With the rapid digital awareness in this age and time, every industry is expanding so quickly that we can barely tell what is in vogue for a particular industry.
True to your guess, one of these industries is the e-commerce industry, which has the fastest significant growth rates as a result of the trend of online shopping dominating the world.
Interestingly, people from all over the world prefer purchasing from online stores because it helps them save time and energy.
Therefore, do you have ambitious plans to sell, increase your audience, outperform your rivals, and win over more online clients with e-commerce businesses but don’t know how to go about it? If Yes, Congratulations!!! You are at the right place.
For an online store to remain relevant and profitable, it must implement the following necessary practices.
- Create a favorable impression for customers and clients
- Always be available for customer support
Therefore, you need to be equipped with the most up-to-date e-Commerce tips and tricks to become a successful e-Commerce brand.
In this blog, the fundamental and most-up-to date e-Commerce tips and tricks for a successful e-commerce business in e-Commerce websites and e-Commerce marketing will be discussed in details.
Ecommerce entrepreneurs, both new and existing ones, should engage these tips meticulously to build a successful e-commerce brand and rank high in e-Commerce sales.
Read on to get these tips for a successful business in the e-commerce industry.
E-Commerce Website Tips
How can I increase and get more sales on my website store? This is the question asked by all e-Commerce entrepreneurs since the dawn of time whether new entrepreneurs or existing entrepreneurs in e-Commerce website brands.
The answer to this question is the right website design. Having the right and great design for your e-Commerce store is essential because it boosts sales, expands your customer base, and builds your brand.
Designing a website for e-Commerce is different from creating a regular website because it entails highlighting products, enhance cross selling, and gives customers a seamless purchasing experience.
So, are you a new entrepreneur in e-Commerce or are you looking for ways to know how to advance your website store?
Here are the top 15 e-Commerce website tips for best practices to help you to develop your website successfully.
1. Find an Ecommerce Platform That Can Grow with You
Image credit: shopify.com
Every strong business is built on a platform. The platform is the foundation of any successful e-Commerce business.
A strong platform is necessary to create a national and multinational business empire.
Therefore, when thinking about developing an e-Commerce website, you need to find and pick a platform that has a track record of success, can grow with you, and can handle the volume you anticipate in the future.
Platforms such as BigCommerce, Magento, Shopify, etc. are ones with a strong foundation and a good record of more sales.
With the right platform, you can get your customers to interact with your site with the right theme that must look good and perform well.
2. Create unique contents based on search engine optimization (SEO) strategies
Unique content will determine whether you succeed or not in your e-Commerce business.
It is imperative to know that improving sales at your store and generating organic traffic of customers on your site is paramount for the content of your website.
Creating this unique content can only be achieved by engaging in SEO practices.
Search optimization engine is the science that many content writers employ to make their content unique and rank highly on search platforms to generate organic traffic for their content or blog post.
SEO optimization strategies help you grow your website by helping you organize your title, meta-description, keywords, and URL that ensure you provide high-value content for your customers.
3. Be mobile-friendly
To succeed as an e-Commerce website brand and make more money, your website must be mobile-friendly.
This means you should develop themes and websites that function properly not only on desktop computers but on mobile devices.
In a report by Statista about 49.7% of page views on e-Commerce websites were made on mobile devices.
This is because many users can easily search, browse, and make purchases from their phones and other mobile devices.
Therefore, if your business is not yet mobile-responsive, you are losing out on almost 50% of your potential customers.
4. Use more photos
Whether you like it or not, consumers will only give you about 10 seconds of their time to your platform before they know whether to stay or leave.
Therefore, you must be direct and innovative to catch their attention in a few seconds and keep them reading until you can explain in more detail.
The way you can achieve this is by using more photos for the theme of your website.
Photos are the perfect solution for maintaining viewer interest and keeping their attention on your page.
Using more photos on your site is essential for success because before making a purchase, most customers want to view a product from as many perspectives as they can. This is possible by offering clear, excellent, and real product images.
5. Use live chat
When you’re designing your e-Commerce site, add ways for your potential customers to interact with you and ask questions or express concerns about products to make significant improvements to their shopping experience.
This can be achieved by Live chat on your website in a highly visible spot.
