Page 20 of 49

Up Your SEO Game With Most Searched Gift Ideas

June 12, 2020 / Gail Oliver, Online Small Business Consultant

Want to know the most searched gift ideas currently?

The COVID-19 pandemic and quarantine has led to a rise in the following types of gift searches:

Comforting / comfort gifts
Self-care gifts
Cheer up gifts
Pick me up gifts
Wellness gifts
Quarantine gift baskets
Lockdown gifts

Not only does this give you new (and possibly less competitive) search phrases to take advantage of, but are there any new products that you can quickly bring to market to address this demand?

I also thought I would point out some rising Father’s Day Gift searches, since it’s just 10 days away:

Black Father’s Day Gifts
Bonus Dad Gifts
Father’s Day Gift Baskets

With people only being able to shop online, there is a need to be able to send gifts to friends and family far away. These gift ideas would also be viable as monthly subscription box services as well.

Not making sales? My 12-Month Marketing Plans give you a detailed action plan for each month of the year. Easy, cost effective and little known ways for you to drive more traffic and sales.

You might want to also read Hot Sales Opportunity: Retirement Gifts

Please check out my Shopify store to see the marketing products and services I offer.

Have a great week!

How to Come up with New Product Ideas

June 1, 2020 / Gail Oliver, Online Small Business Consultant

Wondering how to come up with new product ideas?

Sometimes finding success selling online is not about being an amazing marketer or having lots of social media followers, but rather just WHAT you are actually selling.

So, how do you find products that people want and come up with new product ideas?

Start with What You Are Selling

One of the easiest ways is to start with what you are currently selling, and use Google Trends to see if there are opportunities already in your wheelhouse that you are missing out on.

For example, the other day I had a client who is selling party invitations for all the basic events that every other shop has covered as well. So, I typed “invitations” into Google Trends and saw the RISING searches were:

Drive by baby shower invitations
Virtual baby shower invitations
Birthday parade invitations

All of these rising searches are obviously due to the current situation and might be short lived, but if you can turn around a product quickly, why not; the demand is there.

Then I typed in “necklaces” in Google Trends for another client, and got the following RISING searches:

E-girl necklaces
Vsco necklaces
Shell necklaces

The first two searches are teen trends, so you can research those if interested, but when I checked on both Amazon and Etsy, I did see searches for all three, confirming that these might be good opportunities to jump on, even if they are just trends that last through the summer.

Drill Down to Find Specific Product Niches

Now, once you have done these basic searches, then you can expand upon them to see what further niches there might be.

For example, I typed “shell necklaces with” and “shell necklaces for” into the Google search engine and got:

Shell necklaces with pearl
Shell necklaces with gold
Shell necklaces for guys
Shell necklaces for vsco girl

You can do these “with” and “for” type searches on Amazon and Etsy as well and see what comes up. If you see similar searches on Google, Etsy and Amazon, then those would be the features I would tackle first.

Need Advice?

Please visit my Shopify and Etsy stores to see my small business marketing products and services.

You can also ask me a question at attentiongetting@gmail.com, follow me on Instagram for additional tips and learn more about me here.

A Quick Pricing Strategy Check

May 22, 2020 / Gail Oliver, Online Small Business Consultant

by Gail Oliver, Online Marketing Consultant

How long does it take you to make a product or execute a service? So many people leave their labor cost out of the price, and you need to determine this otherwise you will be working very hard to make little money.

Example of a Poorly Priced Product

For example, I’ll never forget this young girl who was making dog leashes and selling them for $10. She was knitting the leash and said it took her two hours to make one. Can you see right away why this is a terrible pricing model?

If it takes her two hours to make one $10 leash, she is essentially paying herself $5 an hour less the cost of materials, selling fees, free shipping, packaging and other business expenses. Does it seem worth it? Surprisingly, it was not that obvious to her.

The Most You Can Earn in a Day

Now, another way to look at it, is if it takes her 2 hours to make 1 leash, and she wants to work an 8-hour day, then the most leashes she can make in one day is 4. This also means that the most leashes she can sell in one day is 4, as you can’t sell more in a day than you can make.

Therefore, the most she can gross in one day = 4 x $10 = $40, and again, this is GROSS not NET.

If you are the sole source of labor for your product or service, you have to factor your labor cost into consideration when determining your price. If your labor costs knock you out of being competitively priced, then this might not be the business for you.

Work Backwards When Pricing

Try working backwards to determine your price. For example if:

Your goal is to earn $40 an hour
Your product takes you one hour to make
Your total costs per unit are $10

Then you will want to price the product at at least $50. Then ask yourself?

