Hi All,
Greeting of the Day !!
My family is into Imitation Jewelry business for quite sometime and has been selling it offline( have a small shop and through exhibitions and Flea markets. To increase our reach we have created a facebook page and started getting good response mainly from the people who know us and their connections. Now, after the initial outburst, our sales through FaceBook seems to be getting down day by day. We have been trying to engage our audience by frequently posting relevant content as well as new products.
Here is a small list of products which we offer:-
Imitation Jewelry- Bangles, Earrings( of type hoops,studs,droops and danglers, jhumkis and ear cuffs),Necklace,Pendant sets,Anklets,Hand Rings and Bracelets made of pearl, american diamond,ruby,Emerald and Zerkin. Traditional styles like meenakari and kundan
Costume or Fashion Jewelry- made of base metals, glass, plastic and synthetic stones
A few sample Photographs of the same
CHALLENGE– The challenge for us is we dont have a website in place and haven’t gained enough confidence to go for that extra infrastructure. We would want to increase the traction of new customers to our facebook page. We have tried to Boost our Posts ( to our selected target audience) recently using Facebook paid booster. Though the post REACH has increased a lot but FB users just visited our timelines and haven’t shown much interest. What needs to be done in this case, please share your valuable feedback.
Our Facebook page ( if somebody can advise us how to make our page better structurally)
THANKS IN ADVANCE !
SUDHANSHU
Phn +91-9620693131
asha chaudhry
sudhanshu,
more than an fb page – you need a FACEBOOK STORE!!
get in touch with nameet potnis of SELLMOJO – they power FB stores!! hello@sellmojo.com
you can easily have an online store via any of the following platforms: (ps: let me know if you want to get in touch with zepo)
https://www.therodinhoods.com/forum/topics/list-of-the-best-do-it-yourself-ecommerce-site-builder-platforms
pls go browse through posts in e-com, digital media and ASK. you will find LOTS OF INSIGHTS!
all the best!
Sudhanshu Sharma
Asha,
Thanks a lot for the response. I will Surely get in touch with SELL MOJO and would explore this option.
Please help in connecting with Zepo and understand it
I have read a lot of content in Digital/E-comm section and I think any one of these three options would be suitable for us :-
1. Build our own online store via Zepo/Shopify/or any other platform
2. List our products in Market Places like Amazon/Flipkart
3. Build a FB store.
Please help me in finalizing one/multiple of these option( or any other option in our Goto Online market strategy) .
Thanks !
Sudhanshu
Nameet Potnis
Hi Sudhanshu,
Nameet here on behalf of SellMojo. Setting up a store with SellMojo brings your many advantages – You have a single backend from where you control multiple frontends; A Facebook store, a full fledged website and also link to and sell on Amazon, Flipkart etc.
We have quite a few enterprising businesses such as your who trust us with powering their Facebook + online stores. Do drop me a note on hello@sellmojo.com if you have any additional queries.
Also, on the note of increasing traffic to your Facebook page, you can read 1. https://sellmojo.com/blog/drive-insane-traffic-to-your-facebook-page/
2. https://sellmojo.com/blog/tips-to-increase-user-activation-rate/
3. https://sellmojo.com/blog/category/social-media-marketing-2/
Let me know if I can help with anything else.
vinay jaiswal
Sudhanshu,
Interesting to see that you are going through the same set queries which we have gone through 2-3 years back!
Many of my suggestions below will change depending upon the investment budget and revenue targets you have in mind.
First identify your core strength. Whether it is manufacturing, supply chain, digital marketing or technology and then decide which path you want to take. Facebook business page is good for a starter point of view but eventually it will need your time and money investment for creative posts and advertising.
Please also note for any kind of online paid advertising, initially your cost of customer acquisition will increase with scale before it starts coming down after an inflection point.
Maintaining your own website is another challenge for which you again need to invest time and money!
If your strength is low cost supply then start with opening your shop on ebay, snapdeal, flipkart and test the waters. You can also sell through Facebook page by advertising and tying up with a courier company (like Fedex) for COD (Cash on Delivery) service. You can intially avoid any payment gateway service since 60-70% orders will come via COD. If your product pictures are good, many of your customers will place order on Facebook itself!
Still in case you want to start with a website immediately then our feedback is as follows-> After using Magento for first 10 months, now we are using Shopify platform (for the past 4 months) and pretty much happy with our choice until now!
Though I would suggest to go for a full-fledged website, only once it becomes difficult for you manage your portfolio on Facebook.
You can also email me at vinay@vastradijewels.com in case you have further queries.
thanks
Vinay
Sudhanshu Sharma
Thanks Nameet for the information. Will get in touch with you for more details in some time.
