Oh! Do you want to sell online and are confused between the questions? Should I start selling my products with the help of any other website (Marketplaces, are platforms that allow you to sell on their platform with some T&C, eg. Amazon.) or start my own website?
Many people start selling on the marketplace only because they want to build a brand and then start their own website. Then why they do not start a website in the first place?
Is creating a website is really a nut-cracking, or it’s a myth, so many questions coming up – what-why-how?. don’t worry by the end of this article you will understand why you should have a website or not.
Am, not going to discuss marketplaces.
Here, I will only focus on a single question How should I do online selling with my own website?
What is PSR Mindset?
There are a lot of things, ways, methods to do online selling if you have your own website, 🤩curious to know them! Let’s start—>
what are the pros and cons of owning a website?
For Ecommerce website
| Advantages/Pros | Disadvantages/Cons |
|---|---|
| Easy to start-Creating a website is an easy thing today, there is a lot of templates, website builder platforms available. eg. Wix, Shopify etc. | High Cost– Creating a website is an invitation to burn money, basic cost like domain, hosting, plugin, theme or more if you don’t know how to build your own. |
| Loyal base- When the customer starts liking your product or service, they will become loyal to your platform easily. | Complexity– It requires skill to manage a website, if you don’t have a skill you end up with the only worry. |
| No leak– The greatest advantage is that your margins are high because you don’t have to pay any commission to 3rd party site for selling. | Traffic– Everything will become a bad dream if you can’t able to drive traffic to your site, and it is the only reason why many people fear off. |
| No competition– It’s your own platform and your own customer base, you don’t have to worry about competition or price wars. | Lack of Support– Everything related to an error to customer inconvenience has to manage on your own. |
| Marketing– With the right marketing you attract more loyal customers which increase your brand’s worth and help you to survive longer in the market. | Risk– Your whole struggle will burst like a balloon in a second if your website got hacked, privacy leak, any errors, data leak, slow down. |
| Conclusion-Having your own website with your interest work is like following your passion for a lifetime, you will joy and serenity | Conclusion– Building a site takes a lot of time, effort and money which you might not have expected. |
understand PSR before starting your own website
| Quick Pins |
|---|
| P- Product/Service |
| S- Structure ( 1. Business model), (2. Website model) (3. Website Design) |
| R- Right way |
| Some words |
PSR MINDSET
Mindset means – “A way of thinking” PSR mindset in online selling refers to the 3 levels of thinking that help a seller to hold a correct mindset from start to the destination.
Have you heard “As a man thinks in his heart, so is he” – James Allen. We become what we think in our hearts, and we reflect our actions according to what we think. PSR Mindset is the thought process that prevents the wrong action from being taken.
Decide your Product/Service.
It answer's what to sell?
Whenever someone creates a website think that he will earn from it but forget to think how and by whom, I have seen many people that usually jump to just start a website, I don’t know from where they are getting the idea or motivation to just starting a website and hope for earnings.
Without even deciding what to sell actually?
No one will tell you to implement this step in the first place, but believe it or not, all other questions related to selling a product come after this, what are you going to sell?
Yes! Why am focused on deciding product/service first, because after a long time in selling you will understand that everything my business does or attracts is only because of its products/services?
Be it building loyal customers, strong branding, huge sales, successful campaigns whatever. It will always start with the product.
A strong product is the sole reason, why? because it attracts customers, it builds a loyal brand, it helps to succeed the advertisement, it gives you the belief to go ahead, it overcomes competition, it brings revenue.
But what if you decided on the wrong product? ask yourself in the first place, that! do you will be enough confident to give this product to a loyal customer, do your advertisement will work, do competitors will not take advantage of it, and the answer you know in your mind. Is a loud NO!
Do you know what actually makes a sale happen, that is (Need, Solution, Timing, and Perceived value) yes! only these four things if to say in easy words.
But the curious fact is that there is a single thing which helps to get around 3 things from it easily. Want to know its name, it is a “Confident attitude”.
And how this confident attitude will come, only from one thing in mind that my product is best. I am giving value to the customer, it will help my customer and they need it, congratulations! you sold it.
So, in short, I want to say that you should do a detailed and proper analysis of your product and service, you should understand this first ”what you are going to sell”, what you are going to bring to the market, your ”what” for the product should be clear first and after successful product research lets’ move on how to sell it so it became easy to buy for everyone.
Decide Business Structure
It answer's How to Sell?
You know when we plan something and take action accordingly our goal will achieve easily and we don’t even get tired.
Similarly applies in online selling for creating a website that actually brings sales, we have to build its structure in such a way that the person who saw a computer/site for the first time can buy it @easily!.
It is not much about the design, it is more about the structure ‘a skeleton’ of the website which is easy to identify, easy to understand without any confusion. Simple and sober.
Creating a structure before directly jumping on design or filling content, will help to clearly achieve what you want from your site.
For eg. when I start to write this article I first decided on the headings, subheads, and short descriptions to write in it, the format of tables. This helps me to write this article in such a way that the reader can read it easily without confusion and can get the maximum out of it.