A live chat provides an opportunity that can help your potential customers make faster and more comfortable decisions.
Creating a live chat for your site helps humanize your site as your users can interact directly with you or your employees to quickly answer their questions and provide support, which will be such a great experience for your customers.
Customers are more likely to purchase if they can get support quickly if they run into any issues. This can help increase the conversion rate and iron out any uncertainties.
6. Make sure customers have access to relevant information
A good e-commerce website should make it simple for your customers to find relevant information they need about the business or products they want, and this process begins with intuitive and efficient navigation.
This typically encourages customers to move from browsing to buying in your online store.
When visiting an e-Commerce store, there’s nothing more frustrating than having to search for their contact information on their site.
It’s enough to make website visitors get pissed and frustrated and leave the site without making any purchases.
Therefore, easy navigation to quick access to relevant information should be a top priority for you while designing your website.
You can achieve this by having a visible Contact Us page on your website to display your business information, making it easy for customers to contact you.
Also, having a visible About the product page that gives a brief description of the products they are about to get, pricing, and other relevant information about the product will be an added advantage to getting more customers.
7. Make your website visually appealing
Your e-commerce website should be visually appealing, offer a great user experience, and showcase your store to its fullest potential.
Customers are more likely to become interested in what you have to offer when you draw their attention visually (through color or a lightbox) to a sale or your newest products.
An eye-catching banner image on your homepage would encourage website visitors to visualize themselves using the product.
Even your blog posts should have lots of pictures or even a video to break up the text.
Your product pages should include multiple product images from various perspectives to entice customers to envision themselves using the product.
8. Create a FAQs page
Having a Frequently Asked Questions (FAQs) page on your site will be an added advantage to improve sales and build your e-Commerce brand successfully.
A FAQs page for your online store where you address the most frequent queries from customers and can share the link with clients who frequently have inquiries.
The FAQ page should also answer any questions regarding product-related matters such as sizing, shipping costs and times, refunds, and shipping policies.
9. Be intentional about building relationships with relevant influencers
Finding and building relationships with the best influencers relevant to your brand to market your products is an important approach that can guarantee customer experience and encourage customers to buy.
Although, this method takes a while, and even then, nothing is guaranteed. In the long run, using relevant influencers is important to build a successful e-Commerce brand.
10. Be Particular about Shipping Details
Shipping details of an online store are very important to the success and expansion of that store.
Many customers are always annoyed with inadequate shipping information about products in your store.
Therefore, you must be particular with showing shipping information about shipping prices, free shipping info, days of shipping and delivery, and many more.
Be particular about posting your shipping fees and policies on the home page and product pages of your website to help eliminate any unpleasant surprises to your customers.
11. Be specific with your product categories so customers can easily find exact products
Image credit: etsy.com
It can be so tempting to group all of your products into generic product categories, especially if you have very few products to display.
However, you should try to be a little bit more specific in your product categorization to envision the expansion and growth of your store.
Although it's common to find product categories like "Women," "Men," and "Children" in many stores, having them doesn't really help with SEO.
It is important to use product categories that help with SEO for customers to easily find the exact products they want with ease.
You can learn from the way that Amazon categorizes its products to find very specific items with ease.
12. Be consistent with presenting your brand across all your multiple social media platforms
Many e-Commerce businesses make the error of only being present on one social media platform.
Utilizing multiple platforms, though it may require a little more work, gives you a competitive advantage.
Present your e-Commerce brands actively on at least three to four social networks. Never rely on a single platform because it might go away one day, leaving you with nothing.
Furthermore, while using multiple platforms, it is more important to maintain a consistent brand presence across all of your platforms.
The colors and messaging, for instance, should be consistent between your website and your social media pages like Instagram.
The tone of your support team’s response on these social media platforms should be similar to that of your website, whether that be conversational, informal, formal, etc.
13. Create Call-to-Action & Sign-up buttons
Call-to-Action (CTA) buttons are highly effective in enhancing site usability. They help site visitors make decisions easily and promptly.
Popups and sign-up buttons can be used toward your call-to-action to direct your customer’s attention.
However, it is important to make your CTA buttons stand out throughout your website for them to be effective.
This can be achieved by increasing the button size, using contrasting colors, and selective placement.