Sudhanshu
Indy Singh
Sudhanshu,
Noticed that you have the domain name chichaat.com but it is not resolving….
At the very least, I would recommend putting up an informational page on it with links to your FB store, TWTR, etc..
The responses mentioned below are great ‘marketing tools’, but I would not put all my eggs in one basket. If FB, Sellmojo, zepo, etc… change their business model down the road, you are at mercy of those companies policies. By having your own domain name, you are in FULL control.
If hosting is what you are looking for, I can help – feel free to reach out. Best of luck!
Amit Shroff
Sudhanshu,
Facebook is primarily used to create branding, hence the primary object to create engagement and awareness. Hence when you first created a page and introduced your product, you started getting good response and let this started slowing down, this happen because same set of people are getting update about your product and are not really interested, hence you need to reach new set of users/audience.
My first suggestion would be to put up an online eCommerce store, over the time you would notice increase in traffic and order. But this need to be planned strategically.
We have recently started offering our DIY platform FOC with unlimited product and own domain, please read through following article for our complete offering – https://www.therodinhoods.com/forum/topics/start-an-ecommerce-at-just-rs-5000-00
If you need additional details please visit http://www.72interactive.in or email me at sales@72interactive.com or you can call me at +919811122212
Regards,
Amit
Shravan
Hey Sudhanshu,
I would suggest you to start your own branded eCommerce store by using any of the DIY eCommerce builders.
They offer you many advantages. I am listing some of them, below:
1) You can start selling online through your own store within a few minutes.
2) You can start your own store with less than Rs.1000 per month
3) You are provided with logistics and payment gateway support.and many more……
I am an affiliate partner of Zepo. I would suggest you to create your own store at Zepo by taking a free no commitments, 14 days trial. Once you are satisfied, you can go for paid subscription.
You can click here and avail FREE 14 Days Trial of Zepo.
If you have any queries/issues, drop me an email at ventures529@gmail.com
Harsh Bhatia
Hello Sudhanshu,
The best way to sell your products initially without much expenditure would be to sell them on various online marketplaces present in India. You can sell your products on their platform without having to invest on your own website.
I can connect you with someone who enable SME’s like yours to sell on marketplaces.
Sudhanshu Sharma
Hi Harsh,
Thanks for the advice. Would definitely like to get in touch with the person you are talking about for Marketplaces. Please share the details.
Tanz
Hi Sudhanshu,
Sorry for the tardy response.
For launching an online store you basically get two options to start with; open source platforms and SaaS based platforms. Zepo & Shopify are SaaS based platforms while there are open source platforms like Magento, Prestashop and Nopcommerce
For using an open source e-commerce platform you don’t have to buy it, you just download it and host it on the server of your choice. An open source software is typically distributed under the GNU General Public License which implies that anyone and everyone can use and customize it according to its requirement as long as they give credit to the original base platform.
A SaaS based platform on the other hand is like an e-commerce platform leased to you. Here you don’t get the ownership of the website unlike the previous case. So you don’t have the source code with you implying that you cannot do customization at the structural level but they offer you a choice between 100s of templates such that you get a website tailor-made to your requirement. Also, a SaaS platform is centrally managed, so it is regularly upgraded to comply with the e-commerce trends and chances of technical bugs are minimal.
Now, for you, a first time entrepreneur, I strongly suggest a SaaS based platform because of the reasons cited below.
1. Though the open source softwares are free, the various plugins, extensions and themes are paid with some being extremely expensive.
2. These platforms are mostly based on PHP, .NET, MVC model. Now, the platform might be free but for customizing to your requirement and getting it up and running, you need developers who are enormously expensive to hire. For instance, a normal magento developer can cost you anywhere between 35k-1lac pm in India.
3. Managing the website backend throughout its operation is beyond the reach of a person with limited technical knowledge. And I have already stated that developers are expensive.
4. SaaS based platforms take care of logistics and payment gateways which are otherwise very difficult to manage. They also get you good discount in rates as you deal with them via your service provider. The service providers have 1000s of online stores using their platform so they render good volume of business to logistics companies and payment gateway providers in exchange of subsidy in rates when they then pass on to their online stores.
5. Lastly, since SaaS providers work on a contractual basis so they are much dedicated to retain their customers. Hence, you can expect a decent service from them and timely troubleshooting our problems.
Why should you opt for Zepo?
At Zepo we fulfill all the three requirements that you have listed right at one place. It means that by partnering with Zepo you can have an online store, can sell your products on online marketplaces like Amazon, Snapdeal, Flipkart and have a store on facebook at the same time. Also it has its own limitations when compared to Shopify. For reference please visit https://www.zepo.in/blog/2013/03/05/zepo-shopify-india-ecommerce-platforms-compared/