Your Business Model
The business model is not a rigid thing in e-commerce many companies follow 2-3 types of business models at once, it helps your customer to identify what is your business for. eg. Amazon, it is also b2c, d2c, b2b, c2c.
Please follow the links by tapping these models, I had explained them all in-depth in my other Article. am Lil bit 😪🤣.
| Business-to-Business (B2B) |
| Business-to-Consumer (B2C) |
| Consumer-to-Consumer (C2C) |
| Consumer-to-Business(C2B) |
| Direct-to-customer (D2C) |
Your Website Model
A business model doesn’t affect your business much but the website model is the key thing, through which your customer remember you, they will understand what they will get when coming to you.
There can be many more styles that keep adding to the market, for the present, these are the top.
For better understanding keep in mind that, knowing the business model is important for you and to know the website model is important for buyers.
1. Dropshipping
Dropshipping is the model where a seller sells goods to a buyer without keeping any inventory. Here, the seller only focuses on bringing more sales, assisting the buyer, settling the payment of the buyer and 3rd party who manages all inventory processes for the seller.
In easy words, you have listed some product on your website, a buyer came and made a purchase, then you contact the manufacturer of the product to dispatch that product to the buyer’s home, and an end, you settle the money.
Some Tips to start
- all most all in one research – Oberlo
- quick store creation – Shopify
- find suppliers – Alibaba or Indiamart india.
2. Reselling
The simplest of all, in Reselling you sell products of different famous brands with their approval on your website. for eg. if you created a fashion store, you reached some fashion brands and with their approval, you list that product on your website.
Everything related to sales and delivery should be managed by the seller only. eg. (Target) you will find many different brands products on their website.
The only drawback of this kind of style is that there are many big players already entered and very high level of competition and now almost every brand have their own websites.
3. Subscription
A subscription model is a model where the customer pays a reoccurring price to avail of products/services regularly.
In easy words, you created a product or service which give some value to the buyer, and the buyer wants it again and again, but you do not sell that in one go, you only give that product/service to use for a limited subscribed time period.
Best examples like Netflix, amazon prime, SAAS software.
4. Subscription box model
A subscription box model is a niche from a subscription model which is only focused on physical products.
In easy words, you create/combine physical products as per your business niche and pack them in a box and create a variation of them, then whenever a customer subscribed to your box, you send them as per their subscribed plan.
best eg. Cratejoy, Scriberr, Sugarbox.
5. One-for-one model
It’s all cleared by its name self, a type of business in which sellers donate something on every sale. This type of model benefits all like sellers, customers and society. it helps to indulge your business in humanist efforts.
for eg. Warby parker an eyeglass top brand sells and donate eyeglasses, its own customer donates there old pair of glass to them and they donate it to the needed one.
other eg. like TOMS, Soapbox, Smile square.
6. Bundling model
When you sell something in combination and sets, that enhance its value for customers then it counts in the bundling model. mainly you saw this type of model in food chains company, they use to make a bundle or combo of some of their best meals with attractive prices, for which customer can’t stop himself to buy.
for eg. Adobe creative suite, google suite, Microsoft 365 kit, Burger king etc.
7. Private labelling
When you are a brand already and you bring some products that are manufactured by 3rd party but without branding, and then you sell them to your customer by using your brand name.
It works better when your manufacturer is manufacturing a really good product that supports your brand category.
for eg., Target sells chips manufactured by other companies by name of its private label brand Archer farm brand. and you have also seen many salons creating their own brand product line like shampoo, oil etc.
8. Razor blades model
It’s simple, you must have seen that when you buy a Razor it’s cheap and if you buy blades for that, they seem more costly than razor self. Similarly this model work on this style.
Companies sell the main product at reasonable or cheap prices and when it creates an urge for its other parts and accessories, customers are ready to buy them at any cost.
I still remember that once I bought a Gillette razor for 180 ₹ and after some time I lost its blade, and by then I got used to the smoothness of the Gillette razor, then I decided to buy its blade pair. and what I found is that it cost 320₹ for 2 pairs of blades. so what, 😃 I bought it because I loved it.
for eg. all Razor companies, Gaming consoles, Printer companies etc.
9. White labelling
The white labelling model is very simple to understand, it is just the point of view from the manufacturer or company side that removes its own branding, creating it white for other companies to buy from them and sell to their customer.
for example, many tech companies create products without their own branding for other big companies.
10. Wholesaling
One of the most traditional businesses as the name suggested you are going to sell your products wholesale to the retailers, but with time changes this model has also changed a little bit many wholesalers are directly doing retailing on their sites.
11. Rental model
Who doesn’t love to enjoy something that he wants to use but don’t want to buy forever? similarly, the rental model is based on that mentality, and it’s trending these days. people don’t want to buy things forever they just want to use them until they want.
In this model you give offers on different products on your website which are available for rent, it may be any useful item like a room, hotel, place, mobile, laptop, guitar etc.
some best examples like Airbnb, OYO, Rentomojo, Furlenco etc.
