A Guide on Starting an Online T-Shirt Printing Business in 2020

An aspiring designer is always keen to grab the opportunity to start any business associated with the clothing industry. So, even if they get the idea of printing t-shirts, they think they’ll be able to manage everything efficiently.

But when they ‘actually’ start working on it, they face a number of obstacles and get stuck.

Despite these obstacles being small, they can show up anytime in the course of the entire process from designing to printing. And when you are a newbie with little knowledge of t-shirt print business particulars, obstacles are inevitable.

Though every designer works in their own way and every print shop has its own set of rules, there are several steps that may help you successfully kickstart a t-shirt printing business.

Here are the steps:

• Create a Business Plan
• Choose an appropriate ecommerce platform
• Integrate a t-shirt design software
• Choose a suitable printing method
• Choose the right t-shirt supplier/vendor
• Set up the printing infrastructure
• Set up logistics infrastructure
• Launch and market your store

1. Think of a T-Shirt Business Plan

A robust business plan is the first and foremost step towards success in any business. Talking of the t-shirt printing industry, there is a wide range of audience on the basis of choice of quality, design and style.

After deciding what to sell, a company needs to decide whether to open their online store or partner with a large online retail company like Amazon, Etsy, etc.

Below are the steps you can follow.

a. Identify the Market Niche

Segmentation of customers can be on the basis of either customers’ needs or age.

To find out the market niche, ensure to ask yourself the following questions.

• Will you sell printed t-shirts to infants or teens and grown-ups?
• Will you offer unlimited flexibility of customization or a fixed range of designs to pick from?
• Will you target a niche within various age groups? For example, printed comic character t-shirt for teens or printed sport t-shirts for adults?
• Will you align the design and quality with current market trends?

There are several more ways to identify a niche.

A basic step is keyword research. Google Keyword Planner can help you with that. Just put some keywords related to your intended niche and targeted country, and note which phrases and words appear as suggestions. Narrow down the suggestions further by monthly search volume, competition level or suggested bids.

Go for those keywords with a minimum search volume of 1k per month. As there would probably be no room for any keyword less than this.

With competition, you get ideas about your competitors and with suggested bids, you can get the idea of a high level of commercial intent. After industry and market research, write down your plan.

While creating a custom printed t-shirt, ponder over a few points like:

• Mission of your company – like offering high quality printed t-shirts at nominal prices.
• Will you create the basic templates and design or purchase pre-built designs?
• What do you expect from yourself, management and staff members?
• Knowledge of source of raw materials. Whether you will fix a vendor or buy plain t-shirts from a particular brand?
• Create marketing ideas on the basis of marketing analysis using events, social media, fairs or conventions, etc.
• Analyze the competition to work out the strategy to make your brand stand out.
• Gather corroborative documents like sample designs, vendor agreements, and statistical analysis of t-shirt printing business.
• Obtain a license as per your location and type of business.

b. Consider Financial Aspects

Before establishing a business, having an idea of the overall cost is important.

Being an entrepreneur thinking for the long run, your financial strategy should include:

• Projected expenses and assumptions of fixed and variable costs
• Costs of investment
• Revenue goals and expenses
• Break-even analysis
• Business ratios encompassing turnover, accounts payable, etc.
• Monthly profit or loss figures
• Annual gross margin
• The main expenses you should add are printing, bagging, tagging, labeling, packing,
• shipping, taxing, etc.

Obtaining printing quotes from various t-shirt printing firms to compare prices can help.

They can help decide on the best deal to offer without compromising quality. And these aspects combinedly will help decide prices of your t-shirts.

One more thing you need to evaluate is how far you can go if things don’t go as planned.

c. Strictly Avoid These Mistakes

For a robust business plan, undergoing each step of the planning process is indispensable. Small entrepreneurs or startups think at times that there is no need for a business plan. But that doesn’t work.

Here are the few mistakes that you must not make.

