Most online entrepreneurs don’t start out as professional marketers or developers. That’s what makes drag-and-drop site builder platforms like Wix so popular.

With professional templates, on-site hosting and maintenance, Wix is very easy to use. But wait, "easy to use" doesn’t mean "simple." Every DIY small business owner can plug in enterprise-level e-commerce to their Wix website. Just type in the Ecwid E-commerce App for Wix.

Recently, we’ve been working hard on giving the Ecwid app the new look and feel. Read on to learn what’s so cool about it.

First, Why the App?

Ecwid has been in the online selling game since 2009. E-commerce has been our main focus and passion for almost 10 years. Ecwid stores are integrated with popular payment and shipping providers like Square, PayPal, or Stripe, social networks like Facebook or Instagram, Google search ads, Amazon and eBay. Everything’s already coded for you so you don’t need technical knowledge.

Ecwid store owners use top-notch e-commerce features the same way big brands do it (say, Instagram Shoppable posts). That said, adding an Ecwid store to Wix will do more that just provide with a modern, mobile-friendly shopping cart — it ensures growth and competitiveness of your e-commerce business.

Review these recent improvements of the Ecwid app for Wix. You’ll see that these changes make your store an even more powerful extension of your website:

30+ New Store Appearance Settings in the Wix Editor

An Ecwid store and a Wix website work together to get your business growing  — just as an esthetician and hairdresser work to improve someone’s overall appearance. Ecwid has created dozens of new store design options to brand your store, including new fonts, storefront layouts, sizes and ratios of product pictures, background colors, product cards content, frames, and more.

Preview your design settings in real-time and apply them right from the Wix editor:

1. Open the Wix site editor.
2. Click on the Ecwid storefront.
3. Click "Settings" and navigate to new "Product list" and "Product" sections.
4. Design your store!

A New Floating Shopping Bag Icon

When it comes to evaluating performance of an online store, it’s all about conversions. The new shopping bag icon is optimized to lead customers to their carts: it sticks to the screen and remains visible on every site page, even if the customers scroll down the page.

We’ve also empowered this icon with a set of customization options. Set the layout, position, icon type, and border to complement your store — also within the Wix site editor:

1. Open the Wix site editor.
2. Click on the Ecwid storefront.
3. In the store settings window, click Add-ons, then Add a Floating Shopping Bag Icon.
4. Click on the icon in your storefront to open the design settings and change the icon position.

Faster Page Speed

Surrounded by numerous distractors (thanks, Netflix) your customers hate to wait. The load speed of your website and its parts will define how many sales you make. It’s also a crucial SEO metric that helps Google rank your site higher. That’s why we made Ecwid storefronts working on Wix load up to 2x faster.

Remember that site load speed depends on many factors. For example, if your website has a lot of images (especially if they are not optimized for web) or installed apps, it may affect the load speed. So if you think your Wix + Ecwid website should load faster, contact our support team for more tips.

Curious to see how the Ecwid + Wix team complement each other so well? Check out success stories featuring Wix + Ecwid stores:

• How One Passionate Home Decorator Got Her Entire Family into a Prosperous Business
• Why Being Strange Is Good for Sales: Lessons From a Bikini Brand

Also, see a collection of stores built with Ecwid and Wix, or simply install a free Ecwid app in your Wix admin to give it a try!

Just last week, Instagram announced that people have been tapping its Shopping tags at the rate of 90 million each month. This stunning response comes after product tags became available to most merchants only a few months ago.

In case you haven’t heard, recently, Instagram gave store owners the ability to tag their products in posts. When a user clicks on that product, they land on a product details page. From there, they can choose to buy.

Until this tags era, Instagram’s primary benefit for brands was providing product ideas to shoppers. Now the final sale can actually take place on Instagram after the shopper has gotten the initial idea on Instagram. This ability to buy through a seamless click path upends the social selling game.

After confirming that users are interested in buying on its platform, Instagram has now announced it is adding similar product tags to its Stories feature and its Explore section. The feature was limited to a few select businesses in the US, but product stickers in Instagram Stories are now available in 46 different countries.

Given the popularity of both features, merchants should consider exploring how product tagging there can drive sales and profits. The biggest reason? Tagging on these features is still FREE to merchants.

A product sticker in Instagram Stories

As you explore the ways Instagram can boost your sales, know that on Stories, "tags" (the name for prices placed on posts) are renamed "stickers." Another difference is that stickers lead shoppers back to the merchant websites, where shoppers clicking on tags from a post in a feed can complete the sale right on Instagram. Sales are closed either way!

Potential for Selling on Instagram Stories

Before considering putting stickers on your products in Stories, you should understand how the Stories experience differs from the feed experience.

Photos and videos placed in the Stories feature disappear within 24 hours, much the way rival Snapchat operates. Even with their short life-span, Stories did well for the 20 brands Instagram partnered with to test it.

Instagram’s users have topped 1 billion, and 400 million of them use Instagram Stories every day, according to the channel. An Instagram press release reports that their Stories users are busy "finding new products from brands they love" — a clear play for advertisers.

Statements like this have gotten tech journalists antennae waving. In a recent TechCrunch article, writer Josh Constine claims, "Instagram is embracing its true identity as a mail-order catalog." We say: all the better for e-commerce merchants looking to reach defined target audiences. Maybe consumers need a giant product catalog in the sky that is easily accessed through social. Perhaps Instagram is onto something.

Merchants are free to add one sticker and choose the color to complement their photo or video on each upload in Stories. Tapping on the sticker opens a product details page. Another tap takes shoppers to the merchant’s website for checkout.

The product details page on Instagram

Selling on Instagram Explore Page

It’s not only Instagram’s feed and Stories where you’ll start seeing price tags placed on products. Instagram is also testing starting the buyer’s journey for its advertisers on its Explore page.

The Instagram Explore feature evolved from its previously existing "Popular" feature where Instagram posted its most liked content. Accessed through the magnifying glass placed along the bottom of the screen, the Explore page is a collage of photos and videos that Instagram funnels based to the page on your past engagements.

Shoppable posts in the Explore section

The page is divided into categories: For You, Art, Beauty, Sports, Fashion . . . and now . . .  Shopping. In other words, the platform has created a individual magazine for each user, all with its own sections, the newest one being shopping. This new section only goes to Instagram users who’ve previously displayed an interest in shopping. Because these sections are shaped by each individual’s unique activity on the platform, no two Explore pages are identical.

Beyond funneling your own followed companies’ tagged posts there, it also sends tagged posts and stickered Stories liked by users you have liked. It’s this secondary sharing that should intrigue merchants.

We’re excited by the Explore page for merchants because of its viral potential. Instagram’s testing partners have been raving about how their posts that make it to the Explore page get more engagement than they’ve won on standard feed. It works like this: when enough followers like your Instagram post, it gets shunted to their followers’ Explore page. If those users engage with the post there, it could get shared to their followers’ Explore page and so on, multiplying to infinity.

Start Selling on Instagram Explore and Stories While It’s Still Free

Free digital marketing opportunities don’t come along every day. Jump on this one before it gets so popular Instagram can justify charging. Consider that there are 25 million Instagram profiles, but only 2 million active advertisers. Instagram wants to close that gap, and these tags and stickers are one step on the pathway to proving its value in reaching and selling to targeted audiences.

An Instagram store powered by Ecwid E-commerce gets you selling fast. When you use Ecwid to integrate your online store into your website, social media platforms and online marketplaces, you don’t need to understand or use coding. Our developers have done the hard coding for you.

All you need to do to start selling on Instagram Stories and the Explore section is fill out fields and click buttons. The process is the same as for setting up Instagram Shoppable Posts. More, no matter how many ways to sell online you need, you only have to upload products and make changes on the Ecwid dashboard, rather than going from Facebook to Instagram to Amazon, etc. One centralized dashboard sends the information to all your sales channels.

We hope you get this news in time to reap the rewards that come with being an early adopter of new free promotion opportunities on Instagram. By putting tags and stickers on posts and Stories, you’re entering relatively uncharted territory. But that’s where the money’s made. Whether you already sell on Instagram, or are just planning to, stay tuned for more tips!

What’s been your experience selling on Instagram? Don’t hesitate to share in the comments here— your fellow small business owners will relish your insights!

Anna makes stuffed animals in her spare time. When friends and colleagues clamor to buy them as gifts for their children, Anna decides to try selling them online.

Anna goes to a friend of hers who is a programmer, and begins to learn a lot of new terms: web hosting, domain, server, SEO, and more. A little online research reveals how long it will take and how expensive it will be to develop an effective online store. Her initial enthusiasm begins to dwindle. After a while, Anna decides that developing an online store is out of her reach, and gives up on the idea.

This scenario is sad, and all too common. It’s familiar to many who dream of creating an online store but have neither the time nor the budget to get it done.

The good news is that you do not need to create a website from scratch to sell on the Internet. Instead, you can make a store on the huge, existing websites that you’re already connected to. Once, the accepted steps for digital business started with the branded website. Then you connected to social and other websites from there.

Times have changed. The website is not necessarily central any more. Instead, businesses must go where the customers are: social media and businesses ahead of them in growth. Today, starting on social or larger websites and adding website later in your business evolution makes sense.

In this article, we’ll show you three ways Ecwid E-commerce helps you sell online without the need for a fully developed website. You can use one of these platforms or several altogether. A single Ecwid account acts as the "hub" or center store, beaming itself to as many "spokes" or platforms you choose.

Ecwid 101: How To Create An Online Store For Free In 5 Minutes

An essential eBook on setting up your Ecwid store quickly and easily.

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Sell on Social Networks

According to research from PWC, 45% of people are buying more goods from their favorite brands after looking at them in social networks.. Shop owners are using social networks to talk about products, communicate with existing customers, and attract new customers.

If you do not have a website yet, you can open a store on Facebook, Instagram, and other social media. Just this year, Instagram introduced "shoppable posts," where shoppers can buy products without ever leaving Instagram. Visitors click on the price tag placed on a product which leads them to a description page. From there they click to buy, using whatever payment gateway merchants have established. Instagram stores side-step the need for websites all together. We predict that Facebook will have similar features soon.

Selling on social media has many benefits:

• Tapping into a large and engaged audience of social media users
• An opportunity to reach more people organically (=for free)
• Building lasting relationships with customers through content.

With Ecwid, getting started with selling on social media fast takes just a few clicks. Log into your Control Panel → Sales Channels and choose where to sell your products (Facebook or Instagram accordingly; however, you’ll be surprised to discover many more ways to sell there!) and connect these sales channels.

If you would like to explore selling on social using a step-by-step guide, please go to our Knowledge Base:

• Selling on Facebook with Ecwid
• Selling on Instagram

Use a Free Ecwid E-commerce Website

Ecwid users are not limited to selling only on social networks. If you are not yet ready to build your own website, use the Ecwid E-commerce website.

This is a one-page website with an integrated Ecwid E-commerce store. Create your products, connect your payment and shipping methods and brand your Ecwid website. Upload a cover image, logo, add business info, contact details, and links to social media. Set up your own domain name (available in paid Ecwid plans) or use a free domain type "mysuperstore.ecwid.com." That’s it, we take care of the rest.

The e-commerce website is minimalistic, yet it does the job perfectly, representing your business on the web and enabling sales. But that’s not all!

Launching your business on the Ecwid website, you’ll get these benefits:

• Fast implementation: launch your website and be ready to sell in under an hour.
• No developer needed: use our comfortable editor to change and preview your site’s content
• The Ecwid website is free.

Connect and edit your Ecwid E-commerce website in your Control Panel → Sales Channels → Starter Site.

Sell on Amazon

Amazon now accounts for about 50% of all e-commerce in the US, and many people receive orders from there every day. You probably already know how big this behemoth is. What you may not know is that many small businesses sell through Amazon. In fact, this past July’s Prime Day (special pricing for Prime members), $1 billion of revenues went to small businesses, skipping Amazon all together. (Yes, 1 billion, not million).

Selling on this marketplace has some other advantages besides its size:

• If you’re reading this article, most likely you’re just starting out with your business. In that case, an affiliation with Amazon works because customers are more likely to trust a new business on Amazon than some unknown online store.
• When you sell on a marketplace, you only have to worry about selling. The audience is there, the promotional tools are there, and with services like FBA (Fulfillment by Amazon), you can even avoid messing around with your parcels and, instead, let Amazon do the fulfillment for you.
• Besides the inventory itself, the cost to sell on Amazon is comparatively low: remember, you don’t have to build a website.

