ONLINE WITH Jay Goodey

LOCAL BOY Jay Goodey was just 22 when he launched Onceit, an online store where retailers can sell their outlet stock and consumers can get a bargain.

Tip 1: Find a niche. The internet is a big place, and in e-commerce if you ship internationally there are a lot of niches. At Onceit we recently started working with a company that makes reusable food wraps made from beeswax - at the moment they are very niche and doing really well in the eco-space at the moment. If you are thinking about getting into selling books online you probably want to think how you could compete against Amazon or Mighty Ape who sell books online really well. 

Tip 2: How will you get traffic?  I have seen a lot of people start an e-commerce site who think traffic is just going to come. What people don’t realise is that it is very hard to get people to a website regularly. If you think about your own browsing history, you probably only go to around half a dozen websites or apps regularly. So to become one of those regular destinations, particularly in e-commerce, is really hard. You have to think how you will drive people to your site; whether by AdWords, social media, email or organic. There needs to be some thought about how hard and expensive it will be to get people to click. 

Tip 3: What will you win at? Whether it’s amazing customer service, price, fast delivery, range or exclusive products - to succeed you ideally need something that you can be the best at in your market. For us, at Onceit we set out to have the best brands and prices, so we really aimed to get aspirational brands for unbelievable prices. Companies like The Iconic have a huge range and an impressive 3-hour delivery service. Zappos.com from the US sold shoes online but built their business on amazing customer service and free returns. So if you are thinking about launching an e-commerce product, it's worth thinking about where you will position your brand and your product. 

Tip 4: How do you get people to come back? Your customers can be split up in to a few buckets; new customers, retained customers and at risk customers. Once you convert a customer you want to figure out how and why they will shop with you again to keep them in the retained bucket. For retail that might be targeted offers, free shipping, credit, free gift etc to try and get the customer to convert again. If you sell consumables like pet food, a good way to get repeat customers might be by giving the option to “set and forget” so customers can get the pet food delivered and charged regularly. People in the industry often over complicate this process with complex Life Cycle programs, but at the end of the day it may be as simple as asking the customer a question like, when do you need to buy X again? Or how could we make this easier/ better for you to buy?

Tip 5: Be passionate about what you are selling. Whether it’s a service or a product, at the end of the day you should be passionate about delivering your product or service to the world. I am just a humble retailer, but I am really passionate about the product and we want to do the best job possible for our customers and suppliers. 

Check out Jay’s online business: www.onceit.co.nz