• Failing to include market research and profit or loss projection
• Not branding your business enough
• Not deciding on the method of accepting and fulfilling orders beforehand
• Launching an online store without a web-to-print and Online T-shirt Design Tool.
• Not gathering knowledge about working and maintenance of a web-to-print software.
• Failing to check the quality of final output beforehand
• Failing to assess the possible run-time challenges that your business might face

2. Choose the Right Ecommerce Solution for Your Store

The second step is deciding on the ecommerce platform for your store. Hosted platforms like Shopify and BigCommerce have a low startup cost and are ideal for low-budget startups. But they don’t let you choose an individual choice of your design and cannot add customized elements. On the contrary, with self-hosted platforms, you can choose your own design, make custom edits, add products and set prices at your convenience. The only drawback is that they aren’t ideal for low-budget startups and one can choose them only if they have higher (capital reserve/spending ability).

3. Integrate an Online Product Designer Tool

Investing in an advanced online product design tool is highly recommended. To start with, you can just integrate a t shirt maker software to fulfill basic customers’ requirements. This way, you can help customers design t-shirts that stand out. Once your business takes off, you can add new functionalities to your web-to-print store and enhance it further. Similarly, you can even expand features of your t shirt printing software to help people avail of ready-made quotes, clipart, texts, designs, and more.

4. Select the T-Shirt Printing Method

Post deciding designs, decide on the method of t-shirt printing.

There are 3 common ways of printing t-shirts – Screen Printing, Heat Transfer Printing, DTG Printing. Each of these methods has its own advantages and disadvantages.

While screen printing and heat transfer printing are more suitable for bulk printing, DTG printing is not. In the same way, there are a number of differences between the three. So, research well and match those features with your objective. Go for a method only after ensuring it is a perfect fit.

5. Choose the Right T-Shirt Supplier/Vendor

Choosing the right t-shirt supplier is also crucial. Look for a manufacturer who can provide you with good quality blank t-shirts for printing at nominal prices.

Make sure that your relationship with your vendor is good throughout as every single imperfect t-shirt will directly hamper your business.

Keep in mind the other points like:

The design should fit in the center of the t-shirt.

The type of ink you choose out of high intensity ink, gel ink and foil ink based on your fabric type and customers’ requirements

6. Set Up the Printing Infrastructure

Set up a printing infrastructure where printing can take place without any glitches.

Printing studio with well-maintained printers accompanied by a coating and a finishing unit is recommendable. Also, ensure to have printers that can print on a variety of fabrics as customers can for customized caps, bags, jerseys, etc.

The following are the steps involved in the printing process.

Proper choice of color schemes

Saving a copy for yourself and for print

Printing the t-shirts

7. Set up Logistics Infrastructure

Once a customer places an order, it is a must to deliver it on time. Ensuring a smooth delivery involves three steps.

Take care of your orders independently with your team support.

Sell products through a drop-shipper who can take care of your orders

Tie up with a logistics company who can take care of warehouse and order fulfillments.

8. Launch and Market Your Store

All set? Here comes the final step – store launch. Invite your customers to put their creativity to use and draw designs with a t-shirt maker software you offer. Make sure to keep the designer tool user-friendly and interactive to reduce cart abandonment rates.

If you are keen to start an online t-shirt printing store, you need not be tech-savvy or a highly skilled programmer. All you need is the love for art and knowledge and sense of the latest fashion trends.

So now that you have successfully launched the store, next comes its marketing.

Start spreading information about your upcoming business through flyers, pamphlets, and business cards. Approach nearby schools, organizations, and businesses in person as word-of-mouth promotion is one of the best promotional methods.

Be active on social media, click snaps of products, post them on Instagram, Facebook, etc.

Interact with people and use the tactic of giveaway contests for your fans.

If your budget allows, you can further use paid marketing, sponsor events, and go for other marketing tactics for maximum outreach.

Conduct timely online polls and keep posting to keep people engaged.

