How to Sell Shoes Online

1 Do Your Research

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Before you start selling shoes online, you need to be clear about what type of footwear you intend to sell (your stock), and to whom you intend to sell it (your target audience).

For example, you could think about selling:

• Classic shoes for seniors
• Sports shoes for children
• Indoor shoes for gym goers

It’s vital that you identify a niche, because selling to a niche market is a lot easier than selling to, well, the whole market!

There are several market research techniques you can use to determine your niche:

• Market analysis: Browse through large online marketplaces such as Amazon and eBay to see what types of shoes are being sold there, and which are flying off the shelves
• Customer development: Conduct customer interviews or surveys to understand your target buyers’ preferences
• Keyword research: Use tools such as UberSuggest and KeywordTool to see what people are searching for when it comes to buying shoes

2 Source Your Shoes

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Once you know what type of shoes you want to sell – and who your potential customers are – it’s time to determine how you will source the shoes you want to sell. Let’s take a look at available options:

Your Own/Secondhand

There are many people who buy pre-owned or secondhand footwear. If you or your friends have extra pairs of shoes you don’t have any use for anymore, you can sell them online. Once you’ve collected all the shoes that you can from friends and family, you can expand your search to local estate sales, consignment stores, and garage sales.

However, there will be a lot of variation in the wear and tear of each pair, which makes it important to inspect each shoe properly. Plus, going down this route isn’t as sustainable as sourcing a good supplier from the get-go!

Wholesaler/Manufacturer

If selling second-hand shoes isn’t for you, then purchasing shoes in bulk from a manufacturer or wholesaler may be worth looking into. There are many B2B directories online that you can use to locate manufacturers or wholesale suppliers for shoes.

A wholesaler, such as Alibaba, can provide you with ready-made shoes to sell online; while a manufacturer will make the shoes from scratch, according to your specifications.

However, most suppliers will expect you to place a bulk order for a minimum number of items upfront – meaning you’ll need to have a healthy budget ready to invest in shoe production.

Dropshipping Suppliers

Dropshipping is similar to sourcing products from wholesalers, except for the fact that you won’t need to purchase shoes in advance. In fact, you don’t have to hold any inventory at all – you’ll just list the shoes online with their details, and the prices that you want to sell them for.

When someone places an order through your online shoe store, it’ll be relayed straight to your dropshipping supplier, which will then take care of fulfilling the order and delivering the shoes to the customer. The main downside of this approach is that you’ll have less control over product operations, shipping, and quality.

Check out our guide to starting a dropshipping business to learn more.

3 Decide Where to Sell Your Shoes Online

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Next, you’ll need to decide on the best place to sell your shoes online. There are a number of options, each with its own perks and pitfalls.

Your Own Online Store

Building an online store is one of the best ways to kickstart your shoe business. You won’t get a ready-made customer base – as you will with other online marketplaces – but instead, you’ll have complete control over your business.

You can use a website builder such as Shopify, BigCommerce, or Wix for building your ecommerce website, without requiring any technical skills.

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Shopify	Wix	BigCommerce
Overall rating 4.8	Overall rating 4.8	Overall rating 4.0
Starting Price $29	Starting Price $29 $26.10 with code “TAKE10”	Starting Price $29
Payment options 100+ including: Shopify Payments, Paypal, Klarna	Payment options 80+ including: Paypal, Wix Payments, Stripe, Square	Payment options 36 including: Paypal, Square, Stripe, Klarna
Sales features 4.8	Sales features 4.2	Sales features 4.6
Number of products on cheapest plan Unlimited	Number of products on cheapest plan 50,000	Number of products on cheapest plan Unlimited
Delivery and store pickup	Delivery and store pickup	Delivery and store pickup
Visit Shopify	Visit Wix	View BigCommerce
See our Shopify review	See our Wix review	See our BigCommerce review

Our choice of platform is Shopify. While Wix has a higher overall score, Shopify has a higher sales feature score with a 4.5 out of 5. This is an important distinction as selling shoes is a large market, so in an ideal scenario (with decent marketing and SEO efforts) you’d expect a lot of traffic to your site, and you’ll benefit from Shopify having the better sales infrastructure to handle bigger online stores.

Social Platforms

Most people prefer social media as their first option for selling because it’s really easy to set up shop. All you need to do is create a Facebook, Instagram, or Pinterest page, and your store will be up and running – though your reach and marketing opportunities will be limited to the social media platform you’re selling on.

Marketplace

Using a marketplace – such as Amazon or eBay – represents a more professional approach to selling shoes online. The advantage of a marketplace is that it’s already packed to the rafters with customers who are already interested in buying shoes.

Then again, your expenses will increase due to the sometimes hefty fees these marketplaces charge. These include the cost of posting the listing itself, as well as the fees for completing each sale of shoes you make on the platform.

4 Showcase Your Shoes

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There’s no way you can grow your shoe sales without showing off your flashy footwear in a way that turns heads. To convey the value of your shoes, you’ll need to show potential buyers what they look like, explain what they feel like, and persuade them to place an order.

For example, as an ecommerce-focused website builder, Shopify puts images front and center so your customers can have all the visual information they need before they make a purchase. They also feature slideshows and images of different sizes, giving a decent impression of the size of your stock.

There are other key factors to help cement the idea of your store in the customer’s head:

Product Photos

Any customer would want to take a good look at a pair of shoes before buying it. In fact, online buyers expect around 5 to 8 images for each product on a shoeseller’s website.