One of Amazon’s massive fulfillment centers

Though Amazon has its own downsides such as high competition, commission fees, limitations, and lack of control, optimizing your Amazon listing is easier than optimizing your website for search engines. We broke that process down in one of the episodes of the Ecwid E-commerce Show.

If you sign up for Ecwid, it’s easy to import your products to Amazon (and other marketplaces, too!) Just go to the Control Panel → Sales Channels → Amazon and follow the instructions.

Creating an online shop is much easier than it seems. There’s no need to wait for a lucky day when you get enough money, time, or skills to build an e-commerce website.

Implement your ideas fast (before competitors jump on it), and grow your web presence as your business grows. And please, share this article with those who are still saving up to create their own web store.

Every e-commerce operation wants the latest and greatest when it comes to online presence. But updating WordPress plugins can prompt even the yoga studio owners among us to swear at the screen.

The WooCommerce plugin for WordPress can be particularly difficult. Unlike SaaS shopping carts, the Woo update must be downloaded to the merchant’s computer and then uploaded to his or her store all manually and then hopefully it works with all the other plugins installed.

How to Update WooCommerce

1. Backup your website.
2. Update the copied version of your website. If something goes wrong, use your backup to restore it.
   IF there are no errors, your website will be switched into maintenance mode (this will prevent your customers from purchasing.)
3. Install updates to the live site.
4. Check compatibility with addons, themes, payment gateways, or other WooCommerce plugins.
5. Rinse and Repeat every time there is a new update.

With a new version arriving every month, website downtime could mean a loss of a big chunk of sales. And each of the plugins, themes and addons have their own update schedules and they may require different updates.

Extensive manual work causes issues that can take hours to fix. Some of the most common issues with WooCommerce include:

1. Security. WooCommerce itself is not PCI-DSS certified, nor does it run on HTTPS by default, so you need to install addons and purchase an SSL certificate to make your e-commerce website secure.
2. Plugin and theme conflicts. Even if you’re using a dedicated WooCommerce theme, it may not work well with all the extensions you’ve installed. In this case, you may have to deactivate each and every plugin to find out what caused the issue.
3. Hosting configuration issues. Since you have to purchase hosting for WooCommerce, there’s a chance your hosting provider is not optimized for your store. If you have a large product catalog, you may have to overpay for extra storage and bandwidth to avoid risks to the stability.

Or, You Can Simply Use Ecwid

If a 5-minute WooCommerce update has turned into 5 hours, hear us out. As a hosted solution, the Ecwid E-commerce plugin updates much more easily:

• All needed features for ecommerce come with Ecwid, so you don’t have to install another plugin, to connect a payment option, get automatic tax rates or shipping rates. That minimizes compatibility issues to zero.
• Ecwid is a cloud-based shopping cart, and most data is stored in the cloud rather than your computer. So updates are light and installing them doesn’t feel like spring-cleaning.
• Recently, we’ve rebuilt the process of updating Ecwid with a new version. Rolling out an update to Ecwid now takes 10x times less than before! That means we release features faster and can perform more updates per day.
• The Ecwid team is in charge of all the store backups, updates, and technical maintenance. Our team of professional engineers takes care of Ecwid’s 1.5 million online stores 24/7.

When updating the Ecwid plugin, you can rest assured that customer data is safe. Ecwid E-commerce has PCI-DSS certification Level 1, which is the golden security standard worldwide and all Ecwid store pages run on HTTPS so your customers’ data is encrypted and secure on our end.

Bonus: Ecwid shopping cart integrates with any website (not just WordPress!) or social media page (Facebook, Instagram) and works seamlessly with multiple storefronts simultaneously. The integration is smooth: no messing around with downloads and code. Simply sign up and follow the instructions of the onboarding wizard.

Don’t forget, too, that merchants that have questions about any Ecwid feature can contact the support team via live chat 24 hours a day on every weekday (24/5).

Ecwid is dedicated to providing time-saving advantages to merchants who need every spare minute to run their businesses. But recently, we’ve added even more!

We’ve made importing products from WooCommerce to Ecwid incredibly easy. With just a couple of clicks, you can copy all of your products, images and descriptions from your WooCommerce store to your Ecwid store. Now you can see for yourself what your WordPress site would look like with Ecwid.

Export your WooCommerce catalog as a CSV file to Ecwid

We’ve covered how to import your WooCommerce catalog to Ecwid in our Knowledge Base. Those few steps are illustrated with clear screenshots get the job done in under five minutes.

So maybe it’s time to stop wondering how to update WooCommerce and work on importing WooCommerce to Ecwid? Create your free, hosted, supported and secure online store with Ecwid and get busy growing your brand instead.

Have you wondered how to reduce your Facebook advertising costs and improve return on investment? Your instincts are right: lowering CPC cost translates into more clicks and sales, with the same budget.

SEMgage experts often must explain that making Facebook Ad CPC more cost effective, "it depends on a lot of different factors." There is no ONE, definitive answer. We’ve had some clients’ campaigns reach more than 1000 people on Facebook for just $7!

It really doesn’t matter how big your business is, you should always be looking for new optimization opportunities on how to reduce your costs and improve return on investment.

In this post, we’ll give you 5 most useful, concrete tips to lower your Facebook Ads CPC so that you can wring the most from your advertising budget.

Blow Up Your Sales With Ecwid’s New Social Selling Tools on Facebook
Learn more

1. Understand Your Relevance Score

First things first, try to understand what a Relevance Score is because it directly affects CPC (cost per click).

The Relevance Score is the magic number that varies from 1 to 10 letting you know how relevant an ad is to its target audience. A Relevance Score of 1 is very bad; it means that your ads are not relevant to your audience. Facebook will only continue showing it if you pay more. On the other hand, a Relevance Score of 8 or higher means that your ad perfectly matches the audience you target.

The components of the Relevance Score are fully based on expected positive and negative feedback. The more positive interactions you expect an ad to get, the higher the score will be.

The Relevance Score will be assigned only after your ad has been served more than 500 times. In case you have a low budget, it make take a while before you see the score.

How to check your Relevance Score?

It’s very easy. Open your Ads Manager, select a campaign and then select an ad set. In the "Ads" tab you will see the list of ads you launched, each of which will have its own Relevance Score.

Here are a few things to consider if you want to improve your Relevance Score:

• Be very specific with your targeting; try to narrow your target audience.
• Think about how your image and message will match with your audience’s preferences.
• Always refresh your ads.
• Try showing different ads to the same audience, always test everything.
• Avoid using offensive and misleading content.

2. Ensure You Are Targeting a More Specific Audience

Getting as specific as you can with your target audience is one of the most important and useful tips for Facebook ad campaign success.

Running campaigns with specific and narrow targeting gives you a recognizable advantage: you know exactly whom you are targeting. This clarity should lead you to create special offers and ads that your audience will be interested in.

Moreover, by reducing your target audience you can significantly decrease the competition from other brands that target the same people. In this bidding war, you have to only bid on people you really want to reach.

3. Focus on Increasing CTR

In order to lower your CPC, start focusing on click-through-rate (CTR). Increasing CTR increases the Relevance Score because Facebook recognizes that your audience is responding to your offer. It’s a match!

Use these tips to increase your Facebook Ads CTR:

• Use a fascinating headline in your ads. The text of Facebook Ads is one of the first things that a potential customer notices, so try to be very direct and compelling with your ad copy.
• Make your image stand out in the News Feed. Choose high-quality images of your product or associated with your business. Use bright and contrasting colors. Include people showing positive emotions while using your product.
• Use the right call-to-action buttons. As the research shows, using a CTA button improves CTR on Facebook by over 80%, so try to select the call-to-action which correlates with what you want your viewers to do.

4. Look for Audience Overlap

A huge problem with running Facebook Ads campaigns is overlapping audience issues when you promote different ad sets to the same audience. The larger the overlap, the worse your campaigns will perform, and the higher CPC you will get competing with yourself. More alarming, the higher CPC you will get competing with yourself.

Don’t waste your money fighting for the attention of the same audience: use Facebook Audience Overlap tool to check if audiences are overlapping significantly — and, if they are, mutually exclude those audiences to avoid bidding against yourself.

Check for audience overlap with these steps:

1. Open the Ads Manager.
2. Click the Tools drop-down menu and chose "Audiences".
3. After that, click the "Actions" tab and choose "Show Audience Overlap".

You can select multiple audiences to compare and see the percentage of overlapping users between these audiences.

5. Don’t Neglect Conversion Tracking & Utilize Retargeting

Did you know that having Facebook conversion tracking set up accurately will help you lower the CPC of your ad campaigns?

Conversion tracking isn’t just about measuring your return on investment, in reality it helps you increase the revenue you generate from your Facebook Ads — the primary goal of any advertiser.

And Facebook makes conversion tracking incredibly simple with Facebook Pixel. Once installed, the Facebook Pixel acts the same way that Google Analytics code does — it goes to all of your pages and helps you track anything you want in addition to being able to create any audience you want.

These two remarketing audiences have proven the most effective:

• Customer File Audience: You can upload a list of your customer emails that Facebook will match to accounts for you to remarket to.
• Website Traffic Audience: You can create a remarketing audience based on previous websites visits.

Just an interesting fact for you to know — Facebook Remarketing Ads generate 3 times more engagement than regular Facebook Ads. If you have Ecwid’s Facebook Store, the new Pixel integration allows you to set up the Facebook pixel without coding and target right prospects and advertise to previous site visitors.

Conclusion

Start implementing these useful tips today to see how much your Facebook Ads costs change tomorrow.

There are a lot of factors that can affect Facebook Ads costs, including your audience targeting, bidding strategies, conversion tracking, and Relevance Score. Knowing how to improve them arms you with essential tools that will help to preserve your advertising budget.

Are you planning to hold a concert, lecture or charity dinner anytime soon?

If so, you have a lot on your plate right now. The most important thing to make your event a success is to bring in attendees. Selling tickets online accelerates the process, but how do you make those tickets available in time?

Ecwid E-commerce has you covered: read this quick guide to starting selling tickets on your website in minutes.

1. Design Your Branded Ticket

If you aren’t a professional designer and don’t want to pay a design agency’s big fees, turn to the many online services with ready-made templates. Look at the ticket we made with Canva.com in 1 minute:

Also check out Mycreativeshop.com, pickmonkey.com and Spark.adobe (or share your favorite graphic design tool with us in comments below.)

2. Create an Ecwid Store to Sell Tickets Online

With your tickets designed, now you need a shop to sell them through. Ecwid e-commerce provides the best service to sell tickets online. With Ecwid, you can quickly add a single product or a storefront right to your website and sell tickets online (along with other digital and physical goods).

Unlike other services, Ecwid doesn’t charge any commission fees from your sales. Whether your event is  a small city tour or a stadium-sized concert, you can sell as many tickets as you need at no extra cost.

Ecwid E-commerce shopping cart is integrated with payment providers such as PayPal, Square, Stripe, etc. that make purchasing fast and easy for your customers.

Sign up for free and add a store to your website to start to sell tickets online right away.

3. Create Your Product

To add your ticket, follow these steps:

1. Go to your Ecwid Control Panel → Catalog → Products.
2. Click Add a new product.
3. Open the Files tab and upload the ticket you designed.
4. Don’t forget to uncheck the Requires a Shipping Method option.
5. Write a short description and Save the new product.

Digital products don’t require shipping, so disable it in product settings

If you have different types of tickets for one event, use Product Options with Price Modifiers. For example, you can add a "VIP" ticket, senior ticket or a cheaper option for students.

To create a new option go to  Catalog → Products → Edit product → Options. Add as many options as you want, changing price by ticket type.

To protect customers from copying tickets, ask them to keep invoices to show at the event. Each invoice has a unique code that you can use for identification. You will need to make this requirement very clear on the ticket pages so that there are no disappointments at the door.

Use barcode to identify the ticket

Learn more in the Ecwid Knowledge Base: Selling digital products

4. Set Payment Options

Ecwid provides merchants with a wide variety of payment integrations. Research has shown that the more payment options you offer the customer, the better your sales.

To set payment methods for your Ecwid store, go to Ecwid Control panel → Configuration → Payments.

If you are not sure which payment method is best for your store, please refer to the full guide to payment options at Ecwid.

5. Promote Your Event!

If no one is aware of your event, no one comes. Make sure you share information everywhere: Facebook, Instagram, partner’s media, etc. You can also offer discounts for bulk orders or give coupons for sharing the event with friends.

