Why open an online toy shop?
Opening an online toy shop, for those who already sell these highly sought-after products, is the best choice to give already-loyal customers an additional purchasing channel, open 24/7, and a way to win new customers both locally and by expanding the “boundaries” of your business. But how do you make your toy ecommerce effective?
Birthdays, Christmas, Halloween, holidays and various celebrations: there really are so many occasions when a toy makes a much-appreciated and greatly desired gift. Children and teenagers always have a new game in mind to ask for. And giving a toy always fills the giver’s heart with joy: you can see the enthusiasm in the eyes of the children who receive it, but also the happiness and amazement in adults. That is why the toy market never risks a crisis.
But consumption habits change and, with them, so do the ways of searching for and purchasing products.
More and more, in fact, consumers make their choices by searching online and, often, once they find an opportunity they take advantage of it by buying straight away through online shopping. It is therefore no longer possible to give up a slice of the digital market that keeps growing year after year.
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The data on selling toys online
According to the latest Italian e-commerce report produced by Idealo*, the toys and gaming sector is among the leading categories for online purchases. 26.4% of this product sector is bought on the Internet and 21% of those who buy in physical stores start their customer journey online, between searching for information and comparing prices.
More generally, toys confirm themselves as a growing sector, as reported by Assogiocattoli: in the first six months of 2022 there was growth of 1.7% compared with the previous year, set to increase in the run-up to Christmas.
This data highlights how selling toys online is a smart choice for shops and companies that want to maintain or even grow their business.
Why open an online toy shop? All the benefits of a toy ecommerce
When you walk past a toy shop or look through a toy catalogue, we all become children again, but you must never forget the adults. This is for two reasons. First, because it is parents who buy the games and gifts for their children, and more generally it is adults who have the purchasing power. On the other hand, precisely because adults have spending power, you should not underestimate the Kidult sector, that is, games for adults. Between collecting, nostalgia and family ties, adults make up an interesting market niche for toy e-commerce.
From this point of view, in fact, a toy e-commerce is like a shop window that is always open and lit, with which to daydream about the next gift you would like to receive or give. The toy, in fact, is a sentimental and emotional object that arouses emotions and desires. The online toy shop has the ability to feed all the fantasies that surround every single toy. It will therefore be essential for the online shop to have strongly emotional and persuasive visual and textual content. This is where the entire visual marketing plan comes in, to stir emotions through photos and videos, without ever forgetting the informative aspects relating to the toys.
Moreover, opening a toy e-commerce offers all the typical advantages of electronic commerce: 24/7 availability, the option to buy remotely and on the go, and precise data control to optimise every activity.
How should a toy ecommerce be built?
As with all online shops, photos are a decisive part of choosing a product online, but in the case of a toy ecommerce you cannot overlook the playful side of the purchase. To give a better idea of how the game works and, even more, to encourage play, a video is the ideal way. The user, whether a child, a teenager or an adult, will be able to directly imagine the play in action through a good video, onto which they can project their imagination.
This far from negligible part of online communication can be done by the seller themselves, but in many cases it is the manufacturers themselves who create videos showing children or teenagers playing. So all you need to do is set up your ecommerce to allow videos to be displayed, including those uploaded directly from Youtube.
Another important feature is the graphic character of the template, which should be decidedly cheerful, colourful and with fun details.
For the rest, an online toy shop will have all the functions and the navigability features and settings of a classic ecommerce. Ease of adding to the cart and completing the order thanks to site speed and easy-to-spot graphic elements, clear information on products, shipping and returns, an FAQ page with answers to the most common questions and a helpdesk number to assist customers. As an alternative to the latter, it is even better to set up an automated chat.
How to increase sales for an online toy shop
As often happens, it is not enough to open an e-commerce to be able to sell online enough to justify the investment made.
In addition to building an e-commerce site it is necessary to set up an effective communication plan.
You have to start from a strategic ecommerce marketing plan to increase online sales, finding and building loyalty among new customers. Here the choice of channels to use for communication and advertising is crucial.
For advertising, you cannot do without Google advertising, in particular Google Shopping campaigns designed precisely for online shopping directly from the search engine par excellence.
Google Search too is geared towards conversion starting from specific keywords and is always recommended for sales and lead campaigns.
Naturally, for communication, social media marketing is a strategy to be fine-tuned for any ecommerce. Social platforms are a great source of inspiration for purchases and gifts. You will, however, need to carefully assess which platform to focus on most. You start from research on the buyer personas you want to engage, perhaps through micro and mini influencers who build desire for a certain toy, and you favour one channel. The digital PR specialist will be able to identify the most suitable profiles for these activities, which will make it possible to increase the online sales of your toy ecommerce, for example by involving a mummy blogger and family influencer to launch a product or encourage the purchase of a particular toy.
You must never forget, however, that to finalise the sale you must always refer back to the ecommerce site, the hub of all marketing actions.
For this reason, the site must be high-performing and must have specific and strategic SEO optimisation. SEO for e-commerce helps you rank at the top of the SERP to capture quality clicks with a high probability of conversion.
With this final piece added to digital adv, digital PR and influencer marketing , the communication actions to increase online sales will be complete.
Related service: discover Marketing Consulting by ARvis — the agency that scales with you.