Final Takeaway

T-shirt printing business is indeed a great idea for fashion lovers. However, only if you come up with a strong business plan and proper steps right from choosing the right ecommerce platform, t-shirt design tool for website, to marketing your store; your business can ‘actually’ succeed.

Original Source: https://customerthink.com/a-guide-on-starting-an-online-t-shirt-printing-business-in-2020/

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Guide on Magento 2.X Migration for Product Designers and Printers

If you run an online print business or offer product decoration services on a Magento based e-store, you must be aware that Magento will end its official support and new security updates for Magento 1.X from June 2020. And it is June already!

As a result, online print stores with a Magento Product Designer embedded still using Magento 1.X are likely to become more prone to performance-related issues and vulnerabilities after starting from this month. Therefore, rather than using the old version, Magento 1.X users should switch to Magento 2.0 to keep business uninterrupted and glitch-free.

Advantages of migration to Magento 2.0

There are several advantages of migration to Magento 2.0 as:

The page loading speed increases by up to 50%.
The speed of the checkout process increases by 38%.
The platform scalability rate of your web-to-print store increases up to three times the current rate.
The Magento 2 admin panel is easily usable and all-inclusive. Whether it is tracking orders and revenues, reviewing lifetime sales and delivery statuses, calculating taxes, or anything, you can do it all right from your store backend.
The advanced technologies including CSS3, HTML5, Require.JS, etc. simplify the installation and update of new extensions on the platform.
With rich snippets on catalog pages Magento 2.0 features, it helps improve SERP rankings.
Magento 2.0 has got more advanced security and customization features.

A Guide on Migration to Magento 2 for Printers and Product Decoration Service Providers

Migration to Magento 2.X can help you increase the count of your online shoppers by up to 200%. If you want to switch to Magento 2.X, below are the seven best practices to follow for the successful switch.

1. Enhanced Front-End Architecture

Magento 2 offers a number of built-in features for online businesses. The three major ones are as follows.

Responsiveness

Magento 2 makes your online printing storefront responsive that can fit any screen – be it of a mobile, laptop, or desktop.

Advanced Admin Interface

The admin can personalize the backend as per their requirements, manage and retrieve the important information in real-time. This version has also got enhanced import capabilities.

Checkout Process

The buyers’ journey becomes faster by 38%  and also smoother. This helps in reducing the cart abandonment rate that is often a common problem in ecommerce.

2. Improved Technology Stacks

Magento 2 offers updated versions of tech stacks to Magento 2.X developers that help them deliver quality work promptly. And it lets online printers avail of flexibility and customization unlike in Magento 1.X.

3. A Systematic Base for Optimized Codes and Modules

Unlike Magento 1.X, Magento 2.X doesn’t support and manage non-optimized codes as they don’t contribute to the improvement of the user experience and don’t optimize storefront speed. Therefore, this latest version works best with support for optimized codes only and increases efficiency.

4. Progressive Module Development

The open-source eCommerce platform lets Magento 2.X developers use the default code and override it as required to develop modules. This specific functionality is one of the major reasons behind adaptation to this latest version

The sophisticated module development is highly beneficial for online businesses who want to get started quickly as it saves their time and effort. Additionally, it is also possible to compress images directly on the server-side using the built-in tools on Magento 2.
The open-source eCommerce platform lets Magento 2.X developers use the default code and override it as required to develop modules. This specific functionality is one of the major reasons behind adaptation to this latest version

5. Smooth Extension Integration

As your customers grow in number, the add-ons you need to manage them will also increase in number. That is why your storefront should be easily integrable with advanced APIs and off-the-shelf extensions to improve efficiency.

But extensions must be updated periodically to avoid multiple crashes on your store. Magento 2.X makes third-party integrations seamless and glitch-free.

6. Enhanced Technical Capabilities

Ensure to enable your Magento 2.X developers to test the code before they finalize it for the migration process. This will help them find out if any part of your online store needs fixes in how it’s working. The testing framework it offers includes performance tests, static tests, unit tests, integration tests, and more.