How to Verify Tickets During Your Event

To verify that the ticket is original, you need to find the one in the order list. Go to the Control panel → My Sales → Orders. Ecwid mobile store management app for iOS and Android makes verification easy on the go.

The mobile management app includes a Barcode Scanner that you can use to scan the invoice codes and find the order quickly and make sure it has been paid. (Yes, we HAVE thought of everything.)

Barcode scanner in the Ecwid app

Don’t miss a chance to sell more tickets on the spot! Use the Ecwid app to create an order and accept cash payments or use your own point of sales technology.

Even those who don’t already have an Ecwid store can sell their tickets for free. The Ecwid mobile app has a free 14-day trial on the free plan. Once you upgrade to our Venture plan, you can use it at no additional charge for as many events as you like.

   

Selling e-tickets doesn’t have to take a lot of time, money, or technical knowledge. If you completed the steps above, share the link to your Ecwid store here in comments to let other readers know about your event. Who knows? You might even sell it out!

In 2018, Instagram began supporting businesses like never before: now you can make your posts shoppable (soon — Stories too!), and experts believe Instagram is destined to become the largest mobile e-commerce platform. Isn’t it the perfect time to dust off your Instagram store and shake it up with some new products?

Here you’ll find 10 popular visual products, that will make your Instagram store irresistible for customers. Remember, that to enable Shopping on Instagram, your store should be approved for this feature first. We decided to save your time and chose only those products that comply with Facebook’s store and product policies.

1. Wireless Phone Charger

Smartphone accessories and futuristic items will never go out of style. Wireless phone chargers are not only phone related, they seem space-age appropriate. Soon, people will be buying wireless phone chargers to use inn a car, at home or at an office. Their stylish, Apple-style minimalist design, too, will attract attention.

Minimalistic design of @aircharge looks great on Instagram

2. Smart Home Appliances

Google searches for smart home appliances have quadrupled since 2013

A smart home is no longer a fantasy associated with "Back to the Future" movies. Now you can actually integrate voice-activated and remote-controlled features in your own home.

Not everyone is ready to buy a smart fridge, but smaller appliances like smart light bulbs or baby monitors are quite affordable and satisfy the desire for something innovative. Moreover, Instagram users love videos just as much as pictures. Videos are great to show smart home products’ potential. You don’t have to limit yourself to one format: check out how Sure Petcare shows the product in use, makes cute videos and shares content made by customers.

A smart lamp and speaker from @oupio.official

3. Deshedding Pet Gloves

People love their pets, but the fur covering every surface of a house? Not so much. Pet grooming gloves make removing pet hair before it falls much easier. More, they are simple to clean, pet-pleasing and don’t cost much — sounds like a good deal for a customer. Don’t forget to add pictures of cute cats and dogs to the your website and social feeds!

@GroomingGloves post pictures with pets in their account

4. Keto Foods

We get it: yet another diet. This one seems to be maintaining its popularity, however. It helps people not only lose weight, but control blood sugar and meet other health-related goals. Merchants have started selling keto supplements like fish oil or creatine, or unique foods like shirataki noodles.

If you dive into the Keto diet, remind people that they get to eat many foods they like and can get easily. For example, cheese, coconut oil, plain yogurt, nuts, dark chocolate and cocoa powder appear in many Keto meals. If you sell foods, check if they can be eaten on a keto diet and use this info in a promotion.

"Simplicity is the way", says @valentinacresti, and she’s right: familiar foods can be presented as trendy keto foods

5. Beard Oil

Google searches for beard oil have skyrocketed since 2013

Men’s cosmetics aren’t limited about soap and shampoo anymore. on’t look past the potentially lucrative men’s market, especially if you sell cosmetics or plan to. If you like this idea, don’t limit your product range to beard oil; instead, add options like beard combs, hairstyling products, skincare or dude wipes.

Beard oil may look just as fancy as perfume — nice product photo from @awakeningboutique

6. Oil Diffusers

Google searches for oil diffusers have leapt from non-existent to robust

With most of us running to work and other activities around the clock these days, it’s no wonder the sales stress-controlling products have been on the rise.

Springboard from the stress-relieving trend to use to promote oil diffusers, small machines that use ultrasonic waves and water to  dispel natural oils into the air. Scents from these oil diffusers are said to improve mood and health. Don’t forget about their related products — essential oils.

You can sell oil diffusers for homes or cars. Many are shaped in attractive and unique styles–a benefit for promoting on image-focused instagram. Also, turning an odor-limiting device into a work of art will encourage the oil diffuser’s proud display.

@victsing_homasy shares their client’s picture they were tagged in

7. Self-Care Products

Google searches for the term "self-care" have doubled in only the last year

While this phenomenon may be limited to the first world, "self-care" has certainly become a trend. The rise of organizations like San Diego’s Center for Mindful Self-Compassion and mindfulness in general have made people aware that being kind to themselves boosts well-being.

Merchants with an altruistic bent could enjoy contributing to a movement with such potential to enrich others. The range of products is limited only by your imagination: it can be beauty care to pamper yourself, mindfulness journals, meditation accessories, and even bathtub caddies.

There are different types of mindfulness journals (photo: @jasmineharley)

8. 90s Fashion

In just 5 years, worldwide consumers have increased their Google searches for "90s Fashion" ten-fold

Believe it or not, the 90s are now considered "retro." More Instagram accounts praising the 90’s-00’s aesthetic appear every day, and there are almost 11 million posts with the hashtag #90s. The content on these accounts ranges from movies and TV show quotes and celebrity pics to make up looks and clothes or accessories. Big brands aren’t giving up on 90s fashion, and you shouldn’t either. Why? Instagram is awesome for the flippable lookbooks fashionistas crave. So if you sell apparel or plan to do so, add some retro clothes or accessories to your store.

@asos posts UGC to promote clothes with 90s aesthetics on their account

9. White Sneakers

White sneakers come roaring back

While designers initially intended lycra only for the gym, wearers fell in love with the comfort workout clothes provided. Today, a "thleisure" clothes bridge the gym / grocery store gap. The quality athleisure brands both flatter figures while providing room to move. Why white sneakers? We asked Google that question only to find white sneakers have 8 times more posts on Instagram than black ones, let alone other colors. Apparently, culture today just finds them more attractive.

One of Top 9 publications for #whitesneakers (photo: @nicoleburron)

10. Lamzac

Google searches for "lamzac" have doubled in the past year

There’s a name for those double-columned loungers you’ve been seeing in the parks and at the beach: lamzac. Made of near-parachute material, users need only open one end, scoop the air and the twist the end for a reliable seal. Compact and light-weight ,lamzacs work well for travelers, campers, festival-goers, kids and literally everyone who likes to be comfortable everywhere. Tip: make pictures of a product in different locations, just like Fatboy does:

@fatboy_original successfully sells lamzacs while promoting an idea of "escaping the daily routine with a big smile"

***

When choosing new products to sell, focus closely on trends. Make www.google.com/trends your friend and be ready to move to a new product in your niche when sales begin to slow on your current ones.

It’s not just attention to product trends that make a merchant successful. Your marketing, too, should reflect the current mood.

Know that consumers are tiring of staged images, preferring more natural, candid and authentic ones instead. The mindfulness (over consumerism) trend will drive the popularity of products that promote mental and physical health. Consumer electronics — the adult toy of the digital era — will never go out of style. So, hop on board, choose a new product to excite your customers, and don’t forget to share your vision in comments!

Curious about how the latest Ecwid features can polish your brand and boost your sales? You’re in the right place.

This summer, we’ve launched many new features and updates to Ecwid E-commerce. Scroll down to take a tour through all the important Ecwid changes in one place.

What’s inside:

1. Sell in Your Instagram Feed With Shoppable Posts
2. Run Google Shopping Search Ads With No Effort
3. Make Changes to Your E-commerce Website Easily in the New Editor
4. Convert More Shoppers With a Streamlined Cart Page
5. Add a Floating Shopping Bag Icon: Available for All Stores
6. Process More Sales With Control Panel Updates
7. Create Coupons that Apply Only to New Customers
8. Manage Your Store on the Move With New Settings in the Ecwid Mobile App
9. Sell on Facebook in the EU With VAT Included
10. Get the Latest Version of Our Plugin for WordPress
11. Sell on Wix With a Faster and More Beautiful Store
12. Return Abandoned Customers With Zero Manual Work
13. Expand Your Store’s Features With New Apps in the Ecwid App Market
14. Developers, Here’s Ecwid API News You’ll Love

Sell in Your Instagram Feed With Shoppable Posts

Shopping on Instagram has arrived to Ecwid! Now you, too, can let your followers buy your products just with a single tap.

Tag your products in your posts (and Stories soon!) just like you tag friends. By clicking this shoppable tag, your followers will go to a product page and purchase it — all within the Instagram app.

Considering that 80% of Instagram’s 1 billion users follow a business on Instagram, selling on Instagram gets your business in front of a very big and engaged audience of potential customers.

Ecwid makes it much easier to get started. Get your Instagram store up in two steps:

1. Export your Ecwid products from your Facebook Product Catalog with a single click, and
2. connect your Instagram business page to your Facebook page.

That’s it!

Instagram will take some time to review and approve your page for selling, but this online store is one of the best ways to get your products to market fast.

For more details, please read our blog post where we outlined the whole process for you to get approved faster. Note that selling on Instagram is available to Ecwid merchants on paid plans who have exported their products to Facebook and are located in one of the supported countries.

Run Google Shopping Search Ads With No Effort

Now you can automatically advertise your products on top of Google search results page to people who are searching for your products — all from your Ecwid Control Panel.

We integrated Ecwid with Google so that the sometimes complex search advertising process is available to people without special marketing skills. Without this connection, setting up Google Shopping ads would take 15-20 major steps, as well as days of work. Setting up a Google Merchant Account, AdWords account, verifying your store, and more requires following along many steps and then testing to ensure they have been integrated correctly.

Ecwid simplifies the process by tenfold. All you need to do is:

1. pick product categories you want to advertise,
2. determine how much money you want to spend, and 
3. launch the campaign!

What’s more, you won’t have to worry about your budget. The AI-based algorithm will carefully bid for you, pausing less effective campaigns and investing into successful ones. It’s just like having your own marketing guy running ads for you. Just set it and forget it!

Automated Google Shopping Ads are available for Ecwid merchants on the Venture plan and higher (additionally, you’ll need to pay Google for ads through your ad budget). Launch your automated advertising in your Ecwid Control Panel → All Sales Channels → Google Shopping.

To explain every aspect of Google Shopping, we recorded a podcast with Ricardo Lasa from SiteWit, a company that helped us to build this awesome integration. Tune in!

Make Changes to Your E-commerce Website Easily in the New Editor

Need a website to sell on? With Ecwid E-commerce, you can create and edit a one-page e-commerce website to introduce your business on the internet. Our new website editor has live-preview which is convenient to use on any device, so you can make changes to your website on the go.

You can add or update these sections to your Ecwid website in the new editor:

• Title, logo, and hero image
• Contact details
• Business hours
• Your brand’s story
• Testimonials
• Links to social pages.

There’s no need anymore to go to the Control Panel to change store name or subdomain. You can make important changes from mobile too.

Simply go to Ecwid Control Panel → Sales Channels → Starter Site and build your one-page e-commerce website for free.

That’s not the only way to manage your business on-the-go with Ecwid, though! By downloading Ecwid mobile app, you can do more than edit your website. Your Ecwid mobile app puts your Control Panel in your pocket, allowing you to manage your storefront, set up payment options and shipping methods, add products, and process your orders.

We’re constantly updating the Ecwid E-commerce website with new functionalities. This summer, Ecwid websites also got additional protection from DDoS attacks and traffic spikes, as well as better SEO.

Ecwid can work on any website, whether it’s created with Wix, WordPress, Joomla, Squarespace, or developed from scratch. Or, you can sell without a website at all!

Convert More Shoppers With a Streamlined Cart Page

The new cart page in Ecwid is designed to speed up the checkout and increase your sales organically. It’s already enabled for all new Ecwid stores. If you can’t see the new cart page, please enable it in the "What’s New" section:

The new cart page features ensure:

• Better abandoned cart recovery: collect emails at the first checkout step, and use recovery email to remind customers of abandoned carts and capture more sales (at least 15% end up finishing the sale!)
• Modern design to match the rest of the new storefront and remain consistent with your brand.
• Mobile optimization that makes the checkout process comfortable on any device.
• Customization with CSS: if you need to hide, add, or change elements on the cart page, you can go far by creating a custom CSS theme.

