Help marketing online pet store

I recently launched a new pet store of mine that is dropshipping and I have a few questions on the proper way to market the store to sell products. I have over 500 products added currently and most of them are toys and apparel. I know the pet niche is big, so how do I go about marketing?

I am running OpenCart right now but if I want to publish articles, do you recommend using Wordpress for the /Blog directory? Is it best to just use a simple wordpress single column theme?

How much profit markup should I make my products? Right now they are at 100%. My supplier for example sells a product to me for $5, I have it listed for $10.

Please take a look and feedback is appreciated.

http://petmerch.com

 

I would write unique product descriptions for every product in your store, ensure that your sitemap is working and submit it to Google Webmaster Tool.
As for the blog, I'd recommend that you use WordPress or some sort of OpenCart plugin(there probably is one available).

I wrote a post about On-site and Offsite SEO Earlier today, rather than rehashing the content here, why don't you just go read it here.
If you haven't already, you should look into implementing microdata ( schema.org/Product ) in your product pages,
I'm not sure if opencart comes with this by default, but it should be relatively simple to implement into the template or via a plugin.

Also take a look at this post about implementing social meta tags (open graph and twitter cards).

You should also comment on blogs in the pet niche as well as join a pet owner forum and become an authority figure on there and advertise your store in the forum.

 

What are your target markets? Which species do you sell products for, and is there a template of the owners you're selling to?
Is it dog, cat, fish, rodents like hamsters, gerbils, guinea pigs, etc?

So if you're selling fish food for instance, you can market this, or if you're selling hamster cages you can market this to kids or parents.

Depending on the products you have now, you can itemise what species and owners would want and develop copy and digital space (Facebook, Twitter and possibly Youtube may work best in this case) to promote your products.

I can't say in honesty about profits, as this is more of a finance/budgeting thing.

 

For a start, make sure your website is secure, as it looks like it has been hacked. One of the largest issues with converting traffic into buying customers is TRUST. Having a secure website, having SSL certificates is going to be important. Accepting payments via paypal usually helps to breed trust.

Before doing any project, I like to do some research. In this case, you might be able to learn from the mistakes made by pets(dot)com ref: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pets.com
Now that was a multi-million dollar company which failed, so I am certain there are things you can learn about them, and what they used. Oddly enough, their failure is why I would not think this is a great business to invest heavily into.

For me, I would look into doing adwords. Target specific areas in your target group. You can use negative keywords to make sure you are not paying for possibly incorrect leads.

I have also done it before where I have had people post up flyers in relevant places for one of my sites, but I have not tried this with your specific niche. If this was my site, I might try to approach vets, and see if they allow me to post flyers inside. Its even realistic to offer them some $$$ if they say no, as nearly everyone that goes there is an animal lover. I mean, if I paid a vet $200 a month to keep a flyer posted on the wall, and dropped off a bundle of leaflets for customers to take, with a 50% margin, its quite possible that I will recover this $200 within the month, as well as gain word of mouth, as well as repeat business.

Another way to advertise is in magazines. There are surely a few animal related magazines around, getting your ad on the back cover, is likely going to boost your business through the roof.
A final way would be advertising on social media specifically facebook and try to target animal lovers in your target area.

 

Hi! You're up to something great...trust me, you can turn that into a successful business.

With the power of content marketing, you can start developing strong relationship and build trust with prospects.

You don't have to hard-sell your product.

Just add a blog to your website. Wordpress should do!

 

I think you're on the right ticket, in terms of blogging. I would add a blog to your site and publish articles. You might even want to work with someone who knows content marketing, in case you don't have time to run your blog consistently. Without consistency, content marketing is kind of doomed to fail.

Your blog is in a great space, though! Pet owners love to read stuff about animals, and it's easy to find information to help them out. I actually used to run a "pet hacking" blog (it's no longer active) for a client, back when I was a freelancer. I would put about four or five articles a day, and they were INCREDIBLY easy to find and post. Took me an hour or two, and that's it.

The trick is resyndication. And knowing how to create/curate content. AVOID LIKE THE PLAGUE a blog that only talks about your store, the inventory you've gotten in, etc.

Make something that your users would actually want to read, if you can. Make a blog that's about pet ownership. So publish articles that talk about tips, tricks, and advice that will bring pet owners closer with their animals. Trust me. I have two cats, and I absolutely love reading stuff that tells me more about how they behave and how I can take better care of them.

Create a blog and run social media channels around it - have them essentially be the spokes radiating out from your blog's hub. This is a great way to drive a ton of traffic to your site, boost your authority within your niche, and improve your SEO rankings (Google loves it when your site has a ton of high-quality content added to it consistently).