How to Sell Online Effectively: 10+ Online Sales Channels

Online business has become a main career for a part of the younger generation. Students, office workers, homemakers, men and women can all sell online. That is why online shopping is always busy and fiercely competitive. Market share keeps getting split among new competitors while the number of customers is limited. To attract customers and build a place for your brand, you need knowledge and skill in online selling. This article MONA Media will explains how to sell online effectively, even for beginners.

What should I sell online?

The benefits of new online sales channel for sellers and buyers are probably familiar to everyone. The question for online sellers is: what should I sell, and where should I start?

Of course, no one can say with 100% certainty which product will succeed. So if you are a beginner, start small and build up. A small business does not need much capital, and you can switch products flexibly based on customer demand and the market.

Some products you can start selling online:

• Household goods
• Fashion (clothes, shoes, bags and so on)
• Food (kimbap, sweet soups, cakes, Chinese domestic snacks and so on)
• Tech accessories (headphones, charging cables, phone cases and so on)
• Cosmetics and beauty care
• ….

We suggest these products for an online start because they are essential and affordably priced. Their customers buy again every day, which gives sellers the best chance of success.

So how do you start selling online once you have picked a product?

How to sell online with a website

If you only want to sell for the short term, use e-commerce platforms and social media. But if you have a long-term online sales strategy, you cannot skip building a website, an effective and lasting online sales tool.

Why is a website an effective online sales tool?

You probably already know that lasting online success requires your own brand. A website is the tool that helps you build a brand professionally and credibly.

Building a website for online sales brings benefits such as a distinct brand, flexible product information and more choices for customers. In particular, a website gets much better quality traffic than other channels, because most visitors search based on a real need. It is also a channel you control, free from the rules and strategies of e-commerce platforms.

Customers buy not only products but also a brand and trust. So you should invest more in your website to build a brand and give customers confidence.

How is a sales website better than an e-commerce platform?

To set the right direction from the start, building a website is something you cannot skip. It brings benefits such as:

• Save on commission fees

E-commerce platforms advertise that selling on them is free. In reality nothing is free, and there is no easy bait like that. Besides monthly costs such as packaging and the carrier that picks up goods, there is a commission fee on each order. Shopee, for example, now charges 2 to 10% of revenue on each order. With a website, you do pay an upfront investment, but all the profit it generates afterward belongs to you.

• Brand building

In the long run, no e-commerce channel or social network builds your brand as well as a website. Customers only need to remember your brand and visit your own website, instead of searching for you on Facebook or Shopee. Moreover, if you stop selling for a while, the e-commerce system will quickly flag your shop, review it and permanently delete it. A website is different. Leave it for 1 year or 3 years and it is still there.

• Build trust with customers

About 30% of customers decide to buy from a brand because it has a website. An attractive look, a distinctive design, and complete product and origin information build buyer trust compared with Facebook, Instagram, Tiki and others. A website makes customers feel confident, reassured and appreciative of the seller's long-term ability to do business.

Build trust and run a legally compliant business with your Ministry of Industry and Trade website registration end to end

• Flexibility in products and selling space

With a website, sellers can freely sell any product without being limited by any provider. Complete information and varied images make it more persuasive for customers to buy. Changing and updating content or creating promotions also happens right away, with no reporting or waiting for approval as on other sales channels.

• Reach to potential customers

Whenever customers want to buy, they remember your brand. But before they reach your Shopee or Facebook page, they have already seen too many products and prices from your competitors that these platforms show them. Naturally, your ability to reach potential customers drops significantly. This does not happen with a website.

Many small businesses get stuck doing good work but not knowing how to find customers consistently. MONA went through this problem too. In this video, Hung explains 7 ways of finding customers that helped the company grow, based on real experience.

A guide to selling online on a website

Selling online on a website is not as hard as you think. It may feel unfamiliar at first, but you can follow our guide to creating a website OR if you want a professional website with many features (shopping cart, online payment, member accounts and more), consider the 2 options below

• Buy a template website (browse over 1000 sales website templates for many industries),
• Create a new website designed around your own ideas (see the website design packages)

If you need full-service advice on Sales website design service from MONA Media, call our hotline 1900 636 648 or click the consultation button below for direct support!

Step 1: Register a domain name

A website is like your home address, and each website has only one address in the form abc.com or abc.vn…. Choose a domain name that is easy to remember and related to what you sell. The easier it is to remember, the more customers will remember your website.

You will pay a little over 200,000 VND per year for this domain. To buy a domain and check whether it is already registered, see the guide register a domain or use the tool supported by MONA at mona.host.