We’re currently revamping the checkout steps, too. Be among the first to get the new, optimized checkout flow in your store — take part in the beta testing!

You’ll also notice a new design of legal pages (e.g. "Terms & Conditions" page). They are more beautiful and give the new Ecwid storefront a nice finished look.

Add a Floating Shopping Bag Icon: Available for All Stores

We enabled the floating shopping bag icon for all Ecwid stores, including Ecwid Starter Site, the Ecwid’s app for Wix, and Ecwid e-commerce plugin for WordPress (make sure to update to the latest version).

Here’s how to get the floating shopping bag icon:

• For Ecwid Starter Site, it’s enabled by default.
• For WordPress, go to your WordPress Dashboard → Appearance → Customize. Then click "Ecwid" in the sidebar menu → Shopping Cart Widget → Select where you want to display the icon. Read the full guide →
• For Wix, go to Wix Website Editor → the Pages menu → Select the page where your Ecwid online store is installed → Click on the store area → Settings → Add-ons → Add to Page → Add a Floating Shopping Cart Icon. Read the full guide → 
• For other websites, please copy-paste a piece of code from the instruction to your website admin on the page you want the icon.

The floating icon stays visible regardless of scrolling and provides your customers with easy access to the cart.

Choose the icon design that you like the most — there are 40+ customization options. See all the available customization options and learn how to apply them in our Help Center.

Complete More Tasks in Less Time With New Control Panel Tools

If your Ecwid store is currently open, we’re pretty sure that you log in to the Control Panel almost every day. The following updates will simplify your store management routine and help you close more sales.

• Sort products by date of creation or modification in your Control Panel → Catalog → Products to see the oldest or the latest first:

  

• Spend less time if you need to create an order manually. New orders get autofilled with customer address in Order Editor if there are previous orders from him/her.
• Add a new shipping method is three simple steps. We redesigned the Shipping page in your Control Panel: Ecwid still has all the powerful options for shipping and in-store pickup, but now it’s much easier to set them up (even from mobile). Just select your provider from the list, select how to calculate rates for this provider (automatic, flat, custom rates, or free shipping) and set up your rates if necessary.
• Set up payment options from any device: the Payment page is now comfortable to use on any screen size.

We also made The "Orders" and the "Catalog" pages in your Control Panel load faster — even if you have 100+ orders or tens of categories.

Create Coupons that Apply Only to New Customers

The holiday season sales are coming. That means you’ll need powerful Ecwid discount coupons soon. A new application type for discount coupons — new customers only — allows you to send out coupons that only work for new customers. With this tactic, you’ll reach out to those who have hesitated to buy from you thus far.

Set up your discount coupons in Control Panel → Discounts → Discount Coupons (available on paid Ecwid plans).

The flexible coupon system in Ecwid allows you to set up special offers of all kinds: offer free shipping, discounts, or both, activate loyal or new customers, limit your coupons in time and number of uses.

Learn more about discount coupons in Ecwid → 

Manage Your Store on the Move With New Settings in the Ecwid Mobile App

Our apps for iOS and Android move the most important Control Panel features to your the smartphone in your pocket. More handly functionalities have debuted in the apps in summer, so that very soon, it’ll be possible to run an e-commerce business completely without a computer.

New on iOS (iPhone) and Android

The following features used to be available only on the desktop (in your Control Panel), and now it’s possible to do the same in our store management app, using nothing but your phone or tablet:

• Get full control over your payments and shipping methods:

  

• Edit your free e-commerce website’s content such as store info, logo, business hours and more.
• Design your storefront appearance with ready-made options or build a unique theme.
• Open or close your store for customers whenever you need it.

New on Android:

• Upload multiple product photos at once.
• Set up custom report periods on the dashboard to track your daily, weekly, monthly, or lifetime sales.
• Duplicate a product easily if you need to add a similar item to your catalog and don’t want to create it from scratch.
• Use a more advanced barcode scanner.

   

Sell on Facebook in the EU With VAT Included

Many countries use value-added taxation (VAT), for example the European Union and Australia. Within this system, the tax rate is often included in the product price.

We’ve improved the Ecwid integration with Facebook, so that merchants from countries with VAT post prices in their Facebook storefronts with the taxes in place.

There’s more you can do with your Ecwid store to fully comply with EU regulations.

Get the Latest Version of Our Plugin for WordPress

75 million websites are built on WordPress, and the Ecwid E-commerce plugin for WordPress helps to monetize those websites. The updates to our plugin arrive constantly. Some of the most noticeable summer improvements are:

• A floating cart icon that remains visible while your customer browses your store. It also looks better and provides a lot of layout customization options. You can enable it in the Customizer menu under "Ecwid" section in your WordPress admin backend (Appearance → Customize → Ecwid).
• Selector of your store’s main page. If you have your storefront on several pages on your site, you can choose the main storefront page to display menus and sidebar widgets. Get this done in Ecwid → Advanced. If you have a single online store page, you will not see this new option.

Learn more news and get the latest version of our official plugin for WordPress on WordPress.org.

Sell on Wix With a Faster and More Beautiful Store

Recently, we dramatically upgraded the design settings and performance of our store app for Wix websites:

• Now the stores load speed is much faster. You can see new stores working faster already, and soon, we’ll improve the performance of the existent stores. Contact our support team if you can’t wait to try faster Ecwid E-commerce.
• Apply the new flexible storefront settings without going to your Control Panel! Play with dozens of new design options to find the best fit for your brand. Change the layout of your product grid and product pages, size and ratio of product pictures, hide or show additional product info (for example, SKUs), add frames and more. With a real-time preview right in the Wix editor, you tweak your store appearance and see changes on the fly. This already works for all new stores, and we’re rolling the feature to all Ecwid stores on Wix very soon.

Install Ecwid in your Wix admin → Apps.

Return Abandoned Customers With Zero Manual Work

What if you were told that you can get about 15% of your lost sales back with no action required on your part? It’s totally possible with abandoned cart reminders sent via email to customers who left products in the cart. Now automated abandoned cart recovery emails are enabled by default (on Business and Unlimited plans): you have automated abandoned cart emails running as soon as you upgrade rather than manually enabling it in the Control Panel.

You can still disable the feature in Sales → Abandoned Carts, but this tactic has proven to be effective for many Ecwid stores, so we don’t recommend you do so.

Expand Your Store’s Features With New Apps in the Ecwid App Market

Ecwid apps are third-party services that can give your store more functionalities. Over 150 apps are available to try and use for Ecwid merchants on paid plans, and we regularly add more integrations. Engage with customers and boost sales with tools from feedback survey delivery to currency conversion to countdown timer integration. We recently added the following nine customer-pleasing apps:

Payments

• Accept payments from anywhere in the world: Rave is a payment gateway for merchants in South Africa. It provides transactions via cards, bank accounts, USSDs and QR-Code.
• Reward mobile customers: Zapper is a mobile payment system that engages your customers with with special offers, vouchers and loyalty programs. It is available for merchants in European Union, USA, Great Britain and South Africa.

A library of marketing tools

• Create look books and product slides: Image Slider creates high-end photo and video slideshows with call-to-action buttons to increase traffic to your popular products.
• Collect information and grow your email list: Form Builder enables you to create custom forms and choose from over 20 different form field options.
• Add tabs to your product pages: Tabs for Descriptions serves just one purpose, but does it well — adding tabs to your product descriptions will give you more room for useful product info.
• Create a media library to showcase your products: Image Gallery supports pictures, files, text, colors, videos, links, fonts and can help you demonstrate your new collection in a rich, visual gallery.
• Add a countdown timer to product and category pages: Countdown Timer creates urgency and boosts sales by alerting the user that current deal is nearly over.

Storefront

• Quickly display product details in a popup: QuickView saves your customers’ time as they don’t have to go to the product details page to buy it. Your customers will appreciate this functionality if you have a large product catalog.
• Survey your customers directly on your online store: GoFeedback will help you discover what you can improve in your store. If you’re not getting the number of sales you want and want to find out why customers are not buying from you, this is a way to go.

Developers, Here’s Ecwid API News You’ll Love

These picks are for those of you who want to build an app for Ecwid merchants or have clients with Ecwid stores:

• Get and update storefront design settings using REST API.
• Get enabled taxes and default tax rate included in the product price. This update is very helpful for stores in countries with VAT.
• Set custom discounts when calculating order details. Apply percentage or absolute discounts for the whole order depending on the order subtotal.

See the full changelog → 

Here at Ecwid, we constantly pursue the best technology to make lives of online entrepreneurs like you happier and wealthier. Which of the summer updates matter the most to you? What other features are you looking for? Let’s chat in the comments!

Eighty percent of Instagram’s 1 billion audience follows at least one business page on the platform. More, 20% or 200 million Instagram users visit a business profile every day.

Instagram continues to help businesses maximize profits by incorporating new features like product tagging in their "shoppable posts."

If you haven’t heard already, Instagram has made it possible for shoppers to buy right within the Instagram app, without ever having to click to a business website. Instagram’s "shoppable posts" now let shoppers buy a product fast and hassle-free. Capture those impulse buyers with compelling Instagram posts!

To take advantage of this seamless, no-middleman shopping opportunity, read these comments from 11 social marketing experts.

— Will Instagram become the largest mobile e-commerce platform?
 — Man, that is difficult to dispute! Instagram is so powerful, with over 1 billion active monthly users. Instagram has brilliantly created ways to serve their user base without requiring them to leave the app. Other social media platforms lag behind in capabilities and user base. For an e-commerce site, it’s all about the numbers, driving website traffic and optimizing conversions. Instagram creates a unique opportunity for e-retailers to meet their ideal customer where they are already spending time on the mobile web.

— What’s your #1 Instagram marketing tip?
 — Storytelling is such a big part of effective Instagram marketing, and it’s really important that you have a clear story that you are trying to tell through your Instagram imagery and captions. Instead of simply showing merchandise, how can you sell a lifestyle with your brand? How do your products enhance someone’s life or well-being? These are the stories brands need to be telling, instead of simply just sharing the features and benefits of the products they are trying to sell.

— Will Instagram become the largest mobile e-commerce platform?
 — I absolutely believe that Instagram is the biggest and most exciting frontier for e-commerce businesses in 2018 and beyond. With features like product tagging [also called "shoppable posts"], Instagram will help to power the online retailers (both big and small) by rapidly growing into the most powerful mobile e-commerce platform.

— What’s your #1 Instagram marketing tip?
 — My biggest tip for selling on Instagram is to make your ad content feel native to the Instagram platform. Your ads should be highly visual and non-spammy. Advertisers that can make their content feel as if someone were following a friend in their feed will be incredibly successful.

— Will Instagram become the largest mobile e-commerce platform?
 — With features like product tagging, Instagram is making it easier for consumers to make fast decisions online and follow through with convenient shopping on items they’ve seen. I believe this will be a game changer for online shopping and will encourage a lot more impulse buying. With a great content strategy and good products to sell, the potential is there.

— What’s your #1 Instagram marketing tip?
 — My number #1 Instagram marketing tip would be to grow a community of like-minded people and to not push sales too hard. Concentrate on good content and the rest will take care of itself.

— Will Instagram become the largest mobile e-commerce platform?
 — Instagram is a top player for mobile e-commerce, especially as they introduce new features such as product tagging. It’s a perfect way to visually show your product and instantly get them into the sales funnel without leaving the platform. In addition, you can also retarget these interested users (users who engage with your posts) via Instagram or Facebook ads in the Facebook Ads Platform, which can seriously boost your ROI.

— What’s your #1 Instagram marketing tip?
 — Focus on generating content which shows the lifestyle or result users can expect after purchasing your product. To do this, you can use influencers or models. For example, anyone can buy a watch, so don’t post a picture of it on a white background: it tells you nothing other than "hey it’s a good looking watch". Instead sell them the concept that if you buy this watch, your life gets much better too. I like to use the analogy of "buy this car and get the beautiful girl." Do the same with your posts. So for a watch, it should be an influencer (or model) skydiving out a plane over Hawaii wearing the watch.

