How to Market Your Online Store: Get Your First Sale

The days of “build a store and people will find you and buy, buy, buy” are long gone. Many still claim that running an online store is an easy and cheap way to get rich. The truth is that success with an ecommerce business is not easy. It takes work and usually money.

There are more than 28 million ecommerce websites globally, You will need to work to stand out against more seasoned players. To do this, you must aggressively market.

It is possible to build a viable ecommerce business with a modest budget. We recommend that for the US or other English-speaking countries, you should probably plan for at least $5K to start. If you’ve written a full business plan, you may already know how much you need to hit your goals. On an ongoing basis, you should plan to invest 10-20% of your sales goal each month marketing.

Here is how to market your new online store, in priority sequence for the most efficient growth.

You’ll want an immediate sales boost.

In addition to how good you’ll feel when you get your first sale, immediate sales pad the coffers so you have more money to invest.

Prepare your website for sales.

There is a lot more you need to do to ensure your website is competitive and attractive to buyers. If you don’t make this effort first, everything else will be less effective at best, and deliver zero sales at worst. You don’t want to spend more money and not get results!

Getting traffic is one thing, but making sure visitors actually buy is another. Optimize your store for sales by:

Choose great products it should go without saying that shoppers don’t want to buy garbage but many sites still sell low-quality products. Don’t be them.
Emphasize your UVP why should they buy your stuff, from you, today?
Simplifying checkout (reduce friction, accept multiple payment methods).
Adding trust signals (reviews, security badges, easy contact info, clear and competitive shipping and return policies).
Highlighting best-selling products with great photos,a video if you have one, and persuasive descriptions. The more persuasive your descriptions, the less you’ll be shopped against for the lowest price. How do you find the best-selling products when you’ve yet to make a sale? Examine the competition. How to make a great product page.
Offering fast, free shipping (if possible).

Your store should look great! Colors should be easy on the eye. It should have plenty of white space to make sure the products stand out as attractive. It should load quickly and work reliably. Navigation should be crystal clear and help the shopper find what they want in as few clicks as possible. Here’s how to provide a great shopping experience.

💰 Budget Estimate: $0–$500 (DIY) / $1,000+ (hiring a pro)
⏳ Expected Results: Immediate boost in conversion rates

💡 Pro Tip: Once you have traffic, use free tools like Microsoft Clarity or Google Analytics to track visitor behavior and identify drop-off points.

2. Invest in Paid Advertising (Immediate Sales Boost)

Paid ads are the fastest way to bring targeted traffic and immediate sales to your online store. Platforms like Google Ads, Facebook Ads, and Instagram Ads allow you to reach the right audience quickly.

Google Shopping Ads – Great for people actively searching for your products.
Facebook & Instagram Ads – Perfect for reaching new potential buyers with visually appealing content.
Retargeting Ads – Bring back visitors who browsed but didn’t purchase.

💰 Budget Estimate: $500–$5,000+ per month
⏳ Expected Results: Within days to a few weeks

💡 Pro Tip: Start with at least $500–$1,000 in ad spend and just a few of your easiest-to-sell or most profitable products, to test and optimize what works best. You’ll need a huge budget if you wish to market an entire store.

3. Email and SMS Marketing

Email marketing is one of the highest ROI strategies because it nurtures leads and drives repeat sales. As you plan your sales funnel, if they come to your website and don’t buy, you want them to enter your marketing funnel. This helps to keep your products and brand top of mind in the buyer’s head.

Over time as you gather data on site visitors and buyers, you can use that data to further segment the audience and your catalog. The more personalized your efforts are, the higher they will convert into purchases.

We’ve seen email/sms returns of up to 45% of total revenue so this is a key marketing tool for you. Yes, you should offer both email and text to most shoppers to get them where they want.

These are the bare minimum of automated flows and campaigns to run.

Set up an abandoned cart email to recover lost sales.
Create a welcome email sequence for new subscribers with a discount.
Regularly send out promotions, new product alerts, and educational content.

💰 Budget Estimate: Free – $100/month
⏳ Expected Results: 1–4 weeks

💡 Pro Tip: Use Klaviyo, Shopify, or Omnisend for automation and segmentation to personalize offers.

4. Utilize Social Media & Influencer Marketing

Surprise! It’s time to get social. Social media isn’t just about posting—it’s about engagement and reach. It’s also something shoppers will check before they buy. Why? Because they want some reassurance that they are dealing with real humans and humans who care about their customers.

YouTube is one of the largest search engines out there. Video offers a richer way to showcase your products. YouTube videos can be easily embedded into most store software.
Instagram & TikTok influencers can generate immediate sales by showcasing your products.
Facebook is still a great traffic source.
User-generated content (UGC) builds trust and social proof.
Instagram Reels & TikTok videos have high organic reach and can go viral.
New platforms keep coming and may offer a higher ROI along with a smaller net result.
Social advertising is visual which can help these ads convert better than text ads in Google or Microsoft.

💰 Budget Estimate: $200–$2,000+
⏳ Expected Results: 2–6 weeks

💡 Pro Tip: Find micro-influencers (10k–100k followers) in your niche for more affordable promotions. Micro-influencers are often more effective as their audiences may be more engaged.

5. Focus on SEO for Sustainable, Free Traffic

Store owners love SEO because they view it as free traffic. Anything that takes as much time and work as SEO is far from “free.” Your time is expensive! Keep in mind that while your site may gain some visibility in search with zero effort. SEO is much more effective and bringing buyers if you work your search optimization per a plan.

If you’re determined to go it alone, we recommend that you start first with your website optimization. It turns out that what is good for your shoppers is generally good for SEO. You should also take some classes, join some groups, and keep learning. SEO is a moving target. It is never done.

SEO is a long game, but once it kicks in, it brings free, highly targeted traffic to your store.

Optimize product pages with high-intent keywords.
Start a blog with helpful guides related to your products.
Get backlinks from industry blogs to improve rankings.
The money you invest should NOT be to buy placement. Your budget pays for tools and services to build and execute your SEO strategy.

💰 Budget Estimate: $0 (DIY) – $10,000/month (outsourcing)
⏳ Expected Results: 3–6 months (but long-term growth)

💡 Pro Tip: Use Google Keyword Planner or Ahrefs to find search terms with high buying intent.

Projected Budget & Timeline Summary

Final Thoughts

If you need sales ASAP, start with paid ads and website optimization with this caveat, if your ecommerce site is not optimized to convert well, your advertising money will be wasted.

Once you have traffic, email marketing and social media will help build relationships and increase conversions. SEO takes time, but it’s crucial for long-term success and reducing reliance on paid ads.

References:

https://www.sellerscommerce.com/blog/ecommerce-statistics/#:~:text=There%20are%20over%2028%20million%20eCommerce%20sites%20globally,and%2020%25%20of%20stores%20respectively.