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How can I get more sales
As the owner of a marketplace I get asked all the time: ‘how do I get more sales for my business?’ and often there is not just one answer. The good news with that is that you can implement many things right now – without it costing money – to increase your chances to get sales. Here’s some of the things I see most lacking or open for improvement with vendors/business owners.
Disclaimer; this blog is not for you if you’re too busy or not willing to invest time. These steps do require time; if you’re looking online for ways to increase your sales then I am guessing you have some spare time…?
There will be some thoughts specifically for marketplace store fronts; if you have your own website, you can apply these there as well.
The Market
Let’s start with the hard stuff, the stuff you can’t reaaaaally control; the economy.
It’s August 2025 right now and everywhere I see business owners ask ‘how can I get more sales’ and sometimes the answer HAS to be;
we just need to ride this out.
The fact your business is still open and you’re still hanging in there is a HUGE achievement for some of you and I don’t know if you realise this?
We need to keep in mind that a product’s price and target audience play a big role in ‘normal times’; selling a niche, high-priced item will naturally be harder than selling a product that’s perfect as a small, affordable gift…
These differences in what sells ‘better’ or ‘easier’ will be even bigger when we see financial tough times for the average customer.
During financially difficult times, consumer behavior shifts dramatically. People are more cautious with their money and move from being impulse buyers to being more thoughtful and deliberate in their purchasing decisions. This change in mindset directly impacts how many times they need to see a product or brand before they’re ready to buy.
Focus on Optimisation
The best way to get more sales is to really optimise your shop and product listings. Why start here and not somewhere else in the process?
- It will help with getting found without ads.
- Your customers will land on something that intrigues and prompts their WANT and NEED, nothing worse than clicking on a link of something that seemed cool, only to have 5 questions and get the feeling you’re being scammed.
Vendors who see the most online Ecommerce success have high-quality photos, detailed product descriptions, and competitive pricing. They also make sure their profiles are complete and compelling. Taking the time to refine these elements puts you in a strong position to attract more customers.
This means you need to invest time to write or review things like;
- Your product images; sometimes changing them up shows them in a totally different light to customers and all of a sudden it is a ‘new’ product to them.
- Your product descriptions need reviewing and editing regularly; the world of online selling moves fast and sometimes staying up to date with the trends can help you write descriptions that’ll reach a bigger, buying audience.
- Your pricing and hey, sometimes that means it has to go up! Don’t be afraid to do that in tougher financial times, not only do we NEED to make sure you make enough from your sales, it sometimes also sends the message that your product is worth more than another’s.
- Your ‘about’ section, when is the last time you have reviewed and re-written it? maybe changed the images around? it doesn’t just look like a fresh page, it also prompts new finds for search engines.
- Your SEO.. this will be it’s own point below in this blog but it should be on your list of regular checks/improvements!
The Beauty of SEO
I know you’ve heard of it, there’s a HUGE amount of information about SEO online already so I won’t go into super detail (let me know if you would like to see a blog post that DOES cover the ins and outs on SEO).
But I do want to – and need to; point out the value of it for small businesses.
Standing out among big players is pretty hard in this ever changing online world and when it comes to reputation, reliability, ‘knowing what you get’, it’s just much harder for small businesses to be remembered and memorable. This is where SEO can be your friend!
It’s the information you put within the back end of your content like products, blog posts and information pages that is then used as a guide by search engines like Google to put your content in front of customers.
There’s a few vendors on this marketplace who have done such a good job with their SEO which The Hive then boosts even more with our own SEO work, that they outrank their own website’s results! These are businesses that don’t necessarily do all the promoting and link sharing yet they have weekly or some even daily orders of certain products.
This CAN be you too! I promise, learning about SEO can be really fun and it helps you with other areas of your business as well as you start understanding your place within the market better. You absolutely do not need to hire an SEO expert to do the work for you and if you have the funds to hire someone; don’t go for the flashy ones with the big promises.
The Power of Promotion
Getting more sales is all about getting in front of the right buyers. Have you considered how you can promote your products both on and off our platform? Sharing your listings on social media, in relevant online communities, or with your existing network can drive a significant amount of traffic directly to your shop. The more you promote, the more potential buyers you’ll reach.
Based on e-commerce and marketing data, it’s highly unlikely that your audience will find your store/shop page if you aren’t actively directing them there. Without direct links or specific promotion, that number is going to be close to zero.
Simply put; people follow links. If you don’t provide any, they won’t know where to go.
There’s a PLETHORA of Facebook groups where you can promote your business and products for free. Most of the time you just need to follow a template and help promote the group with others but it’s FREE, so why not use them?!
The Shop Small New Zealand group is one of ours that you’re free to promote your business in!
Customer Engagement
A key factor in increasing sales is building trust and a loyal customer base.
How are you engaging with your customers and responding to reviews? Vendors who actively communicate with buyers, provide excellent customer service and encourage positive reviews often see a ripple effect.
On social media, engagement means something a little different; how people are interacting with your content and brand on social media platforms. It’s not just about how many people see your content, but how they actively participate with it.
Customer engagement plays a HUGE part in the traffic on your socials and from there to your online shop. More happy customers engaging with your content increases the likelihood of others trusting your brand to go buy.
Happy customers come back for more and are more likely to recommend your shop to others.
Growth Perspective
The vendors who are most successful on our platform treat their shop like a small business rather than a side hustle or a hobby and are always looking to grow and do better.
They are constantly experimenting and learning, finding out new ways to become better at what they do and better at things they’re not so good at… yet.. Always looking at ways to diversify to find other avenues of revenue.
My best advice would be to track what works and double down on it. Look at your analytics to see which products are getting the most views and sales, and then figure out how to improve the listings for your other products.
Asking for other people’s views – especially those with experience and knowledge – will help you see things you might not have, yet.
You can also try running a small promotion or creating a bundle to see if it boosts interest.
Investing in Growth
The vendors with the most sales are typically those who are highly visible and sometimes to stand out more, to be seen more, you need to invest some funds. As an example; While our free plan is a great way to get started, our paid plan offers powerful tools and features designed to increase your visibility and sales.
It gives you access to featured spots on our homepage, advanced marketing tools, your business in prime spots on vital pages of the site, just to name a few things (read more about them here).
While you can thrive with our free plan; you can’t ask for Champagne on a beer budget.
We can bring the audience to your storefront, but your sales numbers are directly related to your own efforts in converting those visitors into customers with your listings’ images, descriptions and the other things you have the ability to optimise as shared in this blog. Many vendors find that the investment in a paid plan quickly pays for itself with the increase in sales they see.
This blog is written for you by Hive Grow; the business support side of The Hive NZ. With the experience of owning businesses and supporting others in business for well over 20 years, we bring blog posts with practical, actionable steps for you to take on a small budget.
