If you're currently paying $29 or $79 for Shopify, plus all the extra apps, and you have yet to see a single sale notification appear, what currently goes through your mind?
Panic is one word that appears -- and the majority of Shopify users feel it is not worth their time or effort, and some are not even making it through the trial period.
In groups on Facebook, I see stores that have been running for two weeks and then sell for $50 -- crazy, I know. The mains reasons I see are:
- Not enough funds to continue to run the store or no time to spend on it anymore, etc.
So why are people faulting at the first hurdle when it comes to building their store and what should be considered as their future?
The truth is like everything out there, this opportunity is not right for everyone.
We are in 2016 and the internet has never been at a better place, and truth is it has never been easier to get eyes looking at what you have on offer.
So why is it that still so many people are suffering from "I can't make my first sale," or "how do I scale my Facebook ads?"
There is not a one-size-fits-all answer, but then at the same time, I think that most people fall into the trap of not wanting to actually sit down and test different methods and ideas.
Let's go into some of the key points of why so many people are currently failing to achieve results with thier e-comm store.
Market Research
You can read what experts say about market research, and you can buy every course under the sun to figure out if there is any special method into it.
But the truth is it is a simple equation - find an audience and give them a product they want. Don't try to overcomplicate things.
Look at it like this...
You have an audience of dog owners. Sell them dog shampoo or a dog leash.
You find an audience of people who going skiing -- Sell them some super duper special warm gloves.
It may sound extreme but it can really be that obvious, simple ideas are the best; there are guys out there selling coloring books and making $5k in sales per day!
Select a market, and select it well -- the worse thing that can happen is you don't sell anything, right? But if your audience is telling you "we want XYZ product," then it is only right for you to give them that.
There are many ways you can find out what the audience wants -- the best way is just to ask them!
It can be done as easily as putting together a $5 ad, targeting the right audience and asking, "would you buy this?"
Experimenting
You realistically should be testing and "experimenting" each and every different aspect of your store.
Whether its Facebook Ads -- which alone can be split into 100 different experiments -- testing your copy for your abandonment emails, and so forth, these are all in your grasp and can easily be done and measured.
The greatest example: Albert Einstein did over 1,000 experiments at a time before discovering just one idea, so ask yourself how many experiments you are currently doing/achieving before crying out for help.
The way you get answers is you test and experiment... the thing about experiments they are not always going to go the way you want, but that doesn't make it a failure.
Now, I am not telling you to go and spend $10k on experimenting and creating a whole new shopping cart, but there is no harm in going out there into different traffic sources such as Pinterest or Google Adwords and spending $500 to see if it will work for you.
Some people may achieve great results but that doesn't mean you are going to do the same, and this is what you have to realize sooner rather than later; and the only way you can figure this out is by testing, testing, and yes, more testing.
Planning
One thing you need to realize is if you fail to plan, you plan to fail. iI is simple - have you actually mapped out your store's future? 30 days? 90 days? 12 months? If you cannot currently see where you are going, how are you going to get there?
It is like if you were to drive from one side of the country to the other-- how would you get there? Would you just jump in your car and hope for the best? Or would you map out how you are going to get there?
Well, most people within businesses are just jumping in the car and hoping for the best, believe it or not! Planning doesn't need to be anything complicated; you just want to set out your targets and goals.
You need to always have a clear idea on your numbers, whether it is your customers' LTV or how much it's costing you to acquire customer areas. This is what separates big successful stores from the rest.
Fear
Even when you think it doesn't exist it is still there. The biggest fear comes with the fear of failure -- but how do you overcome this?
As I mentioned, experimenting will help to overcome this, and at the same time having little fails should be seen as something great, not bad...
If we didn't fail and it all became so easy, what would be the point, right?
You've got to think of it like this...
Which is worse, trying and failing or not trying at all?
You may lose time and money but at the same time you will gain experience, and you'll know what to do or what not to do next time around.
Patience
Anything worth having will take time -- whether you are running a store or creating any sort of business. So if you don't make your first dollar, or your ads are currently not generating sales, have a little bit of faith and keep plugging away. As you may have guessed by now, each area which I have spoken about ties in together.
The next time you think, "let me go to the Facebook group and have a rant," bide your time and think what can you actually do to improve your results.
I want to leave you with this: Remember that people who are making over $1 million in sales were once in your shoes -- and am not saying this is going to happen to you overnight, but at the same time, you are actually closer to achieving success than you actually realize and it is important that you actually know this.
Stay positive, celebrate small wins, and within time you will be celebrating big results!
Follow Ashley Wright on Snapchat: ashleywright90