Banyan Group was launched as an umbrella brand for the multi-branded portfolio, according to a company statement.

“People have asked me whether I sold out or not, and I would say: ‘No, I’ve grown up. The kinds of things I was doing, you can’t keep doing forever. You’ll go to jail permanently, and also you’re not effective,’” said Ho. “But what we wanted to do in terms of social change, I think we’re actually doing through Banyan Tree.”

72-year-old hotel tycoon cautions against a major character flaw in successful people:

                        

                   Building a business is not for the faint of heart, and many of those who
                   dare to take the chance share one trait: self-confidence.

That’s according to hotel tycoon Ho Kwon Ping, 72, the founder and executive chairman of Banyan Group, a hospitality company with a portfolio of about 80 resorts and hotels in 22 countries.

The company, which is listed on the Singapore Stock Exchange, generated about $328 million Singapore dollars (about $240 million) in revenue in 2023.

Ho is also the executive chairman of food and beverage manufacturing business Thai Wah Public Company as well as the founding chairman of Singapore Management University.

He attributes his success in part to being headstrong since he was young.

“Headstrongness and self-confidence are related. If you’re not, to some extent, headstrong ... then you’re going to be basically a risk-averse person,” Ho told CNBC Make It. “You need [to be] a bit headstrong if you want to be an entrepreneur. You also need a bit of self-confidence.”

‘Know where the line is drawn’

But there is a fine line between confidence and hubris, and while the former is important for starting and running a business, the latter can be “a recipe for disaster,” Ho warns.

“My wife has said I’m the bloody most optimistic person she’s known, because I fail in everything [but] I still pick up and go on, so you need self-confidence. But, if you have too much of it, it becomes hubris. So you need to know where the line is drawn,” he said.

Create your own fantastic PR, but don’t ever believe a word of it.

Ho Kwon Ping

FOUNDER AND EXECUTIVE CHAIRMAN, BANYAN GROUP

One common mistake with hubris is that it can cause companies or founders to “over-expand” or take on more risk than they should, but in business, conditions are not always favorable, he explained.

As an entrepreneur, “you always have to be prepared for the worst, because nobody’s going to help you when things are bad,” he added. Rather than thinking about how much money you can make when starting a new project or business, one should think about how much they can afford to lose, he said.

“Never get caught by excessive pride (hubris) into thinking you are great,” he said. “The saying I use ... is create your own fantastic PR, but don’t ever believe a word of it.”