12. Freemium
The most popular model these time companies give there some of the services for free and take charges or subscription fees when customers want to use its extra features.
you must have noticed on youtube that they show ads before or while watching any videos, although it’s free, many people buy youtube premium subscriptions to watch ads free content. where youtube also provides extra features like premium content and background play service for premium members only.
best examples, like Spotify, Resso, LinkedIn, Mailchimp etc.
Your Website Design
I intentionally put this step at last, because every newbie directly jumps on the implementation of this step because it is the easy one and give a feeling of accomplishment which makes our brain relax and don’t push itself for more effort. you can easily create a website with a template or handwritten codes when you decided clearly what is your website about, what it sells?
Actually, above mentioned two things under the Structure mindset are still a planning or things process, but this step is the practice one, here you going to create a real structure of your website, a genuine system on which your whole website is based. all questions like which things should be where? is going to solve here.
I already mentioned above that creating a structure before jumping to content is best, it will not only increase your efficiency but effectiveness as well.
Let’s suppose you want to finish a book of 300 pages, now you can apply two ways – directly open book, stress out your mind and read it either you are grasping or not. and on the other hand, if you use a structure to read that book you will create a system through which your book will finish at a decided time, with enjoyment and maximum output.
for eg. if I want to read a book ( I first divide pages by time, suppose I have a week so 280/7= 40. now I got the idea that I have to read at least 40 pages per day to reach our target. here it is effective, now for efficiency, I should enjoy and grasp the book. so I decided to create 3 slots of 15 minutes each for the day. now slot divided by pages per day 40/3=14 (roundoff). now on every 15minute slot, I read 14 pages hassle-free in a coffee break.
I think you get the idea of ​​what I want to say here, it doesn’t matter whether you build it with a website builder (Wix, Shopify ecwid) or handwritten code. The only thing that matters is whether the structure of your website can be understood by its users or not. For more details, you can say that in the process of creating the website you first created all vital pages, then created a concise structure on each page, then finally you filled in all the information for your users.
should I create a website with handwritten codes or with a website builder? still confused, I recommend you to see this( difference b/w website builder & hand-coded website)
Decide Right Way
It answer's Why to Sell?
Are you also wondering what is that Right Way thing, how it is even relevant to my website, have some patience, my friend? Actually am not going to talk about any technical part like how to build a website, SEO, traffic etc. Am only here to guide you about Online selling if you have your own website not how to build a website. is it clear?
The right way means to a right mindset of why are you selling.
We all have heard a lot about how, to whom, where, what to sell. But no one has clearly explained to us (why to sell), now don’t say “profit!”. everybody wants money and there is nothing wrong with it, but it is not the proper answer for the question of why to sell.
So, what is the correct answer for “why to sell?”. yah! here it is in just one line: ” whatever you take return it with polish”. (whatever = money — polish = value)
In easy words, when the customer pays you with their hard-earned money, return them something ‘valuable’ they deserve. it is similar to when you take your friend’s bike for use and then return it with a clean wash, which made your friend happier and you gained more trust of him, now he will never refuse to give his bike to you.
Simon Sinek said it best in his book ” Start with Why” – People don’t buy WHAT you do, they buy WHY you do it. and am agree with him 100%.
The Why’s of Right Way are – Trustworthy, Ultimate Value, Authenticity, Welfare.
Your why may be different but these four WHYs are commonly followed by many legendry companies, eg. Microsoft, Sony, BMW, Lego, Amazon and more. do you still think they started with a mindset of making profits? They are all at the top today because they have built a strong right mindset and purpose as to – why they will do business.
I won’t drag this more, you yourself are smart, so mark these words forever.
- If you work for why’s then profits will be the by-product.
- Gain that much “Trust” of customers so they don’t even think about competitors.
- Provide that much “Ultimate Value” so they satisfied with the money spent.
- Be an “Authentic” seller on which everybody belive with eyes closed. it will create high goodwill.
- Now is the time to give back to those who got you where you are today, do “welfare” Always be a giver mindset.
Conclusion
William Shakespeare said – “There is nothing either good or bad but thinking makes it so”. ​similarly, I don’t want that you get confused b/w online selling through your own website or other websites.
Be clear in mind that if you want to build a brand then go for your own website, but only if you have that amount of budget, skills and patience.
And on the other hand, if you want to start from scratch, start selling through a marketplace, scale up your business and then side by side work on your own website
And never forget to apply PSR Mindset🧠😃
A Few Words…
If you have read all the above things, then you must have understood that I am not talking about ways to earn money and quick hacks, in fact, I talked more about MINDSET things for the website. There is a reason behind this, that I have made a lot of mistakes, wasted a lot of time, effort, energy and even money in learning how to earn money fast.
Whenever I saw something that was giving money to people, I would start the very next moment. But when it doesn’t give results, I get disappointed.
But with the passage of time, I got more experience and met more experienced players, and I learned one thing, “to make money you have to think above money“, and to think above the money you need the right mindset.
And things changed since that time, now I only work on the things I love to do, regardless of whether it pays me or not. I try to do it at the best level possible and the funny thing is that I always get money without asking for it.
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