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Don’t you also want to earn millions of euros in online commerce, working only two hours a day on a beach in Thailand? Whether Dominican, or… any. Go on Tik-Tok, Facebook, Insta and all, right? No! There is still potential in Romania in this area, but it is necessary to invest in promotion. “The competition is quite high, and then I need promotion budgets to get results,” warns Raluka Radu, an entrepreneur and digital marketing expert, who at the beginning of the journey calculated how much she had to spend just to promote her online store.

The Internet has made commerce easier for both consumers and businesses. But it is not at all as easy as we were once promised by advertisements of miracle business solutions for beginners, such as “make money working only two hours a day, on the beach”.

About 200 entrepreneurs recently attended a free online marketing course at the Small Business Support Center hive, from Bucharest. The numbers still correspond to beginners if we look at the potential of the market, which is not yet occupied by the giants of online commerce in Romania.

“It looks like we have about 16 million internet users in Romania, and this market is estimated at 6.2 billion euros – online trade at the end of 2021, according to ARMO and GPEC. As a percentage, online stores still account for less than 10% of total retail sales. The fact is that there is a lot of potential. Of the 16 million Internet users, the number of online shoppers is about 4 million. Those who are engaged in or want to trade online do not appeal to all Internet users, but to those who have already tried online shopping. But there’s a lot of market that hasn’t bought online yet,” says Raluka Radu, an entrepreneur and digital marketing expert.

However, this does not mean that the Internet is a cornucopia, and it is not a bag of Santa Claus. You invest in your e-commerce site or you list your products on a well-known marketplace. And you’re not done. Month after month you have to invest in online promotion.

“There are many companies at the beginning of the journey who rightly believe that online marketing is the easiest to promote, especially since the barriers to entry here are very low. It is important not to confuse low cost with low barrier to entry. I think that in online marketing the costs can be the same as in traditional advertising, but the big advantage is that I can only spend one lei if that’s all I have and I can advertise myself, no making large investments – I don’t necessarily need investments in graphics, advertising materials, etc.” – says Raluka Radu.

She also calculated what the minimum monthly expenses with promotion would be for an entrepreneur who is just trying his hand at the sea of ​​online commerce.

“The minimum to see some results, if I am a business at the beginning of the journey, will be 1,000 euros per month. In an online store, €1,000 is the entry threshold, but it also depends on what you sell. If you want to start an online electronics store now, I think you need a budget of at least 3,000 euros per month, take a look,” says the digital marketing expert.

What you do with your €1,000 is also important, as there are many promotion opportunities online, and not all of them are right for you. Buying people’s appearances in Google searches or sneaking into social media feeds in plain sight?

“It depends on the type of product. If you have a product that is already searched on Google, I would recommend one of the main promotion channels – Google Ads. But if it is a product that is not in demand or does not meet a clear need of the consumer, but is an impulse purchase, then you can advertise yourself on social networks: Facebook, Instagram, TikTok, YouTube,” advises Raluka Radu.

When it comes to social media platforms, Raluca has different approaches depending on the network. “It is important to see what is consumed in social networks”:

• “Enabled Facebook, users are more likely to see what their friends are doing, expect to read text, see another image. Romania has fewer videos. If you read articles from the outside, you are often told that video is more important than photography. This applies to most social networks, but not Facebook. why Because users don’t usually download videos and we’re not used to that kind of content.”
• “Enabled Instagrammost of us have seen that we have to download videos on Tik Tok we have no other chance. But on Facebook, users are not very used to video content, and we, as a brand, if we want to promote and use video, we run the risk of being perceived as advertising from the very beginning, and users will skip, skip our content.”
• “Enabled Tik Tok, people search for two types of content: entertainment, but they also use TikTok as a search engine. For Gen Z, TikTok has overtaken Google as a search engine, Gen Z is looking for how to change a spare tire right on TikTok.”
• “A large number of users who want to learn foreign languages ​​online are learning them on YouTube and TikTok.”
• “Enabled Instagram, the user enters to see aesthetic, beautiful content. I’m not interested in mom’s vacation photos, unless they’re pretty. Also on Instagram, in the Stories component, users expect to see authentic content. Also on Instagram looking for stars So Instagram users are much more likely to become friends with your brand than they are on Facebook.”
• “Facebook it’s more about friends.”
• “YouTube has increased tremendously, with user viewing time almost doubling during the pandemic, reaching almost two hours of video per day consumed on YouTube (per person).
• “LinkedIn it is 3 million users (in Romania). It is much more expensive. However, LinkedIn has a big advantage: LinkedIn users have twice the purchasing power of other social media users. What’s even more interesting is that on LinkedIn, a user fills in their resume, all their experience, all their skills, their university, because LinkedIn is still a recruiting and networking network. And you have much more opportunity to target that business audience.”
• Pinterest it’s a less used online image platform, so it’s cheaper to promote here. It is used mainly by women, mainly in the beauty niche. If you have a business in this niche, you can get good value for money on Pinterest.

