The biggest advantage of running your own ecommerce store is that, unlike owning a physical store on a high street, you will rarely ever feel alone.
Online retail allows for a much stronger sense of community. However, it also means that you’re open to far more competition. You might be the only specialised knit shop in your local village, for example, but on the internet, there are hundreds of stores just like yours.
The trick is to implement a successful marketing strategy for your website and other online platforms to help you stand out from the crowd. This isn’t always as straightforward as it seems. While you might pride yourself in your exceptional understanding of retail, that doesn’t mean marketing is your forte.
You could spend a fortune on a course. But the best first approach to take would be to check out the free resources available online. There are plenty of ecommerce blogs out there, offering advice and helpful info on everything you need to succeed in growing your online retail platforms. You might even be tempted to start up your own blog yourself – which, when done properly, can be great for business.
Take a look at my seven current favourite ecommerce blogs to draw inspiration from today:
1. Shopify
Shopify is one of the biggest and most successful ecommerce platforms for online retailers to start, run and grow a business. It was established over a decade ago, and has since gone onto power over 800,000 businesses worldwide.
The Shopify blog is updated on an almost daily basis with business ideas, tips to grow your sales, founder stories, and Shopify product updates. First-time retailers and established ecommerce runners alike will benefit from the diverse array of information on offer. Don’t forget to check out the most popular posts for the handiest tips and advice.
2. BigCommerce
Founded in 2009, BigCommerce is a technology company that provides a SaaS ecommerce platform, allowing its users to build differentiated commerce experiences with the flexibility to propel business forward. It offers a selection of templates and free themes that make a great starting point for business growth.
The BigCommerce blog declares itself to be the number one ecommerce blog to grow your business, and judging by its content, it’s certainly a claim it can deservedly make. Choose from a list of relevant categories, including How to Sell Online and Product News, or scroll down at your leisure. Handily, each post also has a read time, so you can filter down your reading choices based on how many minutes you have to spare.
As a resource and community for ecommerce businesses on a worldwide scale, A Better Lemonade Stand is an online incubator that helps make every business decision easier. The platform was founded in 2015 by an ex-member of Shopify’s growth team, and now serves 250,000+ entrepreneurs monthly.
A Better Lemonade Stand’s blog is unique in that you can filter its posts depending on the stage you are currently at with your own business: build, launch or grow. You can also filter by topic, which is handy if you’re after something specific. Expect to find an impressive number of useful guides to keep you busy for hours.
4. Oberlo
Oberlo is an online marketplace that allows businesses to easily import dropshipped products into their ecommerce store and ship them directly to their customers. Dropshipping is a simple way to run a store without ever having to hold inventory, and since its launch in 2015, Oberlo has become one of the biggest dropshipping marketplaces available to businesses.
Don’t expect Oberlo’s blog to only focus on dropshipping – although there’s a lot to learn on the subject if it interests you. You can find tips on what to sell, setting up your store, and successfully marketing yourself online like our article on product placement on social media. There’s also the option to sign up for the Oberlo newsletter, along with another 1 million entrepreneurs, to receive tips, tricks and news on dropshipping and ecommerce.
5. Sumo
Combining a number of tools that have been proven to increase website traffic and create a huge base of online followers, Sumo helps ecommerce businesses to monitor growth and steer towards online success. The team at Sumo have spent four years building their tools internally and growing their newsletter – and amassed over one million subscribers in that time.
Sumo’s featured articles are colourful and fun to read, but still manage to be highly educational and comprehensive. From how-tos to trend lists and examples of success, there’s something to learn wherever you look. The posts’ topics go beyond ecommerce strategy – you can also find plenty on the subject of email marketing, content creation and social media tactics.
6. Smile.io
As the world’s largest reward programme provider, Smile.io allows ecommerce entrepreneurs to reward customers for loyalty in all manner of enticing means. Since its 2012 debut, Smile.io has set up 25,000 active reward programmes for businesses of all sizes, with 50,000 participating members and more than 100 partner agencies.
The Smile.io blog doesn’t just talk reward programmes, but the strategy that can be implemented around them to drive sales and bring more customers to your site. If you’re looking to organically grow your business, there’s plenty of inspiration and guidance to be found. It’s worth subscribing to the blog if you never want to miss a post.
7. Beeketing
Beeketing is a hub of innovative marketing apps for ecommerce shop owners, and since its 2008 launch, it has used its expertise to help thousands of businesses gain customer loyalty and successfully grow their online presence. The Beeketing tool allows businesses to track customer behaviour, providing useful data about ecommerce visits for businesses to use and to learn from.
If it’s effective tips and tools you’re after, you’ll love the content on Beeketing’s blog. From boosting conversions in newly opened stores to making the most out of affiliate marketing and bringing in sales in your first three days of business, Beeketing covers everything an ecommerce entrepreneur may wish to learn. Register your email address for more free marketing tips and handbooks sent straight to your inbox.
