eCommerce has been occupying a growing chunk of retail sales worldwide. Over the last two years, eCommerce sales have grown more than 25% and this trend will become even more evident in the upcoming years. But since the importance of eCommerce is evident to most business owners, the competition has gotten very stiff as well. If you want to succeed in retaining and growing a profitable eCommerce, here are some steps you can take to get there.
Automation.
One of the best things you can do for your eCommerce business is to automate as many things as possible. It’s impossible to tend to every single detail of your business, especially after you’ve started to gain some traction and accumulate a large number of customers. So get ahead of the curve and save time and money by automating parts of your business.
Of course, you can apply this logic to the entire process, as new and unexpected things always come up, but when it comes to repetitive tasks, go ahead and automate. It will save you time and energy you can use to work on other aspects of your business and garner improvement there, for example, content strategy, marketing, or even new ventures.
Smooth payment processing.
It’s easy to think that as long as the customer is interested in purchasing the product, nothing can really discourage them. In reality, having a complicated checkout process or using a subpar payment gateway can easily discourse your potential clients. Make sure that you use one of the best payment gateway options so that your clients can have a seamless checkout experience, which will encourage them to come back for another purchase later on.
SEO plan.
If you aren’t already prioritizing SEO, it’s time to get on top of that. If you are working on your SEO but it’s not on your priority list, it’s time to put it there.
These days you will find that each industry, even extremely niche ones, has its best SEO practices. This is because when your services or products appear at the top of the search results list, you will be able to tap into a completely new audience.
An excellent tip to keep in mind when planning your SEO strategy is to optimize your content for voice, text, and video-based searches to ensure you aren’t missing out on the chunk of your potential customers finding your product. Increasing SEO efforts will always pay off with increased e-commerce sales.
Reviews and testimonials.
With so many scams and sub-par offers on the market, modern customers have become extremely wary of trying new things. One of the best ways to encourage them to engage with your product or service is to have reviews, ratings, and testimonials. On average, customers will look at ten reviews before making a purchase, so make sure they find those reviews about your product or service.
While you may think that these come without any effort on your part, at the end of the day, the more reviews you have, the more the new customers will likely trust you and engage with your product. So put some effort into ensuring that your existing customers share their thoughts and experiences, whether on your website or other platforms.
Plus, reviews are one of the most effective ways to find out what your customers are missing from your current product, or what areas of improvement you may not see from your point of view.
Lastly, responding to reviews and engaging with customers will also help boost your SEO score, and you will appear even higher on the search results page.
Affiliate marketing strategy.
If you aren’t already using affiliate marketing, get on it as soon as possible. Affiliates are people who will market and promote your product for you in return for a commission. It is a simple strategy that essentially takes care of itself, so you won’t have to spend too much time figuring it out or managing the affiliates. It’s a simple and relatively cheap way to reach new audiences and increase e-commerce sales.
Paid advertising.
While it’s always good when customers find you organically, it does not mean that you should not invest in paid ads. To increase sales, you should make sure that you use all the available methods to advertise your product to audiences. While it’s not the most affordable way to get new customers, it’s the one that gives you the highest return on investment. For the best results, use a search engine and social media advertising together.
Brand awareness.
The importance of brand awareness for e-commerce can not be overstated. Building brand awareness isn’t just advertising, though. You will need to seriously up your presence online, not just through the sheer amount of advertisements but general content. For example, you can use your social media or a blog to educate your customers and add more value to your digital footprint. It will also give you more opportunities to engage with your customer directly and create more lasting ties with them.
Customer-friendly return policy.
While it may seem counterproductive to those who are new to e-commerce, there’s a reason why all major e-commerce brands have a very customer-centric returns policy. This is because over 70% of customers say that an easy return experience makes them much more likely to purchase from the same eCommerce brand again.
Providing a seamless return experience for your clients can also do wonders for your reputation, which is priceless. In addition, it will encourage your clients to come back for more and purchase your other products with more confidence knowing that if they change their minds, they won’t have to deal with endless hurdles, as seen with the majority of small or medium-sized eCommerce businesses.
Don’t be discouraged if you can’t implement these tips all at once. Even if you add a couple of them to your overall business strategy, you will definitely see growth in the upcoming year.
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