So I started my online business with Shopify around February 2014. A friend introduced me to it and I found it extremely easy to use. He had no coding experience and was addictive. I previously had a WordPress website. But it was so ugly and I had to find ways to add the PayPal button to collect payments online. So when I found out that Shopify has online payment capabilities, I was hooked. I never looked back.
Shopify allowed me to integrate essential elements like Google Analytics and download apps to easily augment features. So if you are thinking of starting an online store, use Shopify. I keep it.
2013
Moving on, my first year on Shopify and to be honest it was bad. He was paying $ 40 to $ 50 a month without making a sale. For the whole year! Look:
At that time he was still young and luckily he did not have many commitments. So I looked at it as a hobby and enjoyed having a fully operational website, even though it didn’t have any sales. I got emails from time to time, but nothing concrete.
2014
So 2014 arrived and, curiously, more and more companies have an online store thanks to government subsidies such as PIC. That helped increase confidence in online shopping. Also, my products were quite specialized, so I didn’t have much competition. I started getting more emails and more calls. My phone was ringing non-stop! I wondered why. I searched for keywords online and was surprised to see that the site was the top 3 organic for most of the keywords that describe the site. In 2013, it was on page 100. I read somewhere before if you want to hide a corpse, bury them on page 2 because no one will find it. And now I’m on the front page and in the top 3! Look at my sales in 2014:
I never imagined that my sales would skyrocket like this. I was excited.
2015.
I entered the site full time. I attended courses to help increase site traffic. Basically tons of books and YouTube videos to learn how to be a better online marketer. I started marketing abroad and started selling more and more. 2015 was a breakthrough for me because I felt like I really entered the online scene.
I almost tripled my sales! There is no turning back now.
2016
I felt like an online guru! Thoughts came to mind to start an educational center to share my knowledge. I wanted to make more money helping people create an online store like mine. So I started and, strangely, my strategy did not work well with most of my “students”. I couldn’t explain why. Then I stopped. I felt like a scammer. Until today, I still don’t know why. I think it was the first year of continuous adjustments to the website even though there were no sales that helped the site get to the first organic page. So no matter what other people say, ad traffic will never be compared to organic traffic. You can never get a shortcut even if you pay for traffic. There are more elements to making an online sale and even more to having consistent online sales. Anyway, 2016 was another great year for me as more and more people shop online.
It was time for me to take the next step. Fighting the greats
2017
I always knew that I had to innovate. The market was getting more and more congested. My competition was no longer local SMEs. Amazon, Taobao, Qoo10, Lazada and many more were the preferred place for online shoppers. They offered many more products, much better prices, and had all kinds of loyalty programs. I needed to improve, otherwise I will have to start looking for another job. I started creating a video for each product or service that I was selling. Of course, I had to keep my customers loyal, so I launched my own loyalty program. While he knew he couldn’t compete with the big internationals, there was a gap in the market for high-end consumers who prefer big-name brands. He had to conquer this market. So the products I brought after were from big name brands. I also concentrated on services. All kinds of ways to differentiate the site from the main news. I didn’t do too bad for 2017.
Despite strong competition, I managed to maintain my sales. Although the days of crazy year-on-year increases are over, I firmly believe that the online shopper market will continue to grow. Hopefully there will be a better performance in 2018.