With this in mind, you should display multiple high quality photos with your listings, showing the product from all angles.

Product Description

Your shoe description should correctly describe the product and convey its benefits, features, and limits. This is where great copywriting can make a huge difference.

You should know what your customers want, speak to them in a language that resonates with them, and deftly handle any objections or concerns with your product copy.

Shopify in Action: Coco Blue Shoes

Anje Collins

Coco Blue Shoes Founder

A former publicist and now luxury shoe designer, Anje Collins now uses Shopify to sell her wares from an online storefront.

Q&A

Why did you choose Shopify?

I chose Shopify to build Coco Blue Shoes because of the compatibility it has with different apps and programs to make your business and your site run smoothly.

What makes shoes a good product to sell?

What I do like about selling shoes is that you reach a broader target audience. Everybody has a different style, a different flare, and they have choices. The one thing I don’t like about Shopify is that it sometimes has your inventory off if you carry a lot of products. I have over 172 different products, which are shoes, and a lot of times my inventory is off because there’s a glitch with Shopify.

What do you like about Shopify as a platform?

I like the fact that I can use different programs to make my business run smoothly, and that they integrate with a lot of different apps. I also like that they give a lot of information and you could take a lot of courses with them – anything pretty much to update your ecommerce and make it run efficiently.

Did you have any issues?

As I stated before, the only issue I have with them is that sometimes it has your inventory off, so you have to continuously check your inventory if you have a huge amount.

What would you do differently?

When I launched my brand during the pandemic I didn’t know too much about Shopify, so I kind of jumped in blindly. If I had to do things differently I probably would’ve researched it more so I wouldn’t have made so many mistakes when I launched.

5 Price Your Shoes Fairly

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Setting the right prices is another crucial aspect of your ecommerce shoe business. High prices can deter customers, while low pricing can eat into your profit margins. It’s all about striking a balance.

To determine your shoe prices, consider factors such as product cost, competitor pricing, and your profit goals. Here are some helpful strategies to keep in mind:

• MSRP (Manufacturer Suggested Retail Price): If you’re selling brand new shoes, this is the price recommended by the wholesaler or manufacturer
• Keystone pricing: This involves charging twice as much as the wholesale cost of your shoes.
• Competitive pricing: Research competitor prices, and use these as benchmarks to price your shoes accordingly.

6 Set Up Your Online Shoe Store

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You already know about which types of platforms you can use to set up an online store. Now, the question is this: How do you actually set up your online shoe store? Let’s break this query down into a step-by-step guide, which will show you how to set up online shoe stores across different platforms.

Create your Own Online Store

A well-designed and mobile-responsive ecommerce website can be a great avenue for selling shoes online. This is where online store builders such as Shopify and Wix can help.

These solutions make it easy for you to launch your own ecommerce website without needing any technical skills. They also take care of hosting, performance, and other aspects of your online store. If you’re ready to follow this route, here’s our complete guide to launching an online store.

Create a Seller Account on a Marketplace

To sell through an online marketplace, you’ll need to register as a seller. For example, if you want to sell on eBay, you can simply create an account, list your products, and start selling.

If you’re just starting out, creating a seller account is free. Then – as your business grows – you’ll be able to pay a premium monthly subscription to create your own eBay Store.

Sell on Social Media

Social media is another great place to start selling shoes. Most of the top social media sites have unique features specially designed for businesses.

For example, you can use Facebook Shops to build a shopping experience for Facebook users, and sell shoes on the platform. Better still, you can make your storefront there look like your own website, instead of just a standard Facebook page. For more information, check out our guide to selling on Facebook.

7 Package And Ship Your Shoes

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Your online store is all set. Now, you need to plan for the packaging and shipping of your shoes. Good packaging is essential for protecting your shoes from damage, and for creating a positive brand impression. Your packing material should be durable, appropriately sized, and lightweight.

Concerning shipping, customers prefer to have several options, so it’s important to partner with a courier service that can help you provide those choices. You can choose from services such as USPS, FedEx, and UPS. What’s more, you can even offer a real-time package tracking feature that will give your customers peace of mind.

8 Invest in Marketing

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Once you’ve listed your shoes online, it’s time to start marketing. To begin, identify the platforms where your target buyers are the most active.

These platforms could be search engines, social media networks, shopping websites, and so on. Then, promote your shoes according to the best marketing practices across these platforms.

For example, if you notice that your potential customers are most active on Facebook, you can adopt the best practices of Facebook marketing. These will include strategies such as creating a Facebook page, posting interesting content on a regular basis, and running advertising campaigns.

Similarly, if people are searching a lot for the type of shoes you sell in search engines, you should invest in Search Engine Optimization (SEO) and Paid Search Advertising strategies.

As you run these campaigns, keep a close eye on what’s working and what’s not, so you can invest in channels with the most return – and pull the plug on the others!

9 Learn From Mistakes

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Anyone who’s tried to sell anything online can attest to the fact that it’s not easy. As a new seller of shoes, the biggest mistake you can make is to see your business as a get-rich-quick scheme, or something you can leave to tick away in the background.

Apart from that, chances are you’re going to encounter all sorts of issues along the way – but this is inevitable, so don’t sweat it! Still, the people who succeed in selling shoes online are those who treat it as a serious undertaking, and continually learn from their mistakes.

So, be ready to invest a good deal of time, effort, and energy (not to mention your heart and sole) into your shoe-selling dream – and you’ll increase your chances of turning it into a reality!