— Will Instagram become the largest mobile e-commerce platform?
 — Instagram is well on the way to having a massive edge in the world of e-commerce. It’s growing at a rapid rate and is full of users spending hours scrolling through images and watching stories and videos for entertainment. When you consider that 80% of followers on Instagram follow businesses and 1/3 of the most viewed stories are stories created by businesses… the opportunity for e-commerce is huge. We’re already following our favourite shopping brands, and now we can buy from them in a couple of clicks. When you add influencer marketing to this, the potential is huge for brands.

It may not be Amazon just yet, but Instagram will most likely forge a new kind of shopping experience; one where we can be entertained while we shop! What remains to be seen is if – like Amazon — we will end up buying direct from Instagram, with Instagram taking a cut of it all!

— What’s your #1 Instagram marketing tip?
 — Focus less on selling and more on providing value to build trust first — then selling flows more easily. And don’t hurry to send people outside of Instagram external links. There’s real value in using direct messages to engage and connect with your customers before making the sale.

— Will Instagram become the largest mobile e-commerce platform?
 — In many sectors, Instagram is THE most engaging social media platform with much higher engagement rates than Facebook or Twitter. New tools like product tagging give two-way integration of social commerce with your website to give a more seamless transition from Insta to your e-commerce site.

— What’s your #1 Instagram marketing tip?
 — Social proof and engagement are incredibly important in persuading first-time buyers yours is a brand they can trust. So make sure genuine Instagram testimonials and comments and integrate your Insta page with your website.

— Will Instagram become the largest mobile e-commerce platform?
The business case for Instagram e-commerce is strong. With features like shoppable posts and the rapid adoption of the Instagram features — Instagram Stories 400M daily active users — Instagram is becoming a significant player in the e-commerce segment.

Advertising on Instagram is exploding, and now it’s even easier to sell on Instagram. Early this year, Instagram launched their shoppable posts feature, which offers an entirely new way for your followers to shop your products directly from your Instagram posts or Stories.

High-volume merchants or local merchants use this platform to generate engagement, then sales. On Instagram, one must prioritize engagement first, and then sales.

— What’s your #1 Instagram marketing tip?
Define your buyer persona before jumping into selling on Instagram. Bernadette Jiwa has a great template — the empathy map — on how to describe your buyer persona which it perfectly fits with Instagram too.

Envision your Instagram audience by answering this question: "What does your customer say, think, do and feel on Instagram?" Identify their feelings, thoughts, and attitudes, then develop a content strategy for your profile.

— Will Instagram become the largest mobile e-commerce platform?
 — Instagram will definitely be king or queen of the impulse buy. It’s hard to resist when you see those beautiful images, and too easy to buy when you can just click a link. However, it’s not the place we go to find a product we want to buy, I think search and the big sites like Amazon and eBay will still thrive when we are intentionally buying.

— What’s your #1 Instagram marketing tip?
 — For selling on Instagram, it’s all about the visual. Knowing that purchases made on Instagram will usually be impulse buys, your image or video needs to capture attention, be aesthetically pleasing, be square so it doesn’t jar with the format and be beautiful.

— Will Instagram become the largest mobile e-commerce platform?
 — Instagram is a visual platform designed to edit and share impressive photos and videos. Many brands, especially fashion and clothing brands, have already started to use Instagram to showcase their products. Consumers also enjoy checking out the trending products featured here. Some also choose to actually visit the brand’s site and shop for them. With so many people already using Instagram to look at product images, a product tagging feature makes complete sense. Such a feature can bridge the gap between brands and buyers.

It can make it easier for people to buy products that appeal to them. With personalized product recommendations displayed in various creative formats, Instagram can create a seamless shopping experience for users.

And yes, I think we can expect it to become the largest mobile e-commerce platform. I totally believe in the marketing potential of influential Instagrammers. The best way to sell faster and more on Instagram is through effective influencer collaborations.

— What’s your #1 Instagram marketing tip?
You should find the right influencers in your niche and ask them to promote your products or services. These influencers have a huge following that trusts their recommendations. They can showcase your amazing products through creative posts and get their followers to trust your brand. If their audience likes your products, they’re more likely to buy from you and turn into your loyal customers.

— Will Instagram become the largest mobile e-commerce platform?
 — I think Messenger is also a strong competitor for driving e-commerce sales via mobile, but due to Instagram’s highly visual nature, I’d say my bet would be with Instagram in the long run. In my experience, Instagram and e-commerce are the perfect pair. Instagram has been the go-to platform for visual storytelling and selling for years — and I don’t see that stopping anytime soon. Plus, Instagram users are more primed for buying than any other platforms.

— What’s your #1 Instagram marketing tip?
 — I tell e-commerce brands to not sell TOO much on Instagram. I know, it sounds counterintuitive. But what I mean is this: Instagram users want to be inspired, entertained or educated. They don’t browse the platform to be sold to. But that doesn’t mean you can’t! I recommend using the 80/20 rule: 80% of the time (or 4 out of every 5 posts) share value with your followers — inspire, entertain or educate them. Then 20% of the time, or 1 out of every 5 posts, share something promotional — a product, sale or promotion.

— Will Instagram become the largest mobile e-commerce platform?
 — As Instagram continues to grow as the world’s fastest growing social network, it also continues it’s dominance as the worlds #1 medium for fashion trends and product discovery.

Even Adidas released a sneaker called the Deerupt, in which it’s design was created to look good on Instagram. The shoe was an instant hit when released in 2018. This signals a major emerging trend for fashion & product designers to utilize crowd-sourced design cues to style their products for global acceptance on Instagram.

Instagram is no doubt becoming the largest mobile e-commerce platform in the world for fashion, gadgets and must have products from just about every consumer vertical. With society’s tendency to now order everything online via our mobile device, Instagram has made it extremely easy for its user base to quickly and easily purchase products thanks to their product tagging feature.

This game changing product tagging feature has helped early adopter retailers, small to large businesses, entrepreneurs and anyone selling something to utilize their platform and effortlessly sell their products to the masses around the world!

— What’s your #1 Instagram marketing tip?
To successfully market and sell your product on Instagram, you must have high quality, high resolution product photos & videos to ensure products are properly represented and that they stand out to your targeted demographic who might discover your product.

Lighting & atmosphere of your product photos & videos is the single most important factor required to create rich, colorful and appealing product representation to grab the attention of those interested in your product.

Videos highlighting the use or operation of your products (from gadgets to clothes) are extremely important as today’s consumers tend to always prefer videos of how a product looks or behaves. A picture might tell a thousands words, but a raw authentic product video will help accelerate sales on Instagram faster than a static professionally curated photo.

We hope these tips will help you extend your business and boost sales, whether you already sell on Instagram, or are just planning to. Stay tuned for more tips!

What works best for your store on Instagram? Don’t hesitate to share your experience in comments — your insights can turn into money for your fellow small business owners!

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DIY-ers have a huge opportunity to sell online. By creating something unique, they’re able to attract customers who are looking for that one-of-a-kind, handmade product. You’re not going to find too many uncommon craft items on Amazon. Tin foil, socks and electronics, sure.

But figuring out how you can put artistic skills to work can be a little bit tricky. What do you make? How can you offer something new and special? Something 500 others aren’t already promoting online.

Crafty types, take heart.

We’ve gathered 20 simple, low-cost DIY crafts that you can make and sell with minimal startup expenses. Even better: there’s no official training needed and certainly nothing requiring a professional sculptor’s skills.

Related: 10 Trending Product Ideas and Niches

Bath Bombs

Bath bombs have been rising since early 2015, and today, the market for these fizzing bathtub potions are more popular than ever before. Even more interesting: the materials that go into them are very inexpensive.

The few basic ingredients for these DIY crafts (baking soda, epsom salts, food coloring, to name a few) can be purchased in large quantities inexpensively — meaning high margins for you!

Video tutorial: How to make DIY bath bombs

Candles

Candles are DIY crafts that can be sold year-round. Since most people won’t splurge on quality candles for themselves, they make great gifts. With birthdays, anniversaries, and many holidays year round, you’ve always got a reason to keep customers coming back for more. By purchasing bulk wax and scented oils, you can create many different scent combinations in a variety of different sizes and shapes. And the really good news: You can launch a candle-making operation for under $100.

www.goinghometoroost.com

Step-by-step tutorial: Make your own soy candles

Pet Toys

The ASPCA estimates there are about 70-80 million dogs alone within the United States, and the APPA indicates that more than $60 billion is spent on the pet industry each year. Needless to say, people love their pets–and they’re happy to shell out some money to make them happy. You can tap into this massive market by creating handmade, eco-friendly toys for pets that are made from low-cost recycled materials. There are a lot of YouTube video tutorials for such DIY crafts.

www.lvlyblog.com

Step-by-step tutorial: DIY rope chew toy for dogs

Handmade Soap

More and more consumers want to incorporate safe, organic cleaning products into their daily lives. Capitalize on this movement by creating and marketing your own, made-from-scratch products, like hand soap. With minimal startup investment, you can purchase soap-making materials and start creating unique DIY crafts to sell within this market.

Like candles, every host or hostess, sister or uncle appreciates items that make them feel spoiled. With the amazing varieties of scents and dyes available, it’s easy to develop products for specific markets. In the United States, one woman makes a living using the spent grain from breweries to make soaps the brewery then brands and sells as keepsakes.

www.hgtv.com

Tutorial: DIY gemstone soap

Printed Throw Pillows

Did you know the home decor market brings in about $62.5 billion each year? It’s true. That’s why entering this segment of the marketplace makes a lot of sense — especially if you have a completely unique offering, like custom printed throw pillows. Personalized throw pillows allow shoppers and gift buyers to express their pride and identity. And you don’t need a screen printing shop to get started — you can do this at home.

Video tutorial: Printed throw pillows how-to

Resin Jewelry

Resin jewelry is simple to make, and a starter kit is relatively inexpensive. With a bit of patience and an eye for design, you can create beautiful, one-of-a-kind pieces to sell online. Plus, using clear resin, you can even offer photo-based jewelry creations that allow your customers to a favorite image into a treasured piece of jewelry.

www.brit.co

Tutorial: How to make resin jewelry

Customized Dinner Napkins or Hand Towels

For the home decorator that loves details, customized napkins or hand towels are an important design piece. With minimal sewing skills and a few low-cost materials, you can DIY beautiful table accents and customized creations for the world’s devoted home decorators. In just a few hours, you can create a large inventory of products and start selling right away.

www.abeautifulmess.com

Tutorial: Creating custom made dinner napkins

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Keychains

The keychain never goes out of style. Having long out-lived its practical purpose, today, dangling initials make it an identity piece, animals broadcast an animal lover and scenes from tourist attractions reveal the user as a traveler. Using materials like leather, canvas, plastic, or cloth, you can create keychains for customers with all kinds of interests and habits. Sell to both men and women, keeping your market large. Bonus: keychains’ small size ensure your materials go a long way.

www.sheknows.com

Step-by-step how-to: Make a DIY leather keychain

Also read: 11 Digital Product Ideas That Fit Almost Every Storefront

Tote Bags

Did you know that the average person uses about 425 plastic grocery bags a year? As more and more states strive to cut down on plastic bag use, tote bags are becoming more important than ever before. From the grocery store to the coffee shop, these versatile catch-alls have a huge market–and they’re extremely inexpensive to make. By offering a unique design or message on your tote bags, you can attract customers and differentiate yourself from competitors.

Similar to other DIY crafts on this list, making a tote bag is not hard at all.

www.etsy.com

Tutorial: Make a polka dot canvas tote bag

Holiday Ornaments or Gift Tags

For many families, buying new holiday decor each year is a tradition. More, hand-crafted items reflect the care the gift giver takes and can be re-used year after year. Holiday ornaments are just the beginning. Many crafters build from this skill to create similar products like personalized gift tags, napkin holder embellishments, etc. that sell year-round.

The best part: If you’re using a medium like clay, you can make your products for next to nothing — and your profit margins will soar.

www.abeautifulmess.com

Tutorial: Make your own clay ornaments

Planters

Who doesn’t like plants? Put them in a pretty container, and you’ve just upgraded a space. Creating unique planters that speak to different tastes and styles can help shoppers achieve the look they’re going for at home and at work, Often you can build them with low cost raw materials and still make them look chic by incorporating the different designs from contemporary/modern to Victorian or Craftsman.

www.hometalk.com

Tutorial: Create your own concrete planters

Wall Art

Who says framed prints, posters or paintings have to dominate our walls? In 2012, production of arts and cultural goods added more than $698 billion to the US economy. That’s an industry to get into.