Is a $50 price competitive?
Does this price make sense for the product or service?
Does this price offer wiggle room for discounts and sales?

If you need more help with your pricing strategy, be sure to check out the pricing strategy and planning worksheets in my 60-page Strategic Business Planner.

Want to talk about your business? Try my very affordable one on one Phone Consultations.

Other Things to Know This Week

Shopify and Facebook announced the launch of Facebook Shops where shoppers will be able to find, browse, and buy products through Facebook and Instagram, with checkout powered by Shopify.
If you sell face masks, have you thought about targeting brick and mortar stores that are reopening, as some have stated that they will provide masks to both their staff and customers, if need be. I wonder if they will see it as an advertising opportunity to have their brand on the mask? Is that a value added service face mask makers should offer?
Even Vogue says face masks will be the hot fashion trend of the summer.
Online daily sales for pajamas increased 49% in April, due to people working from home. The major fashion retailers have picked up on this trend and are offering pajama-style fashions, like this silky outfit from Zara.
I love how online stores like Old Navy, Nordstrom, Modcloth now have shop sections entitled, “Cozy at Home”, “All Day Comfort”, “Get Fit at Home”, “Self Care Shop” and “Work from Home”, zeroing in on people’s needs right now.

Have a great week!

How to “Audit” Your Business and ReStrategize

May 14, 2020 / Gail Oliver, Online Small Business Consultant

by Gail Oliver, Online Marketing Consultant

How often do you do an “audit” of your business? This is where you take a look at what’s selling and what’s not selling, and why. This allows you to then strategize on how to exploit your successful products and fix the ones that are troublesome.

You need to examine which products have the highest and lowest:

traffic
conversion rate
orders
revenues
costs
profits

In my new 60-page Strategic Business Planner, I have designed planning pages that help you analyze these stats so you can identify new opportunities, expand the successful products, fix the problem products, as well as provide strategic tactics to reach these goals and then track the results. The planner also helps you do an audit of your current pricing strategy as well as your sales channel strategy.

When a Product Has a High Conversion Rate

For example, the other day I was looking at one of my own products and saw that it had a sales conversion rate of over 15%. A normal conversion rate is 1 to 5%, so a 15% conversion rate tells me I need to exploit this success. What are some strategies for doing this?

Drive more traffic to the listing.
Run ads on the listing, because ads are always more profitable on high conversion products.
Possibly spin this product off into similar products with different features and/or targeting new niches.

When a Product Has a Low Profit Margin

Let’s take another example. I had a customer years back who was selling 10,000 baby headbands a month. You would think that sounds successful, but it was actually an unprofitable business. You see, in order to sell these 10,000 headbands month, she needed a staff of 8 people. Also, when other competitors saw how much she was selling, they flooded the market with similar, lower priced headbands, meaning she had to lower her price to stay competitive.

The result was she was barely breaking even. The high labor cost to produce the product, combined with having to charge a low price, meant almost no profit. So, what should be her strategy to fix this low profit margin product?

She could find ways to lower her material costs, to offset the labor costs.
She could find ways to speed up production time to lower labor costs.
She could risk raising the price just $1, as it could mean $10,000 more in profit each month, if sales volume is not impacted by the increased price.
She could move out of this niche altogether and offer a higher-end headband that she could charge more for, with better profit margins.

The point is, if you don’t analyze your stats, you might miss those rising stars, solid sellers, maturing products, non-profitable products or even just problem products.

My Strategic Business Planner covers 3 of the 4 Ps, of Product, Price, Place (Promotion is covered in my Marketing Planner). Therefore, it covers what you sell, how much you sell it for and where you sell it, and all of these need to be re-evaluated and re-strategized from time to time so that your business stays on top of the market and the competition.

Other Things To Know This Week

If you struggle with Pinterest, take this free course they offer.
Netflix’s show Outer Banks is causing huge demand on Etsy for the jewelry and fashion.
Tie dye sweats are another hot trend selling out online.
12 top selling products online in April.
Sneeze guards might over take face masks for Covid-19 prevention.

Have a great week!

Etsy Sold 12 Million Face Masks in April

May 8, 2020 / Gail Oliver, Online Small Business Consultant

by Gail Oliver, Online Marketing Consultant

Etsy sold 12 million face masks in April Sometimes when you are really successful at something, there is a Catch-22. You want to tell everyone, as this draws in more customers and sales – but it also draws in more competition.

Etsy did a smart thing letting its sellers know that face masks would be a huge sales opportunity, and, as a result, Etsy sold 12 million face masks in April. But the problem is that when you announce how warm the water is, everyone wants to jump in the pool.