7. Easy Varnish Caching

In Magento 2, a varnish cache behaves like a web accelerator that speeds up your online printing store and optimizes your performance. Moreover, it also uses browser caching to make sure all storefront assets are stored properly.

What Magento 2.X Constitutes?

1. Data Migration

It includes moving data including customer details, store configurations, product information, sales, and CRM data, and basic SEO set up like meta-description, titles, or redirects.

2. Extension and Code Customization

Magento 1.X extensions and code customizations aren’t transferable to the latest version. However, you can fully or partially re-create custom inbuilt functionality on your online printing store to run them better.

3. Design Migration

Despite Magento 1.X themes not being directly transferable to 2.X, creating a new theme or recreating an old theme from scratch is easily possible.

4. Advanced SEO Migration

You can recreate advanced SEO settings including custom URLs, meta titles and descriptions, cross-links, formats, markup tags, redirects, etc. on Magento 2.

To Wrap Up

Migrating from Magento 1.X to Magento 2.X is the need of the hour as the latest version will help make your online store more productive and interactive. There are several solution provider companies that can guide you on transitioning/switching seamlessly from Magento 1 to Magento 2.

Original Source: https://bestcmsplugins.com/guide-on-magento-2-x-migration-for-product-designers-and-printers/

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5 Ways to Sell Greeting Cards Online

The annual estimate of greeting card retail sales is above $7.5 billion! It proves that
people still prefer greeting cards over GIFs in this high-end digital age. As it gives a personal touch to the feelings you convey!

While buying greeting cards and gifts offline is still existent, online card shopping has also emerged popular of late. To compete with the leading brands like Archies, Hallmark and other big fishes in this industry is tough. But it is possible though!

So, are you ready to launch your new online card retail business? Or to expand your offline card retail store into an online one? Below are some good ways to sell greeting cards online.

How to Sell Greeting Cards Online (Highly Recommended Ways)

Print-On-Demand Sites

Print-On-Demand is highly trending nowadays. The reason is, customers can not only purchase products but also customize them. They can select different images to keep on their products. The companies then print these products with images on them.
You can upload images on greeting cards and other products and sell them on such print-on-demand companies. Being a designer, you can set a base price and add the commission you want to earn. Generally, it is around 10%. Zazzle, Red Bubble, and Cafe Press are some good print-on-demand companies you can tie up with.

Trading your cards through these sites have various advantages viz:

No big investment in products as the company takes care of printing and requirement fulfillments.
No shipping charges as the company pays for shipping.
No need to deal with enquiries or complaints from customers.
The company handles them all. However, you can allow your customers to contact you for their design requests if you want to.
Hassle-free payments. The company handles all payments and pays you via PayPal or check depending on your location.
Continuous selling of your designs for years making it your source of passive income.

Sell Handmade Cards Online

If you are good at innovative artwork and craftwork, you can go for selling handmade cards online. However, the cost of making such cards is higher. It’s because you have to be ready with all crafting materials with you. You may require cards, rubber stamps, stickers, ribbons,, ruler, die cutting machines, etc.

Moreover, you will have to handle shipping charges also. Nevertheless, handmade cards are in great demand. Therefore, higher card-making costs will bring you higher profits.

Most of these sites either charge you monthly or ask for a commission on your earning from sales.

If you are selling handmade cards offline, you can upload them on various sites to sell them. This way, you don’t only get to sell your cards but also promote them. Some popular sites where you let you sell your handmade cards are:

Amazon
Etsy
Shopify
iCraft
Artfire
Supermarket
Folksy (UK based)
Dawanda, and more.

Launch Your Own Website

If you are financially sound and can invest huge amounts, your own card retail website is a good idea to go for. You have to take care of everything from taking card orders to dispatching them. But hold on!

First, your site is not the ‘lonewolf’ of the online card retail industry.
Many major players like Hallmark, Etsy, Zazzle, etc. are already a tough competition. So, your site must be visible enough for people to view, notice and visit.

