When it comes to creating an online store with a travel theme, that means you’re also going to have to appeal to the sense of beauty, wanderlust, and adventure. It’s not as easy to do this through a screen as it is to do in person but it’s still doable.
The ultimate goal of your travel-themed online store is to sell them a feeling… a sense of adventure. Once they’re sold on that feeling, they’re sold on your products. To evoke feelings in the world of online retail, you have to go way beyond making your online store “look good”… you have to wake up the traveler in them.
As mentioned before, this isn’t something that’s going to be easy to do but it’s definitely possible to evoke a sense of adventure in people that go beyond the screen. Take a look at these six tips on how to create a successful travel-themed online store.
Determine Your Target Audience
The success of your store is going to be determined by ensuring you’re selling your products to the right audience. This is going to be based on the types of products you’re selling.
Are your products for the general public (people who travel for vacations, business, etc)? Or will your products be more for people who live a life of travel or even thrill-seekers? Once you’ve determined the audience you want to sell your products to, you can then better determine the types of products you need to sell to meet their traveling needs.
Determine the Types of Products You Want to Sell
You should now be able to see how your target audience and product type go hand in hand. Once you’ve determined your target audience, you can now focus on the types of products you want to sell. Can you guess why it’s so important to get this right?
Well, it’s so important because the whole reason why people shop is to meet a need… or want, for most people. The point is that if their needs aren’t being met, they have no reason to buy your products.
For people who are traveling for vacation and business trips, you’re not going to need to sell camping pillows or collapsable water bottles… you’re going to want to sell things like hanging toiletry bags or noise-canceling headphones to silence the crying baby on the plane.
Choose the Right E-Commerce Platform
This aspect is actually very important to the success of your business. Choosing the right platform is going to play a huge role in the design and layout of your site, the security of customer information, payment options, whether or not you want to have a blog, and the overall usability of your site.
Because there are so many aspects to building an online store, you want to find a website builder that has everything you need to build and run your store successfully… Ultimately, you want a website builder that allows you to build a fully-featured site, meaning, you won’t have to download multiple different applications to have one complete website.
Incorporate Your Personality
When building your brand’s identity, you have to incorporate a little bit of your personality in there somewhere or else your efforts won’t feel genuine and authentic. One of the best places to incorporate your personality on your website is on your “About Me” page.
You would think that people overlook that particular page because they just want to see what type of products you have but you have to understand that today’s shoppers aren’t just shopping for the sake of shopping… today’s shoppers are informed shoppers.
What’s an informed shopper? An informed shopper is someone who does research on a company before making a purchase. So when a visitor comes to your site, it’s pretty safe to assume that they’re going to read every inch of your “About Me” page and then look at your social media pages, as well as read your online reviews.
Did you know that several studies showed that customers trust customer reviews as if they were recommendations from close friends? So, just know the importance of incorporating your personality into your site for authenticity… today’s informed shopper can smell a scam a mile away!
Tell Your Story
Everyone loves a good story, but all too often, readers only get part of the story and not the full story. When it comes to branding your business, people aren’t just going to buy your products, especially if you’re just starting out and people don’t know anything about you… You have to share your story so that people can get a feel for your business and what it stands for.
Telling your story is what “humanizes” your brand and when people can connect with a brand on a personal level, it makes the brand relatable, and ultimately, a brand they feel they can support.
Stay Up-to-Date On the Latest in Travel Products and Services
This is the part where we get into the products. With your travel-themed store, you can sell practically whatever you want! Again, you just have to first determine your target audience and that will determine the type of products you’ll want to sell. Once you know that, you’ll have to do your due diligence to stay updated on the latest trends in your niche.
Also, one way to have “new” items is to switch up your travel items. Maybe you have a few products that aren’t selling too well… When you see that happening, that’s when you have to replace it with another item you feel will sell well.
If you’re unsure about what items to get, consider taking it to social media and letting your followers help you decide. Whether you check out what they’re saying in the comments or if you do polls on products in your Instagram stories, you’ll find that their feedback is very helpful. This will not only help you to get the products they want but it will also show that their opinions matter.
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