Taking advantage of e-commerce can give garment decorators a big sales advantage. Here are some tips to get started!

An online purchasing option also can encourage more sales from existing customers by offering an easy ordering option and browsing opportunities that increase chances of an upsell.

When you’re ready to branch out to selling your screen printed goods online, there are some decisions you’ll need to make and some considerations you’ll need to keep in mind.

Focus On Your Niche

Just like your regular screen printing business, your online screen printing business should have a niche. Your niche will help you attract customers looking specifically for your type of business. It also will help you to determine what type of online store you should have and where you should focus your advertising efforts. Your niche can range from providing sports apparel to providing environmentally friendly screen prints.

Choose a Platform

Fortunately for screen printers looking to venture into the online selling space, there are many platforms available for selling online. You can create an online store through an existing selling site, like Etsy, Amazon or Shopify, or you can create an add-on store to your existing website. Some screen printing supply companies even offer online stores as an added benefit of doing business with them. The type of platform you choose will depend on the size of your business, your goals for your online store and your target audience.

Select Your Products

The great thing about a screen printing business is that you can offer all types of prints on all types of substrates. When opening an online store, it can be tempting to provide your customers with every possible option. This can be counterproductive to boosting sales and attracting customers, however. Too many options can overwhelm people shopping through your store. Frustrated that they can’t find what they’re looking for, or tell the difference between all of the similar options, potential customers just might take their business elsewhere. To avoid this, offer limited options, and make the differences between products clear. This is another area where your niche becomes helpful; you need to consider what products customers within your niche will be searching for.

Make Sure It’s Convenient

Once you have your online store set up, you need to make sure that the website is user friendly. Customers should be able to find just what they’re looking for, and your website should walk them through the checkout process. A hard-to-use website will send customers searching elsewhere for their screen printed products.

Advertise

There are a lot of screen printers online, and setting up an online store doesn’t mean that customers will come flocking. You have to do the legwork to promote your online store. Create a marketing strategy that targets your audience. That means putting search engine optimization (SEO) best practices into use, advertising via traditional and digital methods, and making good use of social media to promote your online store. People can’t purchase through your online store if they don’t know it’s an option.

More and more, consumers are looking to do business online, where they can get what they want with the click of a button. Selling goods online can help screen printers to both find new markets and new customers and add a level of convenience to help retain existing customers.

For more tips about creating and enhancing your business’s digital presence, check out these blogs:

How to Effectively Market Your Screen Printing Business Online

Smart Strategies for Optimizing Your Screen Printing Business’s #1 Marketing Tool