Step 2: Choose hosting

Hosting is where your website is stored. Simply put, if the domain is the address, hosting is the plot of land you build on. Like a domain, hosting also costs money. Hosting.

Buying hosting also needs some care, especially around how you will use the website. If the site has few visitors, Shared Hosting is enough. If you want dedicated hosting or expect a large number of users, choose VPS Hosting or Cloud Hosting.

There are many hosting providers on the market to research. The price differences are not large, so pay attention to the provider closest to your region so data is delivered faster.

Step 3: Install the theme, plugins and WooCommerce for your website

For the setup steps to create your website, see MONA Media's detailed guide to creating a website. Or browse and pick a suitable sales website template and we can help you build your sales website in just 3 to 5 days.

Step 4: Choose channels to reach customers with your website

Each industry has its own customers and its own places where those customers look for you, so no single channel is best for everyone. There is only the channel that fits your industry best.

• SEO: This is an effective and well-regarded channel today, especially for products and services that people cannot easily find in person, where buyers search on Google to choose a product or find a service. For example, if you want to sell photocopiers or photocopier rental then SEO is an extremely effective channel, because it is hard to find a shop for these in person. To learn more about SEO, see SEO là gì (What is SEO)? and SEO services when you need them.
• Google Ads: This is also a highly rated search advertising channel. However, the investment is not small, and you pay for many clicks depending on how competitive your industry is. Google Ads comes in many formats, so refer to Google's own guides to understand this type of advertising better.
• Landing page design multi-channel conversion combining Facebook ads, Zalo ads, Google Ads and more…
• When your brand is built and promoted well, a number of people will search for your brand directly (and you need a website so your customers can find you)…

A guide to selling online on e-commerce platforms

For beginners, finding potential customers is the hardest part. But it became simpler once e-commerce appeared. Sellers tap into existing customers, borrow the platform's brand and use its special tools to sell more.

One great thing about e-commerce platforms is the online review system. Based on these ratings, the system ranks your shop. The more good reviews a shop has, the more likely it shows up on the first page, and vice versa. For buyers, review quality decides how much they trust you. That is why when selling online on e-commerce platforms you must take very good care of customers and sell at the right quality and price to avoid bad feedback.

Selling online on Shopee

Today, Shopee is currently the largest e-commerce platform in Vietnam. This sales channel has a huge online customer base and hundreds of thousands of different products, which is an advantage for sellers. You can list any product here for free, with no limit on quantity and no heavy procedures.

But that is not the only reason to sell online on Shopee. Here you can compete freely on price and design. Shopee also provides a shipping system and many promotion codes that help sellers a lot.

To start selling on Shopee, you need a seller account. Registration is quite simple: you only need a phone number and email, then visit the Shopee website and detailed instructions appear. Once your account is registered and approved, you can start selling online.

If you want to sell online successfully on an e-commerce platform such as Shopee, MONA Media is a top choice. With the solution set Shopee store setup service and Shopee management service, MONA offers service packages that fully support businesses. Start your journey into the digital platform with MONA by contacting HOTLINE 1900 636 648 for detailed support!

Selling online on Tiki

Tiki is a favorable e-commerce platform for online sellers. Tiki works and offers tools much like Shopee. However, instead of competing on price like Shopee, Tiki competes on product quality and a commitment to genuine goods. That makes registering a seller account on Tiki harder, because you need a business license, a certificate of genuine goods or other guarantee documents.

Tiki lets sellers operate based on their business license, so each store can only sell one product line according to the license. To change your product line, you must send a report to the Tiki system center and wait for it to be handled. Prices on Tiki are also higher than on Shopee, which is an advantage if the goods you sell are high quality.

To register an account, you also visit the Tiki website and fill in the information as instructed. It takes about 5 days to wait for Tiki's response or confirmation. You can sell on Tiki as an individual or as a business. Of course, the commission rates and tools for the two options also differ.

Selling online on Sendo and Lazada

If you sell online, do not overlook the online sales channels Sendo and Lazada. These are two of the oldest e-commerce channels in Vietnam. Like other platforms, Sendo and Lazada are free, and you register a seller account with a phone number, email and bank account.

Sendo and Lazada do not require sellers to show a business license, so you can freely sell different products under one account. The registration steps and interface are simple and friendly. The information you fill in when registering includes: shop name, phone number, email, the address where the carrier will pick up goods, linked bank account, and the type of business or product. Once the account is open, you can start selling right away with very detailed photo upload instructions in the system.