For this to happen, you must learn SEO skills. Or hire someone who would do that for your site. So that your site shows up in top search results.

Second, you need to choose a feature-rich Card Design Software that lets your customers customize cards.

Freelance Sites

‘Freelance sites’ is yet another good way of earning income through online sale of cards. This option has its own advantages some of which are:

Unlike other options, you don’t need to create cards and wait for others to buy them. On the contrary, you just need to work on specific design requirements of customers. This puts you at a relatively lower risk of low sales and profits.

You don’t have to take care of uploading card designs timely, managing orders or shipping order. Just take orders as they come and fulfill them.

Also, you can earn a pretty good amount by catering to multiple customers monthly or yearly. If your designs go down well with clients, your popularity escalates. And you can get more and more orders. Again a bonanza for you!

Card Design Ideas

Though not directly related to selling cards, this way that fits here somehow. If you are good at innovation, sell it to card companies. Some card companies pay you for their submission. But before submitting your idea to a site, analyze the style of cards they sell thoroughly. If they like your poetry, quotes, sayings, design and theme ideas; you can earn anywhere between $25 to $300. To tie up with such companies, you first need to sign a statement. And confirm that your idea is original and you won’t use it anywhere else.

Some good companies that pay you for ideas are:

Oatmeal Cards
Blue Mountain Cards
SNAFU Designs
Smart Alex
Warner Press
Comstock Market Place, and more.

In a Nutshell

Thus, you see that the greeting card business will never go out of fashion. So, you can always go for it. Just start selling cards online besides selling them offline. And boost your card retail business!

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TIPS BEFORE INVESTING IN MAGENTO PRODUCT DESIGNER

The constant evolution of the printing industry has made no longer dependent on physical stores. It is growing in different ways after marking its presence into the digital market, it has opened the doors of endless opportunities.

And people are loving it! Because it provides them the freedom to be creative and has things of their choice through Web-to-print stores.

Whereas, on the other hand, the growth of Magento is phenomenal in recent years. 

In fact, Magento is currently the most preferred e-commerce platform for e-store owners. If you are considering starting your online store in the printing industry then I recommend using Magento as an e-commerce platform and integrating it with our product design tool. Here, I will be providing some guidance on things you must consider before investing in a magento product customizer:

Mobile First: This is the current demand of the market. Tech giants like Google are promoting the concept of mobile-first experience. A recent study shows that 84% of users face difficulties in completing mobile transactions. And that's a huge number. But, as a vendor, there is a huge opportunity for you to generate plenty of revenue by providing these users with the mobile-first experience.

Hence, providing your users with an interface that is compatible with mobile, it will be perfect. You can make sure that your users can easily do even the smallest of the task from your mobile-friendly design.

Support SEO: The marketing of your e-store is the most important part of your business. While purchasing a magento 2 product designer you want to make sure that it has SEO features.

Thinking, why is it important? If there is no visibility of your printing e-store on search engines then you won’t be getting the traffic->clients and this will not help your business to flourish. So, in this era of the digital world, you need to make sure that you have a strong online presence and grow your business. Make sure to check that they provide you with the features like targeted keywords, SEO title, meta description, etc. Making your store full-fledged and optimized technically will help you to grow your digital presence on various platforms and make sure that your customers can find you easily.

Customization options: This is the most crucial part. When your vision is to encourage your customers to design and create their own products. To prompt them to purchase and provide them the freedom to personalize their products by designing things that are not available online. So, to make sure that all these needs get fulfilled you need to make sure that your tool provides great customization options. Example: Multiple design areas, custom clipart options, custom design templates, etc. more the option, the better experience you can provide to your customers and grow your business.

User Experience: We live in a fast-paced world. Today no one wants to wait and we all want things to happen fast around us. Similarly, we want websites that we visit to load fast. So, while setting up the website make sure that it does not take more than 2-3 seconds, otherwise, your website may lose potential users. Simultaneously, also make sure that the tool you are purchasing is providing quick and is easy to learn and play around. The best part of integrating it with Magento is its high tech and speed. All you need to do is find the perfect product design tool which can work with the high speed and easily integrates with your e-store.

