We have created an e-shop that is successful in several markets

What is hobby-horsing?

It is a sport or hobby that combines elements of gymnastics, running and simulates horse dressage or parkour. Younger girls under the age of 18 devote themselves to it. The boom was mainly seen in Finland. It requires a wooden "horse on a pole" and that's what it's all about.

An essential tool for hobby horsing, it offers a lot of possibilities to impress during races with a nice design and interesting accessories. Therefore, in addition to variously designed horses, the e-shop also contained several accessories. From the beginning, there were dozens of products.

Step one: Selection and preparation of the e-shop

In this case, our choice was clear from the beginning – we have experience with the platform Shoptet, which is suitable for most e-shops – it offers everything you need from the first launch and you can grow together with the e-shop. So we prepared the structure of the website, the design suitable for the target group and set everything up so that the e-shop can be launched before the Christmas season.

What to watch out for?

If you are serious about an e-shop, be sure to always consult an expert about the idea. Then either entrust him with the entire implementation or have him by your side for consultations. Pay attention to the details that you think about before you start.

It is important to know the market – is there competition? How does it work? What about pricing? Will I be competitive? Is my product better? What about my customer service?
Product offer – Is the product well presented on the e-shop? Will the customer learn everything he needs in text as well as in a picture or video?

Promotion – do I know how potential customers will find out about the product? Do I have a budget set aside for the start and do I know how I will manage the advertising?

Communication - I have to be available to customers not only by e-mail, but also through other channels - by phone or even on chat. Do I figure it out myself or do I teach other colleagues everything?

shipping and payment – how I will deliver goods to customers, what I will offer them for payment options. The customer in the Czech Republic is very pampered, and in the last step of the purchase, a bad offer can lead to his loss.

We solved all this at the beginning for our client and thus allowed him to concentrate on the most important thing, the offer of products and their production.

Step Two: Promotion

Even if the product was very successful and original, it would have been very difficult to break through online without advertising. After a few weeks of launching the e-shop and catching all the first mistakes, we prepared first campaign – orders from them in the value of CZK 79,000 made up 2/3 of the total deals. From the beginning, however, we made sure that the investment in advertising did not exceed the profit. That is to say the ad was profitable from the first weeks.

Even so, the original strategy was primarily focused on maximizing turnover. While tapping into the market potential, we focused on leveraging an audience that was already familiar with the product. Simple targeting of phrases related to hobby horsing in search engines and targeting websites dedicated to sports.

The results were significantly better than we expected, which is why we continued to gradually build awareness of the product with the help of banner campaigns on the content network.

Step 3: Expansion into other markets

Thanks to the unequivocal success on the Czech market, the client was interested in expanding - so we chose two neighboring countries - Germany and Austria. An advantage for us thanks to one language - we translated the e-shop, used the extension for language mutations on Shoptet and set out to conquer new markets.

However, more was needed come up with further modifications to the specifics of the market – other payment methods (extension with PayPal), but also another search service – Bing.

After two years of work on campaigns and the development of the e-shop, the e-shop is at a stage where it generates monthly sales of hundreds of thousands in the Czech Republic and the same for the German mutation.

We are glad that we contributed to the hard work of the owners and their colleagues and contributed to the success of hobby-horse.cz.

Do you want to help with the creation or improvement of the e-shop and its promotion? Do not hesitate to contact us - by email at online@www.promogen.cz or by phone at 775 505 477. We will be happy to help you grow too!