By sharing your quirky or lovely creations or by making personalized wall decor, you allow consumers to decorate their homes with pieces that are distinctly "them." See what you can create that’s unique, marketable, and missing from the current wall art marketplace.

www.hgtv.com

Tutorial: Custom string art wall decor

Magnets

Fun, cheerful magnets are an easy gift to give — and they’re extremely inexpensive to make. In fact, you can likely create these items for $0.01-0.03 per magnet. Grab some resin, magnets, and some images or drawings, and in a few hours you can make hundreds of magnets to sell online.

modpodgerocksblog.com

How-to: How To Find Trending Products To Sell Online

Also read: 10 Trending Product Ideas and Niches in 2017

Kid’s Toys

As of 2013, the average amount spent per child per year on toys within the US was about $371, according to Statista. That’s a decent chunk of change. By creating DIY crafts like toys for children of different ages, you can share your creations with little ones who will love your products for years to come. And you don’t have to be a manufacturer, either. With some cloth, paint, and stuffing, you can become the next master toymaker.

www.abeautifulmess.com

Tutorial: Create a DIY dollhouse pillow

Electronic Accessories

Look around, and you’ll notice that just about everyone has a smartphone or tablet within arm’s reach. Because we tote these expensive pieces of tech with us wherever we go, it makes sense that people are willing to invest in a decent carrying case or accessory to keep it safe. With a willingness to learn a bit of sewing, you can create cases for electronics that are both stylish and useful for a huge market of consumers.

In a climate where boring plastic boxes are everywhere, the "rougher," the better… or at least more unusual, natural and authentic.

www.skunkboyblog.com

Tutorial: Make your own leather iPad case

Ceramics

Ceramic may seem a sophisticated art form, but you can start with making a simple bowl. You will not necessarily need a wheel and expensive equipment for firing your products: consider beginning with just your hands and home oven instead. Again, many consumers interpret this rough look as authentic and interesting compared to the perfected bowls spun perfectly with centrifugal force.

By using acrylic paint, glitter, or even nail polish, you can turn your ceramic DIY crafts into a piece of art. It can be really effortless — watch the video to see how.

Rustic Wooden Designs

If the textures and grains of wood have always intrigued you, the rustic home decor niche could be for you. Since the goal is to keep natural objects in their original forms and hues as much as possible, beginners find making modifications and simple upgrades simple. Another advantage to this crafty path is that you can discover many of your raw materials at the junkyard or thrift store.

You’ll likely need a garage to get started though. That’s how one of Ecwid merchants took off her rustic home decor business. Read her story to learn a lot of helpful insights of the home decor industry.

Jess in her home-based studio, Woodstock Rustic

Dread Hair Extensions

Dreads come back in fashion every now and again. Why not adorn the nonconformists who wear them with lovely options? Get some wooden beads, wool, cotton, silk, pewter, fabrics, and you’re ready to go.

Blankets

If you can source a good cloth or yarn supplier, selling blankets can make you a lot of money. With the right plan, a blanket can look really high-end, even if it’s inexpensive to make.

While crocheting skills come in handy, there are many more ways to make a blanket than hooking — see an example in this video tutorial.

Lip Balm

Did you know that homemade lip balm only takes beeswax, coconut oil, vitamin E and a microwave? Most balms take you less than five minutes to create. Use this video to get started, but you can easily diverge from her recipes by changing up colors and containers.

DIY Crafts: Your Gateway to E-commerce

Whether you’ve been crafting for years or it’s something new you’d like to experiment with, these DIY project ideas offer some simple ideas that you can dive into right away. From toys to candles, the possibilities are endless: get inspired and start your e-commerce business with Ecwid. Today, consumers are moving away from mass-produced goods to those created with love by individual crafters.

Once you’ve made your crafts, be sure to check out these beginner business resources:

• What Your Business Plan Should Look Like: Sample
• Registering Your E-commerce Business: LLC or Corporation?

Instagram’s visual, mobile-only format prompts get millions of people to make impulsive purchases from their feeds every day. Selling on Instagram is easier than ever before — you just need to show up with awesome content regularly.

Amateurish users can spend over an hour crafting a single post. Most of us can’t afford such a luxury. A content plan will save you time and frustration so that you can get to Instagram’s top benefit: selling!

What’s inside:

• What Makes a Great Content Plan
• How to Design a Content Plan
• Making Content Plans for Different Purposes
• Content Plan: Examples
• Measuring the Results

What Makes a Great Content Plan?

Your content plan documents your advertising posts, as well as the entertaining and informative materials that you plan to distribute through your marketing channels.

It creates consumer trust by:

• Ensuring consistent messaging
• Creating a positive image of your business.

It reduces your confusion, stress, and marketing costs by:

• Building automated interactions with your existing audience and acquisition of new customers
• Saving your time
• Documenting marketing goals, working content to meet them and analyzing content performance.

Simply, a content plan prevents you from nail-biting when it’s time to publish a new post. With your plan in place, you always know what to post to get your likes and sales, and the right time to do it.

A great content plan is:

• Structured and informative
• Written in clear language
• Planned at least month ahead, preferably 90 days.

In this post, we’ll look into different content plans, using a new Instagram profile launch as an example.

Note that it can be challenging to promote a new Instagram profile organically and fast. Those who are most effective create viral content or sell hot, trending products. Both are hard to achieve. They depend on followers spreading the word about products without extra effort on their side. Typically, it takes an experienced ecommerce merchant to create and execute a program like this.

If you gauge that the genuinely "hot, new" appeal may not work for you, you can always order sponsored posts from Instagram bloggers to speed up your page promotion from the start.

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How to Design a Content Plan

A content plan consists of regular, planned content that is open to additional topics that arise while the standard content plan is being rolled out. Add timely posts or advertisements when these unexpected opportunities arise. Typically, these include holiday greetings, changes in the store open hours, ideas stemming from recent news topics and more.

You can make a content plan in excel, pdf, or even a simple notebook. There’s also a more professional way to do it: use mobile apps like Later, CoSchedule, Evernote, Any.do, etc. Among other key features, they notify you about upcoming publications. They even automate the process for you.

Later

Write your Instagram content plan in simple and clear language. Here’s an example of what you can do (using a fictional cosmetic brand):

• 13.05.2018, 8:00. Good morning. Corresponding pic to set the mood, unobtrusive advertising of your products.
• 13.05.2018, 13:00. Presentation of new arrivals.
• 13.05.2018, 16:00. Poll: how often do you refresh your cosmetic bag?
• 13.05.2018, 19:00. Presenting promotional offers for loyal customers.
• 13.05.2018, 22:00. History of cosmetics.

You can easily understand just by looking at these topics, exactly what you need to prepare.

When you start to create a content plan, pay attention to the activity peaks of your followers. There’s no sense in working away when everybody is asleep or too busy.

Related: How to Develop a Visual Theme for Your Instagram Business Profile

Making Content Plans for Different Purposes

If you are just starting out with your Instagram profile, your content plan will include two parts.

Part #1 will work during the first 1-2 weeks and include the following items:

• Company information: history, employees, contacts
• Proposed product descriptions, their advantages, materials, production technologies, features, cost
• How to buy your goods: selection, order, payment, delivery.

An example of a post with company info

As your brand evolves, you can make Plan #2 with the selected topics. We cover long-term content planning below.

How long should your content plan be?

It’s enough to make a content plan for a month and then add to it every week.

You can make a separate content plan for summer vacations, Christmas (or other) holidays, the beginning and end of an academic year, etc. Don’t forget to develop your content strategy beforehand. For example, if you own an online store of carnival costumes for kids, you should start working on your content plan in the end of summer.

Content types for online stores

The buyer journey in your store takes these steps:

1. Awareness
2. Consideration
3. Purchase
4. Feedback.

Ideally, you need to create content for each stage. For example, if you have an apparel store, take a bunch of product pictures and make a collection to showcase your product line. This step creates initial awareness of your products.

Create content that meets a prospect’s needs while he or she browses the internet looking for more information about your product and your competitors as well. Users’ guides, competitive comparisons and more serve this purpose. You can also develop content for your customer’s purchase and feedback stages. Feedback surveys can provide critical ways to improve the buyer’s journey.

Next, you need to distribute content to categories. Try to combine your promotional posts with informative, entertaining, and educational content.

The general rule of content attraction is to provide four useful or fun posts to one promotional or selling post. Consumers read 11 to 13 pieces of content before they directly contact a merchant. The free content you provide that helps them understand and use the product builds goodwill towards your brand.

Try to spread content out among the following categories:

• Promotional: new product arrivals, lucrative offers, promotions, discounts, a bonus program.
• Educational: tips, life hacks, masterclasses, advice for the use and care of your products.
• Informative: company news, achievements, plans.
• Entertaining: interesting facts, historical and pop culture references, jokes, events from the life of celebrities, surveys, quizzes.

An example of an entertaining Instagram post

Spice all that up with information about yourself as a business owner. Your photos and exciting stories will make your Instagram profile more "social" and approachable. However, don’t overdo it, because diving deep into your personal life can look obsessive and inappropriate.

Still hot to add your sports or family photos? Here are examples of how to blend personal photos in your business profile:

• If you are into sales of souvenirs, you can post some pictures of original craftsmen’s works from your vacation location.
• Do you sell kids’ clothes? Share your child’s photo, dressed up in the new wear from your catalog.
• Do you make custom furniture? Readers will be curious to see what kind of kitchen or furniture you have in your place.

This personal post is relevant to the profile’s main topic — design

Pictures and texts: use 80/20 rule

Instagram’s model of prioritizing visual content like photos and movies has rewarded it well. Text written under the image has just a secondary purpose: they’re limited to 2000 characters, these posts reveal only two lines.

Don’t spend a lot of time writing long posts. The channel does not prioritize text. While you can add 2000 characters, only two lines appear.

Related: 10 Free Ways to Get More Followers on Instagram

Content Plan: Examples

Content plans change according to your goals, the season and your stage in business. These ready-to-go examples of content plans should help you shape yours.

A content plan for a brand new business

Let’s make a content plan for a new online handcrafted soap store. At our starting point, the profile is already filled with store info, the catalog is clearly structured by categories. We just need to schedule content for the next few days.

Step 1. Decide on the frequency and time of posts.

You will need to maintain close contact with the potential buyer from the beginning. That’s why we will update our feed no less than three times a day.

The best time to start posting is the weekend because your followers are not busy with other things. But weekends won’t work for breaking or crucial news.The best time to post during the weekend is after 11 a.m. On weekdays, start to post usually at 7-9 a.m. Almost everyone checks his/her feed on the road to work/study.

Step 2. Create a table or spreadsheet. Enter Content Type, Topic and Time in columns.

Step 3. Enter the data in the table. The content plan will look something like this:

Step 4. Describe necessary photos. The image size should be 1080px by 1080px to look great on retina screens. Also pick filters, a color palette, and effects and stick to them. , it’s a brief description, the use of filters, inscriptions.

Step 5. Add popular hashtags. You can add up to 30 hashtags but research shows that 2 to 5 hashtags are ideal. You don’t want to come across as spam. Post the hashtags separately from any comments you have in your post.

A content plan for an existing profile

Let’s prepare a 2-3 week content plan for an online store that sells phone cases. To keep up the audience’s interest, you can get away with just one publication a day. It’s best to alternate content types:

• Informational
• Advertising
• Gadget news/life hacks.

Week #1:

• Advantages and disadvantages of different materials for case production
• 10% discount for genuine leather covers and cases in your store
• How to care for the case so that it serve as long as possible
• Video: phone case hacks for travelers
• A total fashion look featuring one of your phone cases
• Customer review.

Week #2:

• How to choose a phone case for a specific phone model in your store
• Personalized phone cases: how to place an order correctly
• The review of the new Samsung phone and available cases for it
• Video: crush test, drop a phone in one of your most reliable phone cases
• Eco-friendly phone cases: how to choose one
• How to paint your phone case: tutorial.

Week #3:

• Phone cases that look good with a wedding outfit
• Examples of covers that local and foreign celebrities have
• Special offer: buy a phone case and get a free microfiber cloth
• Tutorial: How to decorate a phone case for Christmas
• A customer review
• What locations you deliver to.

A content plan for the holiday season

Let’s make a content plan for the holiday season for an online store selling custom bakery and pastry products. Let’s assume we’ll post once per day.