Storing downloadable file: As a store owner, you have the majority of the tasks related to management. You need to make sure that the files which you have are at a proper place and are easily accessible. Sometimes, you will be having many customers who are using your own services, in such scenarios you need to make sure that they don’t get mixed, delivery of the product is on time and your customer is happy.

Easy order/reorder facilities: Ordering and payments needs to be easy. You should also check the “My Design” section for your customers to easily check the design they create or purchase. You can also provide the tracking or reordering feature. These two features will make it easier for your customers to track their order like is it dispatched or by when it will deliver and if they have loved some particular design then they can easily reorder it as well.

Conclusion: To make your e-store stand out in this competitive market, you need to make sure that you are moving ahead with time. You also need to make sure that you are using the correct tools to the fullest of its potential and providing your customers with the best service.

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A Guide on How to Venture into a Photo Book Business

A picture is worth a thousand words. Therefore, photos hold great importance for everyone. With more and more smartphones flooding the market, people have started documenting their day-to-day life by clicking numerous snaps.

Imagine being in a business where you could help almost 2.7bn smartphone owners to create with those images. We are talking about photo book printing. One of the best options as a business for you if you love creativity.

But again, starting every business needs a lot of preparation and research. And of course, will power.

So, here are some steps to keep in mind before you start a photo book business.

1. Insightful Research

Three things to research well into before starting a photo book business:

Mode of Business
One thing you need to decide is whether you want to start this photo book business offline or online. Or whether you want to combine both offline and online modes.

However, unless you are very sure of immense success of your offline photo studio, it is better to start photo book business online. The reasons why starting it online has an edge over offline are:

• Print on Demand technology/process can help save money and resources.
• It lets customers utilize their creativity to design photo books as per their wish. And this personalizes their experience further.
• Lesser investment required to create a website than buy or rent space.

Or you can also go for a hybrid store too. Starting with an online store, you may expand it to an offline store once your brand gets popular.

Analysis of Competition and Customers
Understand the photo book market first. Keep yourself abreast of the big brands in the same business. Analyze them thoroughly and try to understand their ideas and strategies. Study their sites and product offerings.

You can add your own innovation to that analysis to come up with the latest trending products in the market. Don’t copy competitors but take inspiration from them.

Also, try to figure out the potential customers of your business and the price they are willing to pay for your products.

Accordingly, decide on the products you want to sell and their prices.

Financial Strategy
Budget plays a crucial role in any business. So, your financial strategy should not fall flat in any case. Your strategy should take into account everything - run-time and anticipated expenses, monthly and yearly profit margins, funds for investments, etc.

2. Selection of Products

After researching well and building an idea, the next thing is selection of products. In the business of photo books, selection of covers and papers of photo books is important. Selection of these two depends on market trends, price, profit margins, requirements of your store, etc.

The main types of photo book covers available for you to choose from are:

• Flipbook - A soft-cover photo book. It’s very flexible and durable like a magazine.
• Hardcover - Feels like a real book. Comes in hinged and layflat forms.
• Booklet - 2-staple binding on the spine helps flat opening. Ideal for small-size photo books.
• Linencover - Outer covering of real canvas. Gives a classy and elegant look.

The main types of paper you can choose for your photo books are:

• Matte - Non-glossy and ideal for designs with enough text on it.
• Glossy - A paper with a very ‘shiny’ surface. Lighter than the matte paper. Ideal for vibrant photos.
• Satin - Lies midway between matte and glossy papers. People also call it ‘pearl’ paper.
• Linen - Has textured lines on its surface. Feels like a linen cloth. Suitable for presentation folders, wedding invitations, art paints, etc.

3. Judicious Selection of a Supplier

A supplier should be consistent in supplies and quality. Once you set up a store, you’ll need stuff like photo book pages, spirals, covers, etc. So, make sure that the supplier you pick is capable of delivering everything on time. And doesn’t leave you with an irregular supply or bad quality products.

