How To Improve Your Sales Pt 1

Reading through emails we receive from Zlionauts, we noticed that the most common question concerns the ways in which Zlio Shop owners can improve their earnings.

There are basically two-parts to the answer:

First: find interesting products and create a visually appealing Shop

Second: get people to visit your Shop and turn them into customers

In this Blog Post, we discuss the actions that need to be taken in order to design a shop which will be interesting to your visitors, as well as pleasing to their eyes.
Find your niche market

We at Zlio believe that the best way to make an impact on the scene is to specialize in one product area. Don’t know which product area to pick from? Choose whatever interests you! What are your hobbies? What really gets you going? What are you passionate about? We believe that you will spend that extra amount of time on your Shop only if you really believe in and enjoy the product you are selling.

Do you like remote-controlled toys? Are you a fan of James Bond movies? Do you have a fetish for Sunglasses? Turn all and any of your interests into a Zlio Shop! Try to be as specific as possible when you choose your products. Choose not just toys … but remote-controlled toys. Choose not movies or action movies … but James Bond Movies. Choose not just Glasses and accessories, but specialize in Sunglasses. The bottom line is to be as specific as possible, and to try and become the biggest and the best in your specific niche market.

Still not sure how to find your niche product? Use the Google Keyword Tool. This easy to use tool will help you find the most sought-after keywords on the internet … which in turn may give you ideas on which products to sell.

Click here to read the official Zlio Blog entry regarding the Google Keyword Tool.
Customize your Template

There are Zlionauts who choose one of the ready-made templates that Zlio provides its customers … and that’s perfectly fine, of course. But then there are those Zlionauts who go the extra mile, and learn how to customize their template, in order to give their shop a more personalized feel … and believe us: your customers will see and feel the difference, which in turn will entice them to spend more time in your shop.

What are the ways to customize your Shop?

1. Choose the customizable template

When in your Store Administration Area, choose “display”, then “manage my template”, and then “customizable template”. Once you have entered the “customizable template”, you can easily and quickly customize the colors of every single part of your shop … simply follow the instructions. It ’s literally as easy as one-two-three. If you should run into difficulties at any stage of the customization process, you can always contact Zlio’s Customer Service Team, who will gladly guide you through the process.

With regards to the customizable template, two things should be noted:

* When using the “customizable template” you can only change the colors of your shop … and nothing else.

* Once you choose the “customizable template” you will not be able to customize your CSS anymore.

2. Customize your Shop’s CSS

A more sophisticated way to change your Shop’s appearance is to customize its CSS (”Cascading Style Sheets”). Changing a website’s CSS allows you to define the specific colors, fonts and layouts for your website. When you see a Shop that is using a certain image as its background (e.g. “Linens and Accessories“), it means that this specific Zlionaut has put up the background by changing the code within the Shop’s CSS. Learn more about how to work on your CSS by reading about it on Wikipedia or by studying such tutorials as “Your HTML Source“.

3. Customise your Shop’s Header and Footer

The top part of your Zlio Shop is called the Header, which can be customized to your liking. In order to customize your Header, you must first create a suitable image (with a program like Adobe Photoshop), which you then cut into the right size. You then upload the image onto a Picture Hosting Service (e.g. Photobucket) and copy the Picture’s produced URL. This copied URL must then be pasted into the “Header” section within your Zlio Shop’s Administration Area.

The bottom part of your Zlio Shop is called the Footer, which can also be customized. Simply proceed in the same manner as described above. Instead of pasting the URL into the Header you simply paste it into the Footer.

The second part of this article will concentrate how to market your shop. if you have any comments or questions, we will be glad to answer them right here on this blog. Simply use the submit comment button below.