And this is what has happened. It’s still a big pool, but it might be difficult for smaller sellers to compete when the big players jump into the face mask market.

Big Retailers Now Selling Face Masks

Anthropologie has released their own very chic face masks made of organic cotton.
Disney has made some really cute ones for kids currently only available on pre-order, and until September 30th, all proceeds from the mask sales will go to MedShare.
Old Navy just launched cloth face masks for adults and kids, where you can get 5 for only $13 in a various of stylish designs.
Banana Republic’s face masks sold out in minutes, but they are now back in stock.
Face Masks at Old Navy
Gap has also sold out of their face masks, but you can go on a waiting list.
Athleta has their own face masks in muted colors.
Zazzle has over 58,000 face masks listed on their site.
MaskClub just launched last month but they signed up major bloggers like Delish to do their own face mask lines and hence promote the

A lot of the big brands know that you might want to support smaller sellers due to the current economic situation, so to get around that, they are typically making a donation to a charity for every purchase of a face mask.

Has the Market Peaked?

Again, it is big market so it can afford lots of competitors, but if you are deciding to go into the face mask market, just don’t do it thinking it will make you a millionaire. Google Trends does show that searches for face masks peaked on April 4th, so it all depends on if there is another wave of the virus, or if some pharmaceutical company comes up with a mask that is 100% effective in stopping the spread.

There are currently over 60,000 face mask sellers on Etsy and over 440,000 listings.

Is Your Business Ailing?

Is might be time to do an audit of your business – re-evaluate what’s working, and what isn’t. Have sales fallen off? Is your market maturing? Not sure which direction to take? My Brand New Strategic Business Planner will help you re-evaluate your products, prices, costs, profits, revenues and where you sell; help you expand on your successes, fix your problems and find new opportunities. You’ll love it!

Have a great week!

How Shopify’s New Shop App Helps Stores Get Seen (Sort of)

May 2, 2020 / Gail Oliver, Online Small Business Consultant

by Gail Oliver, Online Marketing Consultant

One of the biggest problems my Shopify customers always tell me is getting traffic to their store, since Shopify does not have a marketplace portal like Etsy or Amazon does.

Well, this week Shopify attempted to change this by the release of their Shop Mobile Shopping App so if you have a Shopify store, this might be the solution you were looking for.

What It Does

While there are still limitations (such as no search function) what the free app does do is provide the shopper with customized product recommendations based on shops that they have already shown an interest in, either having purchased a product from their Shopify store in the past or by following their profiles in the app.

What It Doesn’t Do

Shoppers will NOT see a feed of products from shops they don’t know or care about, and the app will not allow shops to advertise. This is with the exception of a feature that allows shoppers to browse local merchants, see which ones currently support delivery and in-store purchase, and then make purchases to support them, mostly as a reaction to COVID-19.

Therefore, if you sell on Shopify, download the app and encourage your customers to do so as well. If they start shopping from the app, your products will then show up in their feed (because they have bought from you in the past), giving you an opportunity to stay in front of them.

Remember to follow my blog for weekly insider tips!

3 Niche Marketplaces to Sell Online

April 27, 2020 / Gail Oliver, Online Small Business Consultant

I have found three new niche marketplaces to sell online.

There are always new online marketplaces cropping up and they tend to be getting more niche, mainly become the e-commerce space is getting so large.

For example, Kaiyo is the latest online marketplace where you can sell vintage furniture and home décor.

If you’re a Latina small business, you can apply to sell on the exclusive Latina marketplace SLX,

If you are a black-owned business, the Bold XChange is a marketplace strictly for these types of businesses.

About Me

Do you need your Brand Story written or an SEO-Optimized Blog Post or a Personalized Business Consultation? As a 20+ year marketing professional and small business consultant, all of my services are super affordable.

I have consulted for thousands of small businesses since 2012, and my advice has been featured in the NY Times, Success Magazine, Yahoo Business, American Express, Big Commerce, Business2Community to name a few – so this is professional advice you can trust!

My Publicity Pitch service has also gotten my clients featured in Real Simple Magazine, Apartment Therapy, House Beautiful, Vanity Fair, Houzz, Martha Stewart, Glamour Magazine, LONNY, DesignMilk, Emmaline Bride – just to name a few.x

4 Online Marketplaces to Sell Eco Friendly Products

April 21, 2020 / Gail Oliver, Online Small Business Consultant

Eco Friendly Products Website

In honor of Earth Day tomorrow, I thought I would help entrepreneurs and other small businesses discover four online marketplaces for eco-friendly products. This is actually a post of mine from a few years back that I have just updated

Younger generations prefer eco-friendly products. A Forbes report showed that 62 percent of Gen Zs prefer to buy from sustainable brands. It also indicated that 54 percent of Gen Zs and 50 percent of Millennials even stated that they are willing to pay more for sustainable products.