4. Selection of an E-Commerce Platform

Choose an e-commerce platform judiciously. Consider factors like hidden charges, mobile and SEO friendliness, support and security updates, etc.

Here are the types of platforms you can choose from:

• Traditional - Pay a fee upfront and get the annual license of the platform for a year. Hybris, IBM or Kentico, etc. are good examples of traditional platforms.
• Open-Source - You don’t need to pay any license fee annually. But you’ll need to pay for implementation and customization. Magento is the most popular platform in this category.
• Cloud - Traditional open-source platforms with an upgrade of a hosting system. Demandware, Salesforce, Common, etc. are good examples.
• SaaS - Software-as-a-Service platforms are cloud-based platforms accessible across all browsers. You only need to pay a monthly subscription fee to the third-party provider for maintenance, performance, and security.

5. Selection of a Right Designer Tool

• Choice of suitable Photo Book Design Software is a crucial step. The design software for your photo book business should provide:
  
  Editable Templates
• Management of multiple image slides
• Skew Effect
• Drop and Shadow Effect
• Cost-Effectiveness
• SEO Friendliness
• 2D and 3D Previews

And more.

6. Selection of a Right Printing Method

Despite the availability of umpteen print methods like flexography, screen printing, lithography, etc., digital printing is ideal for photo book printing. As it involves reproducing digital images on a paper. Further, you can choose from a variety of color combinations using your Web-to-Print Software.

7. Operations

Printing
Find a suitable printing service provider for your printing business. Make sure that they provide fine quality prints. Also, upgrade your offices and hire professionals to complement your business as it grows.

Logistics
Managing deliveries by yourself can be possible when orders are few. However, when your business expands, find a reliable delivery company to collaborate with. This collaboration will streamline your delivery process.

8. Launching and Marketing

After all the steps comes the time of launching your business. It is better to start marketing about your launch in advance. This will build up curiosity among people.

After launching your business, market it through:

• Optimizing your website for SEO
• Blogging
• Making YouTube videos and vlogs
• Using referral programs
• Social Media Marketing
• Offline Marketing
• Pay-Per-Click Marketing (if you have surplus budget), etc.

Takeaway

So, a photo book business is always a good business idea. You’ll be helping people relive their favorite moments. Just take care of every step and you’ll soon ace in this vogue business.

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8 Ways to Maintain Customer Loyalty in 2020 amid COVID-19

According to a study by Digital Commerce 360, 67% of online shoppers have changed their shopping behavior and 55% of online shoppers have placed more orders online owing to the Corona outbreak. This shows that customers are turning to online shopping in the wake of this pandemic.

However, keeping your customer base intact amid the prevailing times of uncertainty isn’t that easy. And customer loyalty may go down due to one or more reasons below:

• Lack of engagement or interest.
• Poor customer experience.
• Failure to fulfill customers’ demands.
• Weakened brand equity.

As a result, your overall sales and revenue may plummet.

Therefore, besides acquiring new customers, maintaining existing customer loyalty is also crucial. To win your customers’ trust and loyalty, you may have to ‘walk the extra mile’ to retain your customer loyalty – especially this fateful year.

Read on to know a few customer retention strategies that can come in handy and retain your brand loyalty among customers.

• Ensure to take Emergency Measures

This is the first and foremost step towards retaining customer loyalty. Setting up an emergency response team is crucial for timely measures. This team can help assess the risk factors, supply or inventory related issues, online store operations, workforce,
and consumers’ sentiments.

After considering all these factors, this team can plan and work out strategies to adopt for marketing and sales. Further, it can also discuss these strategies with the top officials and experienced employees in each department and tweak them further.

Thus, it will help create an effective roadmap to guide your company through this crisis.