Selling online on Now and GrabFood

These are two platforms dedicated to online food sellers. This online sales channel has many benefits such as reaching potential customers, increasing revenue and solving delivery for your shop. However, for each account, Now and GrabFood charge 20% of the total value of each order. That is not a low fee for food products. So you need to set your prices on Now carefully so your profit does not change.

Registering to join this marketplace is not too difficult. You need to fill in: shop name, address, products sold, prices and the area you sell in. Right after you choose your area, that area's customer care team will call you and guide you through registration in detail.

Use social media as a tool to boost online sales

Social media (Social Media) has become a popular online sales tool. If you sell online without using these tools, you are not really selling online. See the guide to using these tools below.

Facebook

Facebook is the largest social network in the world today. In the early days of online business, Facebook was the only channel used for selling. However, Facebook has an extremely smart algorithm. It keeps blocking online sellers in many ways, such as reducing their reach through hashtags and wording. That makes selling online there hard and less effective.

On top of that, buying through Facebook is entirely passive and needs someone to take orders by message or phone. This easily confuses sellers, and buyers risk exposing personal information because no one guarantees privacy.

Even so, you should not miss Facebook's current tools such as livestream selling at the 8 PM peak hour, creating fanpages that link to your website or e-commerce platforms, and creating groups for customer care.

There are also many guides on selling effectively on Facebook that we can point you to, such as kiemtiencenter.com and thanhthinhbui.com.

Zalo

Zalo is also a social network with up to 70 million users. Zalo has an advantage: each phone number can only create one account, which removes fake engagement. Zalo lets users create an online store right inside the Zalo app, with an easy-to-use interface.

Using Zalo for marketing is not much different from Facebook. However, treat it only as a tool to push sales, share links and introduce products, because selling directly there is not effective.

Instagram

Recently, Instagram has also become a free social network used heavily to sell products to young people such as clothes, shoes, bags and food. Instagram has an edge over Facebook thanks to a filter that is less strict than Facebook's.

Instagram has sharp images, high conversion rates, posts that do not get buried, and protection for sellers' copyright by blocking sharing and downloading of photos. Instagram's smart search also gives buyers a better experience.

To sell on Instagram, you need an active Instagram account. Download the Instagram app to your phone or computer, then register a username. On this platform you only need to fill in a username (usually the name of what you sell), phone number and email. Once registration is done, you can post photos and sell online right away.

TrOn Instagram, there is no limit on posting products and using them for commercial purposes. To sell more effectively, follow lots of customers to get engagement. Do not forget to add hashtags under each post to reach more customers.

Youtube

Google prioritizes websites and YouTube in search results. So YouTube is not used for direct selling like Facebook or Instagram, but it is an effective tool for promoting your brand.

According to HubSpot, content with video is 157% more likely to earn organic search results than plain text. You can see this when you search a keyword on Google: YouTube videos matching the keyword appear first.

Using YouTube makes you more persuasive to customers and drives traffic to your website through links in the description. Also, embedding videos in your website gives it a chance to reach the top and stay there.

Using YouTube is as easy as using Facebook. You can register a YouTube account with an existing email. Videos should be edited with appealing sound and visual effects before being shared publicly. Video content is also something people care about a lot, and it has to be truly engaging. Content can be tips, or honest, thoughtful sharing about issues related to your product.

Tips for beginners selling online

Choose the right business field and target customers

Choosing the right business field gives you direction later on. For example, if you plan to open a restaurant, a coffee shop or a fashion store, start with related products when you first sell online so you build up experience.

Selling online on digital platforms is always changing and depends heavily on the Internet, so you must keep up with trends. That is why most people do not see online selling as a lifelong career. Choosing the right business field will help you switch careers more easily later.

Find the best supply source

This is a vital factor when you decide to sell online. Only when you find a stable, long-term supply with quality that matches the price can you make a profit and run a sustainable business. A good supply also gives you a competitive edge over rivals. You can look at supply from Guangzhou, from design companies, or directly from large manufacturing workshops.

Know your product and your competitors' weak points

“Know yourself and know your enemy, and you will win every battle.” To compete you always need an advantage that makes you strong. So try to create a unique strength for your product. In particular, do not overlook your competitors' weak points, so you can compete fairly and more easily.

Improve your product photography

In online selling, customers can only see products through images. The sharper the image and the better it shows off the product, the more persuasive it is to buyers. Avoid using other people's photos or copyrighted images so you do not lose buyers' trust. To get excellent photos, you also need photo editing apps, photography accessories and similar tools.

That is the full online selling guide. To run a business for the long term, you must put quality first. Do not sell recklessly, because no guide can make you 100% successful. We hope this article gave you plenty of useful information.