Your customers will start browsing for your products organically as they need gifts. Just remind them of your brand. Combine advertising, informational, personal and professional components in each post:

• How to serve a table for Christmas. A custom-ordered cake is the best decoration for a New Year’s table.
• How to stay fit after the holidays. Dietary sweets in our online store.
• Making a holiday for kids. Gifts. Sweets. Cakes for children: light and fresh, with fruit and berries.
• How to DIY beautiful decorations for a cake. Learn in our video tutorial or simply order a cake from our online store.

A beautiful holiday-themed Instagram post

A content plan to make sales fast

Let’s analyze this content plan type by the example of an online furniture store. Particularly if this is a new store, the main goal is to increase sales fast.

By analyzing the activity of users on different days of the week, we find out that weekdays work better for informative and advertising content, and weekends are for entertaining. Let’s open Instagram Insights (for business profiles) and check at what time on different days your subscribers are most active.

Focusing on the information received and our task, we compose an approximate weekly content plan:

• Monday: Afternoon. Advertising post with seasonal discounts. A photo collage/a gallery of the most popular products.
• Tuesday: Evening. How to care about furniture made from leather, suede, and textiles properly. Products from the store are used to illustrate materials.
• Wednesday: Morning. Informational post. A new armchair for a living room. Product pictures.
• Thursday: Afternoon. Company’s news. Now you can make custom orders. Measurements are free of charge. Photo of furniture in a creative interior.
• Friday: Evening. Entertaining content. Interesting facts about the history of upholstered furniture. Relevant products from your store.
• Saturday: Invitation to order in an online store. Brief information about the assortment, shipping, prices.
• Sunday: Customer reviews and photos.

A straightforward, but cool post can work well

Related: How to Use Instagram for Business: New Tools and Proven Practices

Measuring the Results

Measurement is key if you want to save marketing dollars and increase reach to your ideal prospect. Your content performs on several levels of the sales funnel:

• Grows awareness
• Gets your followers engaged
• Generates leads
• Makes sales

So, your metrics should help you analyze content performance on all these stages. On Instagram, keep an eye on:

• Profile visits and tags of your profile in other accounts, the use of your branded hashtags
• Likes, comments, tagging friends on your posts
• Leads
• Purchases (with Shoppable posts, or via the link in bio).

Set clear goals for each metric and review the profile performance each week. Then, choose top performing posts and think of why they did well. Consider replicating them.

You can do the same to create a content plan for any other social media platform or website where you share content. If you have your own effective content planning methods, we’d love to hear about them. Add a comment below so we can see what you’re doing!

Now, you, too, can give your customers a new way to shop on Instagram and learn more about your products with a single tap.

In the spring of 2018, Instagram made social posts shoppable. Stores clamoring to sell on Instagram finally got their wish.

If you’ve been on Instagram at all lately, you’ve likely seen Vans enticing skaters with checkerboard-patterned shoes and Forever 21 making back-to-school shopping screen-tap easy. One small business owner, Justin Wong, the founder of So Aesthetic Shop, made $12,000 in a month selling Harajuku-style fashion items.

While at this point these brands seem far ahead of most small businesses, I guarantee their success started with just a few people in a room, biting their nails, staring at the computer screen… possibly as you are now.

New outreach opportunities can be nerve-wracking. Still, small businesses should consider reaching the relatively untapped Instagram user market early. This could be your best chance to become an early adopter. Capturing selling on Instagram could be sweet, particularly if you missed other digital gold rushes.

When it comes to Instagram shoppable posts, the only way to test the waters is to dive right in. The good news is, with Ecwid’s help, small business can do it with almost no budget.

Content:

1. Why We Love Instagram for Small Business
2. How Instagram Shoppable Posts Work
3. How to Sell on Instagram With Ecwid
4. Selling on Instagram Stories

Why We Love Instagram for Small Business

We’ve been researching the prospect of selling on Instagram since they first began whispering about it last fall. We’re glad we did as Instagram has grown a whopping 25% just since September 2017.

More enticing facts:

• Instagram now has 1 billion users, 200 million of whom go to a business profile every day.
• 80% of Instagram users follow a business on Instagram.
• 55% of users have purchased products discovered on Social Media.
• Instagram profiles that win the highest rates of engagement have just 1,000 followers, not 2.8 million like Lego or Vans’ 12.3 million. That means that Instagram users appreciate small businesses and take the time to like and comment, more than they would for the corporate giants.

While at first only large brands had the opportunity to sell on Instagram, Ecwid has been working to bring this awesome opportunity to small businesses through Instagram E-commerce.

Below you’ll find out what shoppable posts are, how you can benefit and how to set up the Sell on Instagram sales channel in your Ecwid account. Don’t want to wait any more? Head over to Ecwid Control Panel and follow the steps.

How Instagram Shoppable Posts Work

Instagram Shoppable posts allow followers and customers to easily find out more about the product. Shoppers can complete their buying journey, from discovery to checkout, without ever leaving the Instagram app. Your shoppable posts come right up in their Instagram feed.

Instagram users are used to tagging friends. Selling on Instagram by tagging products is not much different, except rather than people, products get the tags. If you’ve been on Instagram recently and tapped a post, you may have noticed that a little shopping bag comes up in the lower left corner as does a price tag over the object.

From here users clicking on the tag will be served to a page that contains a product description, similar items featured on the same post and other shoppable posts from the brand.

Then, if the consumer taps the "Shop Now", they’ll go directly to the product page in your Ecwid store. Despite all of these steps, to complete a purchase, the shopper never has to leave the Instagram channel they love. Ecwid’s Sell on Instagram feature lives on Instagram.

After publishing 9 shopping posts, businesses also get a persistent Shop tab on their Instagram business profile. It allows customers to tap to view all products on a post. Businesses ready to push their shoppable posts to wider audiences can buy Instagram ads.

How to Sell on Instagram With Ecwid

You probably already know that Facebook bought Instagram in 2012. Using its current commerce structure for Instagram, Facebook keeps costs low for itself and centralizes users’ store information.

Given this framework, right now, the only way to activate the Instagram shoppable post feature is to have a product catalog on your Facebook business page. In other words, your Facebook shop will be the source of your products seen on Instagram. (Remember, what your prospects eventually see really all gets put together in the cloud.)

Your Facebook catalog products must comply with Facebook’s Commerce Policy. The policy limits items to physical products rather than services or digital products. Also, sellers cannot stock certain goods: animals, weapons, tobacco items and more.

If you have an Ecwid store with a paid plan (Venture or higher), you can use the Facebook integration to set up a shop on Facebook easily.

With your store stocked, keep in mind that to sell on Instagram, there are a few eligibility requirements you’ll need to check off before you can get started:

• You must be located in one of these countries.
• You must be on the latest version of the Instagram app on either iOS or Android.
• Get an Instagram Business account, which can be easily set up. It’s free.

To get started with shopping on Instagram, you will need to:

1. Make sure your product catalog is synced with Facebook Shop. For Ecwid stores, simply use the Sell on Facebook integration to bulk sync your catalog with Facebook Shop. Again, the reason is that Instagram pulls your Facebook product feed through.
2. Connect your Instagram account and Facebook Product Catalog. You can easily add the Instagram sales channel to your Ecwid store, which connects the product that you have in Ecwid to your Instagram business profile. To do this, head to your Ecwid Control Panel → All sales channels → Sell on Instagram, then click "Connect Instagram".
   
   

   

   You’ll need to log into your Facebook account page to authenticate your Instagram account.

   

   Once completed, Instagram must review your account before you can access the shoppable Instagram posts feature (this can take anywhere from a few hours to a few weeks according to Instagram. We have to be patient; it’s a brand new system for Instagram). Once you’re approved, you’ll see a notification in your Instagram business profile.

3. Tag your first product. When you have the product feature enabled on your account, you’ll find the option to tag products on the screen where you normally add your caption and other information. Selling on Instagram depends on these tags.

Selling on Instagram Stories

Instagram will continue to hone the feature after the launch. They’ve already expanded shopping in Instagram Stories with product stickers and product tagging in the Explore section. No additional settings are required — if you take the steps above and get approved, you’ll be able to sell in your posts, stories, and the Explore section. (Learn how to add product stickers to your stories.)

How cool is that? Ecwid is sure to make it easy for your to integrate your online store with this sales channel.

Beginning can be the roughest part of any new project, but, as you start exploring the opportunities involved with reaching Instagram’s 1 billion users, remember Benjamin Franklin’s words: "Once begun, half done."

Begin today bringing your products to the dedicated Instagram users craving a convenient in-app shopping experience!

Being environmentally conscious is no longer exclusively an ecologists’ thing. Research shows that 74% of the US population are concerned about the environment.

Though fewer people say they try to "go green" all the time, many of us make an effort to minimize our ecological footprint at least somewhat. More people are interested in making more eco-friendly decisions, which often means buying reusable things, items made of recycled materials, or products containing natural ingredients.

Though you won’t surprise anyone with tote bags and reusable coffee cups anymore, that in no way means you shouldn’t sell them. However, we suggest checking out some trending eco-friendly products that can replace things we use on a daily basis — things everyone needs and wants to buy.

If you’ve spotted more eco-friendly product ideas, don’t hesitate to contribute them in the comments section.

Product Idea #1: Steel Straws

Plastic straws aren’t recyclable, and they are harmful for the marine life. Stainless steel straws are a great alternative to them. On top of that, they have other nice perks. Cool metal makes cold drinks even more refreshing and gives you a fancy look even if you’re drinking juice while working at your desk. Customers may be interested in a whole set of them, and don’t forget to provide a small cleaning brush.

Steel straws also come in different width and length (Image: amazon.com)

Product Idea #2: Rechargeable Batteries

Batteries contain different chemicals and some of them are toxic and pollute soil and water. Rechargeable ones save space and money and help to minimize that harmful effect. If you sell electronics or any other things that work on batteries (like toys), you should definitely try to add this trending product to your store.

Product Idea #3: Safety Razors

2 billion razors are thrown away each year. To minimize that number, some suggest turning to more traditional variants like steel safety razors. That way, only the blade itself is swapped out, as opposed to cartridges and disposable plastic razors. Moreover, this hot product might catch the attention of retro-loving people — let’s face it, those chic old-school razors have something.

Safety razors may look not only retro, but chic too (Image: ouishave.com)

Product Idea #4: Mineral Sunscreen

Don’t mistake sunscreen for a summer-only trending product, because dermatologists say we should protect our skin from UV-rays every day. That’s why people should have it in their regular cosmetics bag. However, chemicals in sunscreen are dangerous for corals and ecosystems. If you sell cosmetics, add mineral sunscreen to your store: it is  as effective as chemical sunscreen, but kinder to marine life.

Product Idea #5: Beeswax Wrap

Plastic wrap is everywhere: we cover food with it or use it to wrap sandwiches, cheese, meat, you name it. Beeswax wrap does the same, but without hurting the environment, and it’s also reusable. Great alternative for an item people use every day in their kitchens.

The Beeswax Wrap Co. sells wraps with different prints

Product Idea #6: Natural Cleaners

Products people use around the house contain a lot of environmentally harmful chemicals. Even if your customers aren’t ecologists, they still care about their health, and cleaners made of natural ingredients work for them too. Less collateral damage means more satisfied customers, so this product idea is definitely worth your attention.

If you want to make a natural cleaner yourself, you can find various recipes online. For example, this one looks quite simple.

Product Idea #7: Eco-Friendly Glitter

Fine, maybe glitter isn’t the thing people use on a daily basis (why not though?), but everyone wants to feel pretty from time to time or indulge in sparkling stuff on festivals and parties. Moreover, it doesn’t seem to be getting out of fashion any time soon. Regular glitter harms the oceans with its plastic particles, but biodegradable, cruelty-free and vegan glitter lets people shine guilt-free.

@ecostardust sells glitter that looks like regular one, but makes a difference in terms of the environment

Product Idea #8: Eco-Friendly Toothbrushes

You probably remember that it’s best to change toothbrushes every three months, which means more non-recyclable waste. You can actually sell better products: there are toothbrushes made of wood, bamboo, or biodegradable materials. It’s great to care about the environment while caring about your health, isn’t it?

Bamboo toothbrushes don’t cost much and make a great option for a business on a budget

Also read: 11 Trending Product Ideas for 2018 that Require Minimal Investment

Product Idea #9: Eco-Friendly Phone Cases

Phone cases have been a trending product for a while as almost everyone owns a smartphone these days, and they want to keep it safe.

Well, now is the time to upgrade this product idea. Give your customers a chance to leave a positive impact on the environment — sell cases made of upcycled, biodegradable, or compostable materials. Put on notice wooden cases, they look and feel nice, while giving a good protection from scratches.