• Assure Customers about Product Safety

The word ‘social distancing’ has had a deep impact on people’s minds and hearts. Trusting your brand would be difficult for even your existing customers– unless you show them you care for them. Reassure them that you follow stringent hygiene procedures and guidelines for customers, employees, and products with utmost attention.
For that, you can inform your customers by creating a video, blog(s), or even a full dedicated website page for CORONA where you can inform them how your brand is responding to this global pandemic.
For instance, if you have an in-house manufacturing facility, you can record a small video showing the entire procedure of manufacturing, packing, dispatching and delivery. You can also post videos of your employees following precautions like wearing masks and gloves, sanitizing machinery, cartons or other packaging materials, etc. on social media.

This all will help customers regain confidence in your brand and win back their trust.

• Provide Personalization

Personalized approaches may work well for an online store seeing the current scenario. Let’s understand it with an example.
Suppose, you are an online print store owner. In general times, people would buy anything and everything from your store. But would they do that today? Of course not! The reason is the change in customers’ shopping preferences. They have grown smarter and research everything before buying anything – especially in current times. They won’t pick anything that can’t stand out or isn’t ‘really’ valuable.

What to do then? The answer is – offering personalization. By providing freedom of customization through product design software like Magento Product Designer or any other, you can engage customers better.

• Accommodate New In-Trend Items

Hunt for the products or services people are seeking in your industry. Incorporating in-trend items or services is highly helpful.
For instance, if you own an insurance company, it is high time you covered Corona under your health coverage policy just like other renowned insurance companies like Reliance General Insurance.
Similarly, you can offer COVID-19 masks to your customers if you are an online fashion store just like Wildcraft has done.

• Prompt Online Customer Support

While online customer support is always a valuable asset, strengthening it further can help even more in such times.
Equip your customer support team with all they need to respond to customers anywhere anytime. Keep multiple lines of communication open for your customers. Facebook Messenger, official whatsapp number, customer service number, or other messaging platforms can help. You can even offer them the ‘video conferencing’ option through Skype or FaceTime for a face-to-face interaction and strengthen your customer relations.

• Zero-Contact Delivery

Out of the fear of getting infected, people are abstaining from touching any surface, or even each other! To allay such fears, offering them ‘Zero Contact Delivery’ can be a very innovative option. Adjust your store backend configuration and display the option of Zero Contact Delivery on your product page or Checkout page for customers. This will reassure them that you follow the social distancing norms ‘actually’ and their safety is your topmost priority.

• Social Media – Make it Your Right Hand

Undeniably, a website is a must for every online store. However, social media visibility is not behind. When people are indoors checking news about Corona now and then on social media, you can leverage this opportunity to strengthen your social media presence.

Keep posting useful content, details of new launches, offers or discounts, etc. on your social media pages on various platforms including Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, etc. Remember, the content you post should be informative or exciting, and most importantly – positive.

You can also run customer loyalty programs, offers and discounts; and maximize their outreach via announcements on social media. This will help attract your existing customers’ attention back to your brand. Not only the existing customers, but also the new audience may stumble upon such programs or offers, develop interest, and become your customers.

This way, you won’t only be able to retain your existing customer base but also broaden it.

• Tap into the Real Power of Content

Last but not the least, make sure your content is meticulously created. People often fail to realize how content can work wonders for a business. After all the marketing efforts you invest in, it is the ‘content’ that they see first on your site, social media page, email, and literally everywhere.
Therefore, if you really want to rule the hearts and minds of your audience, making your content engaging is indispensable. Especially when decision-making has become harder for customers and they want help choosing between various products/services/offerings by various companies, content can be their guide.
Make sure that your content is insightful, informative, motivating, engaging and of course – optimized for keywords. Use various tools to research keywords around COVID-19 and optimize your blogs, articles, listing page content, etc. with them.

Afterall, CONTENT IS KING for Bill Gates and broadly – for every business.

Summing Up

COVID-19 crisis has undoubtedly toughened maintaining and building customer loyalty. However, with several effective customer retention strategies as discussed above, you can win back your customers’ trust and retain their loyalty.
Good luck with building your customer loyalty!

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