The Ultimate Green Store

The Ultimate Green Store sells pretty much every type of organic and green product. From baby and kids products to home goods and beauty products, they currently feature hundreds of brands, both well known eco brands and indie brands. If you are an interested, this is a wholesale opportunity, not one where you set up a shop or listings. If you are interested in having them sell your products, contact them at vendorinquiries@theultimategreenstore.com.

Leaf’d

Leaf’d runs the gambit from kids to clothing to pets to food and drink, and of course beauty products. Plus, for their sellers, they offer no monthly fees and no listing fees, just a commission fee on the sale (which they do not disclose until you are approved). There are a few restrictions. Currently, they only accept US or Canadian sellers, and they have a checklist of standards your company and products have to adhere to in order to be accepted as a vendor.

Ecorigem

Ecorigem sells the whole range of eco-friendly products. You can even sell digital downloads. Their one caveat seems to be that sellers must always use eco-friendly packing and reduced use of plastic. They charge sellers a commission fee of 6.5% on each sale, with no monthly fees or listing fees.

Veo

Veo is based in the UK, and like the other sites, they offer fashion, food & drink, health & beauty and home products in the green and organic categories, as well as crafts, gifts, garden – you name it. You can fulfill orders yourself or use their fulfillment services, but they do charge a 15% commission, with no listing or joining fees. For that 15%, they market your products to shoppers through paid search, outreach, blog, video, publicity, SEO and social media.

Earth Love

Not a marketplace, but rather a monthly subscription box so I thought it was worth adding. They curate products for categories such as food, wellness, bath & spa, home decor, aromatherapy, fashion, outdoor, art, and more. They also have a strict set of guidelines that your products must conform to. If you are interested in having one of your products included in their boxes, email them at hello@earthlove.co.

Remember to sign up for my weekly blog posts, so you never miss an insider tip!

You might also like: Green Business Ideas for the Eco Friendly Entrepreneur.

The Value of Having a Best Seller Badge on Your Products

April 7, 2020 / Gail Oliver, Online Small Business Consultant

There is value of having a Best Seller Badge on your products.

Years ago, I recommended to one of my customers to put the words, “Best Seller” on one of the product photos in their Etsy shop. This was long before Etsy started doing it. Here is what resulted:

“I took your advice and put a best seller badge on my top selling wind chime. That made my life so much easier this holiday season. I just kept producing that particular chime instead of trying to guess which ones would sell. My sales were up around 40% for the year. When I ran out of my best seller at one point I put the best seller badge on another wind chime and it sold out quick as well. During the holiday season my best seller was consistently in the top left position for the keyword “wind chimes”. Anyway, I just wanted to say thank you for the help.”

A lot of the time people land on your shop and just don’t know what to buy, especially for a gift. The “Best Seller” badge makes the decision easier.

You might also want to read: Do You Really Need to Offer Free Shipping on Etsy

Freebies for Your Online Store

March 31, 2020 / Gail Oliver, Online Small Business Consultant

Want some freebies for your online store? A lot of larger companies are stepping up to help out online sellers due to the pandemic. Here are some to consider:

USA Today has a Support Local Business website that you can add your business to.
Google advertisers will see a credit notification appear in their Google Ads account in the coming months.
Shopify is offering a free 90-day trial if you wish to set an online store. If you’re currently on a 14-day trial, you can extend it to 90 days.
Shopify is also giving free access to the digital and physical gift card function, for all new and existing Shopify plans.
Facebook is offering grants as well as free ad credits.
Etsy will not be charging for their offsite ads for the month of April. Additionally, any seller who needs extra time paying their bills can request a one-month grace period.
Square is refunding all software subscription fees for the month of March for existing sellers who currently use Square Appointments, Retail, Restaurants, Loyalty, Team Management, Payroll, Marketing, and Square Online Store.
Square is all waving all fees related to curbside pickup and local delivery.
PayPal is all waving all transfer fees until May 1st.
Moz Academy is offering free SEO courses until May 31st. You just need to sign up for a Moz account and then use the coupon code “wegotthis” at checkout.
In the Etsy forums two weeks ago, as well as on their Instagram, I suggested to Etsy that they start a hashtag to support sellers, and now they have #StandwithSmall (although mine was #ShopEtsyWhileIsolating).So use it in your social media posts.
#KeepSmallStrong is a new collective hoping to help any small business owner including designing and launching of digital storefronts as well as set up of local delivery and national fulfillment.