“In any social network, we have organic content and sponsored content. On Facebook, how many Facebook fans does an unpaid post reach? Less than 1%. Organic reach is very low on all social networks, but especially on Meta (Facebook, Instagram – no), it is below 1%. A few years ago, it reached 15%, but in the meantime it has been reduced,” warns an online promotion expert.

Have you heard of ROAS? It is important!

No matter where you decide to advertise yourself – Google Ads, social networks, YouTube, don’t forget about ROAS!

“When it comes to e-commerce, you’ll find ROAS right there. It comes from the profit from advertising expenses (the result obtained from advertising expenses is not). What I get from a marketing campaign is basically an indicator of the effectiveness of the marketing campaign. It is measured as income over expenses. If I ran a campaign and spent 400 lei and only one customer came back – let’s say I had a conversion rate of 1% and the customer bought 100 lei, that means I have a ROAS of 0.25. Woe to his star! I want ROAS to be supra-unitary,” explains Raluka Radu.

Okay, but can I do something for free, promote myself online? so…

“If a social network is new, if I’m among the first, there’s a chance I’ll get results quickly, but not otherwise. The competition is quite high and then I need promotion budgets to get results,” warns the digital marketing expert.

However, it really makes sense that we also do something to promote ourselves. “We need to do SEO – site optimization for search engines. I would start with that, but it will take years to see results because they are already big players, for a very long time, who have invested heavily in search engine optimization and the chances of me indexing well with a competitive product or service are slim to none. What I can do from the beginning is create very engaging content for the public, either on social media or on my blog – niche content. It also depends on what kind of talent you have, maybe writing comes naturally for me, or maybe filming myself, giving educational information. I’ve seen clients where the team also went into the entertainment zone, with funny content for their audience – service scenes, for example,” says the online marketing expert.

But even money is not enough:

“Besides the promotion budget, either I or whoever is doing the promotion has to have some technical knowledge. Digital marketing is on the border between classical promotion and the field of technical knowledge, behind are some artificial intelligence algorithms that classify the way advertising appears, the target audience. And then it’s very important to know that environment, I can have a little bit of success, that is, reach the audience I want, if I at least have the technical knowledge. And then it would be good either to learn some basic information in the industry yourself, or to work with someone specialized.”

Finally, any entrepreneur also finds himself in the position of a consumer. And the entrepreneur should learn from the consumer in it.

What do you do to avoid getting caught shopping online?

“As a consumer, it’s important to look at things related to trust marks: the online store has published contact information, return policy, shipping policy, terms and conditions – don’t buy from anyone, this – I can take it online. Be referrals to dispute resolution, consumer protection sites. It is important to have a cookie policy. I can look at reviews, reviews on Google, on social media platforms, if it’s a pin on Google Maps…” – advises Raluka Radu.

Okay, in any case, the Romanian consumer is careful when buying online:

“The percentage of online card payments is alarmingly low, 30% are online buyers, the rest pay by cash on delivery. It seems that people don’t really pay by card online because they don’t trust it. The first reason is that they don’t trust the merchants: they don’t believe that the goods will be delivered to them, that they will be delivered on time, that they won’t be given a brick in their eye. Then there are those who are afraid of online payments, they are afraid of phishing (scams with fake websites or emails that steal financial data, money – no). There are many consumers who either refuse to order or leave cash on delivery because they don’t know if they will have the money – it’s a kind of credit: I order because I have an impulse now, but I don’t know if I want to i pay more For those of you currently looking to start online trading, it is good to know that there is a very high bounce rate depending on the industry. In my experience, about 20% of clothes are rejected on delivery,” says Raluka Radu, entrepreneur and online promotion expert.

Do you still want to open your online store in 2023? Good luck!