Not only does @pelacase sell eco-friendly cases, they also add thank-you notes to orders

Product Idea #10: Eco-Friendly Diapers

Disposable diapers often end up in landfills, where they emit methane, a greenhouse gas. What’s more, they take about 500 years to decompose, and they do not degrade well in landfills. If your targeted audience includes parents, offer them cloth diapers — they are more cost-effective — or hybrids, diapers made primarily from biodegradable and compostable materials.

***

Hopefully, this list of product ideas will help you diversify your storefront or inspire you to do your bit for the planet. Pay attention to the details: if you add nature-friendly products to your store, don’t disorient your customers — always use plastic-free packaging.

Please, share your experiences in the comments: do you sell eco-friendly products? If you do, which items are more popular based on your observations? Maybe you have some advice for those who would like to get involved? Let us know!

You all know how big WordPress is — 30% of all websites are running WordPress. It’s important for Ecwid to be the best fit for those WordPress users who want to sell on their sites.

Our official WordPress e-commerce plugin is what we use to make the Ecwid experience of WordPress sellers especially good. Here, I will list the most noticeable improvements we’ve added to the plugin this year.

Ecwid Is Now Friends With Gutenberg, a New WordPress Editor

Gutenberg is getting more and more popular and will soon be the default WordPress page editor. To make sure Ecwid users are ready for that, we added Gutenberg support to our e-commerce plugin for WordPress.

Now, if you edit a page in Gutenberg, you can see the new Ecwid block in the editor toolbar: "Add Store" and "Add Product." They can be used to add a product catalog, single product widget, or a "Buy Now" button to the WordPress pages and posts in a simple, user-friendly interface.

Adding a store

Adding a product widget

Learn more: Gutenberg E-Commerce: Build Your Store in the New Code-Free WordPress Editor

A New Tool: Migrate from WooCommerce to Ecwid

Some sellers copy their products to Ecwid from WooCommerce, other shopping carts, or a local database or spreadsheet. We’ve made it easier.

You can now see a separate Ecwid block under Tools → Import in the WordPress admin backend — it allows you to import products and categories to your Ecwid store from WooCommerce or an external CSV file.

Dozens of merchants have already used this tool to copy their WooCommerce products to Ecwid, so we continue working on it.

A New Beautiful Shopping Bag Icon

We’ve added a new floating shopping bag widget that displays a cart icon along with the number of items and subtotal in the corner of the screen.

This way, the shopping bag’s always visible — buyers can click it to check their cart contents and proceed to the checkout. It’s possible to customize its position, layout, and icon to fit your site better. Enable it under the "Ecwid" section in your WordPress admin backend: Appearance → Customize → Ecwid.

Ecwid Menu Is Now a Part of the WordPress Menu

Historically, the Ecwid store management dashboard displayed navigation within the central page content when you open it in your WordPress admin backend. So you open the "Ecwid" menu in your WordPress admin and then navigate through the store admin pages inside that general "Ecwid" page.

We’ve improved this process: now the store admin navigation menu is included in the WordPress admin menu. You can find management, settings, apps, and other sections right in the WordPress left-hand navigation sidebar.

The WordPress native menu has been extended with Ecwid navigation (on the left)

This aligns the Ecwid plugin navigation with the general WordPress navigation and provides a more natural way to find the right page of the store dashboard. Also, it frees some space in the page’s central area, which makes it more convenient to manage your store, especially on mobile devices.

E-commerce Tips Show Up in the WordPress Admin Dashboard

We’ve added a new Ecwid block to the WordPress admin dashboard — it features helpful e-commerce articles from the Ecwid blog.

The block refreshes itself automatically when we publish a new blog post. You can find fresh product updates, tips, and recommendations from the Ecwid team there.

That’s all for now, but we will continue improving our plugin to bring you more cool updates by the end of 2018. Show up in the comments section below to share your thoughts on this news. ᕕ(ᐛ)ᕗ

Also read: Top 15 Free WordPress Themes For Your E-commerce Website

Every minute thousands of pieces of content are produced. Big brands, small companies, people that don’t even know what to achieve with their content marketing efforts are all producing content like never before in the history of humanity.

People are getting more and more content savvy and can tell the difference between good content and bad content. The winners are companies that know how to stand out with their good content. In this article, you’ll read about 4 content marketing strategies that will set you apart from your competitors.

Related: How to Promote Your Online Store With Content Marketing

Why Create Content?

For you as an e-commerce business owner, a good content marketing strategy could take different meanings depending on your goals.

To increase awareness, you can rely on keyword-optimized blog posts, a video ad series, user-generated content on social media, or any kind of content suitable to your customer acquisition channels.

To increase sales and customer retention, you can have your own newsletter or even a magazine addressing the core issues your customers are facing.

Net-a-Porter publishes a magazine called "Edit" which is about 30 pages and includes their advertising

The key to an effective content marketing strategy is to know your customers well and have a clear customer journey map. If you’re offering skincare products, you don’t necessarily need to offer coupons or discounts to increase sales. A comprehensive guide on having the perfect skin (your customers’ ideal state) would do the trick. Convince people that being in your list gets them one step closer to having great skin.

There’s a Big Gap Between Crappy Content and Good Content

People are frequently exposed to bad content. In fact, they see so much bad content that they can immediately detect good content.

Here’s how: people consume so much bad content that does not address the core issues as it should. They are left high and dry in their quest to find answers for their issues and get frustrated. Once you address those issues accordingly, they’re going to worship you.

What seems to be a frustrating foray for many business owners and content marketers (standing out) will in fact be an advantage. So you don’t need to be set back because of content overload if you know how to produce content that addresses core issues.

But first, before you get down to work and produce another piece of content, you need to keep the following tips in mind.

The Art of Making a Difference

Any genius technique could be ineffective once it’s crudely overused by imitators. Blogging used to be much easier and more fun some years ago. You published a short piece, distributed the link in social media and some blogging entries, and you would have good traffic just from that. But today, with the huge number of enthusiastic bloggers, getting the same results is much more difficult.

These days, everybody is blogging — it’s rather a cliché now.

This is why you always need diversity in your strategy even if you invented that strategy. For your content strategy, there are many ways to differentiate yourself from imitators. Here are a few of them:

1. Use different content formats

Like any other investment in your life, you shouldn’t focus all your might on one content format.

Video, for instance, is not well explored by companies. Over the past years people have grown more interested in video content, so much that in 2016 one Facebook executive predicted that the platform "will be probably all video" in five years. Results of a survey show that people pay "full attention" to video content and want to see more videos in the future. Plus, YouTube as the second biggest search engine deserves special attention from businesses.

Here’s an example of the videos Redsbaby makes for their Redsbaby Bounce model:

Podcasts are also an effective means of building an engaged audience that will restlessly wait for your next episodes if you’re interesting enough. Podcast subscriptions on iTunes alone reached 1 billion in 2014, and the number keeps rising.

A good example of the use of podcasts in e-commerce is well shown by The Spoon. They have two amazing podcasts to educate and engage their audience with: Smart Kitchen Show and the Weekly Spoon. Here’s an interesting episode from their Smart Kitchen Show.

When you consider the fact that mobile internet users make up 51.2% of all internet users worldwide (that is 3.7 billion unique users), it is crucial to try and make content that is easily consumed on mobile.

Social messaging is one of these content types. Buffer’s State of Social Report 2018 shows that "there are now more people using the top four social messaging apps (WhatsApp, Messenger, WeChat, and Viber) than the top four social media apps (Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, and LinkedIn)". Yet only 20% of marketers have used social messaging for marketing.

Only 20% of marketers use social messaging for marketing

Videos, podcasts, and social messaging seem to be great choices for diversifying your content formats.

2. Have a tailored voice

When one of his followers asked Ben Settle, the great email copywriter, how to have a voice in writing in a Q&A session, he answered that you should write the way you speak, with all the tonal nuances, expressions, pauses, etc.

When people read your stuff, it should be like they hear your voice in their heads too.

Yet this is what most people neglect and as a result their content turns bland and uninteresting.

I’m not saying that you should always sound the same, use the same adjectives, and have a static writing style anywhere (after all, each platform and publication has some instructions) — people would find that boring — but depending on your audience and platform, you can try to sound excited, lively, bored, etc., just like when you talk.

people. So if your audience is into a sassy style of writing, you need to adopt it. Speak/write in a language that’s interesting for your audience.

The same is true about the kind of content you produce. As Jimmy Dally explains, actionable (how-to) content could be a great choice, but in many cases, publishing only tactical how-to guides will result in missing strategic-minded people (decision-makers).

What you need to do is produce strategic content (models, frameworks, principles, opinions) that appeal to your strategic readers so that you can attract them too. A CEO, for example, is more interested in an article on why having a customer journey plan is the answer to almost all their company’s problems, rather than a step-by-step guide on developing a customer persona.

A content type spectrum

3. Publish original research

BuzzSumo analyzed 1 million blog posts on the web and found out that 75% of them had no external backlinks, and 50% of them had two or fewer Facebook interactions (likes, comments, shares). Yet one type of content that got a lot of links and shares was "well-researched and evidence-based" blog posts.

Everybody knows the value of original research. Google’s Matt Cutts has always preached the importance of original research for link building and SEO in general. Any link to your research content will have a positive effect on your overall domain authority.

But apart from SEO benefits, original research establishes you as an authority on the topic and cuts through the rehashed content that is being produced restlessly by imitators.

According to Andy Crestodina, there are 5 types of research in content marketing:

• Experiments
• Observation/analysis
• Aggregate existing research
• Online survey
• Phone survey

One of the easiest ways to produce original research is gathering the existing data from different sources. Maybe there is already a body of work that you can use and produce new data from and then do original research.

For example, I did an analysis on the top 50 business websites of SimilarWeb, a web analytics company, and tried to find answers to 7 questions about their conversion-focused homepage elements:

1. How many of the top websites have calls to action (CTAs) above the fold?
2. What CTA types are used above the fold?
3. How many of the top websites have multiple CTAs?
4. Do the websites use any social proof (trust icons, testimonials, case studies, etc.) on their homepages?
5. What social proof types are most prevalent among top websites?
6. Do they use any videos on their homepages?
7. Do they offer any content in exchange for visitors’ email addresses?

The most common CTA types among top business websites are "More info" and "Sample" types

Related: How to Сreate, Test and Promote Powerful Landing Pages

4. Invigorate your content with various topics

A little creative vigor goes a long way in your content. Just like content type, tone, and language, people are used to reading the same content topics everywhere. But if you can incorporate interesting topics and news in your content, people will be more excited to read.

The idea of entertaining people while giving them information and advertising to them is called "infotainment" in copywriting. One of the staunch advocates of such a content type is Ben Settle. As he explains in a blog post for Copyblogger, infotainment gives your audience a "great-tasting hot dog" but "nourishes them like broccoli." In other words, your content can be both entertaining and informative (about your product).

So instead of listing the features of your product in a sales letter to your email list, why not give them something exciting and connect it with your product?

Here’s an example from Ben’s own emails:

Ben frequently refers to pop culture (which is exciting) and is a master of connecting his stories with the information about his products. Needless to say, if you don’t know what topics are interesting for your audience, consider doing market research or hiring a consultant to do it for you.

Finally: Nothing Beats Trust

One of the factors that people consider before they decide to get engaged with your content is whether you’re trustworthy or not. As the founding father of internet marketing, Ken McCarthy, says:

Trust may be the single most important word in business. I’m not talking about blind trust. Healthy skepticism is one of the most important tools in the entrepreneur’s tool kit. I’m talking about being trustworthy. Literally: worthy of trust. And no, I don’t mean a new sales technique or copywriting tactic. I mean being worthy of trust.

And as Consulting.com explains in a post on becoming an independent consultant, one of the most effective ways to gain people’s trust is helping them transform to their desired states, and the more valuable that desired state is to someone, the more they’ll be willing to pay for help getting there. So do everything you can to help your readers get one step closer to their desired states, whether it’s a more profitable business, a healthier body, a more organized house, more confident social interactions, etc.

Finally, a good website design is key to content engagement. Check out the most common web design mistakes in GoodFirms’s comprehensive web design research, and avoid them. As they have noted, "if your conversion rate is low and and bounce rate is high, be sure that you’re in sheer need of redesigning your website."

Further reading: New Ecwid Design Settings: Dozens of Customization Options, No Coding