14. Ensure the protection of your user’s data and personal security
One way to build and gain potential customers is trust between the customer and the merchant. It is critical for eCommerce sales that you build trust.
Providing a system that protects your customer’s data and personal security is an immediate improvement that builds trust.
Therefore, you must assure customers that your site is safe, reputable, and has the necessary features to protect their privacy.
This can be done by having every page on your website, not just only the payment information pages, encrypted using HTTPs protocol to ensure and keep your customer’s data safe.
15. Don’t forget Thank you pages
Creating an easy and seamless checkout experience can be achieved by adding the Thank you page to your website.
A thank you page can serve as a confirmation page for purchases being made.
Thank you, pages allow users to be confident and confirm that their purchase has gone through and that you appreciate their patronage.
They can also be used to properly track conversions from social media ads or order confirmation to purchase.
E-Commerce Marketing Tips
Ecommerce marketing involves using advertising strategies to attract visitors to your online store, turn those visitors into buyers, and keep those buyers coming back for more.
A comprehensive e-Commerce marketing plan includes both on- and offline marketing techniques.
You can raise brand awareness, encourage customer loyalty, and ultimately boost online sales with the aid of a solid e-Commerce marketing plan.
Are you interested in increasing traffic and conversions on your online store but don’t know which eCommerce marketing tips to use?
If yes, here are 12 handy eCommerce marketing tips to implement to generate purchases from the new and existing customer base and help your brand grow.
1. Find a manufacturer that Aligns with your values
If you are not a manufacturer that runs an eCommerce store, then you need to align with manufacturers that can provide value and support for your brand.
This means that you have to be consistent with your brand portfolio and manufacturers’ values and proposition. This encourages customers to make purchases and boosts retail sales.
2. Commit to a schedule for consistency
You should commit to a regular schedule when opening or remodeling a new online store so that your customers will know when to check back.
For instance, if you regularly update your website with new products, you should do so on the same day of the week to encourage visitors to return on that day each week.
If you commit to a blog, posting on the same days will entice readers to return. You start to lose your customer loyalty as soon as you start acting inconsistently.
3. Make Customer Footprints Visible
Making customer footprints visible is a profitable way to generate customer traffic on your online store.
You can achieve this by star rating options and feedback options, which creates social proof for potential customers.
Let your customer rating and reviews be located on a visible spot on your product description to encourage other customers to validate your products and brand.
4. Invest in Email Marketing
Email marketing is the key channel to boosting sales and promoting your business in e-commerce marketing.
With email marketing, you can increase e-commerce sales by instilling a sense of urgency and scarcity for a particular product that needs a sales boost.
Email marketing promotions are usually specific and personal as they are only sent to people who have either purchased a product in the past or those that have signed up for your list.
Therefore, to succeed as an e-commerce marketer, you must invest in email marketing strategies.
You need to send regular, valuable emails for the email marketing channel to be an effective e-commerce marketing activity.
5. Use your customer reviews
Leveraging and utilizing customer reviews is a whole new approach to going about e-commerce marketing to build trust and promote your business.
Many customers will rather trust what a fellow customer says about a product than the e-commerce brand itself.
They believe their fellow customers have a better idea of what is good or not.
Therefore, they are easily persuaded by positive reviews from other happy customers that bought from your store.
So, it is important to use customer reviews and testimonials to help gain the trust of potential customers.
Customer reviews have been proven to be more influential than even perfectly written sales copy.
Encourage customers to provide reviews and feedback about products and your brand across your social media platforms.
6. Put thought into your copy
Adding your sales copy of products imported into your store is an essential part of attracting potential customers and getting more sales.
The bullet points description of a product is there to provide customers with information about a product.
However, it does not by itself encourage customers to buy or increase sales.
You can increase sales by putting thought into writing a sales copy describing the product better by outlining how the product benefits your customer, mentioning features, and also explaining how to use the product.
Such that a customer can frequently read the copy to be sure about a product and persuade them to buy it.
7. Add a flash sale section
Adding a flash sale section to your store is one of the simplest ways to achieve urgency that can boost sales at your store.
The urgency factor is adding a countdown clock on products in the flash sale category.
The Flash sale section should be added in the top navigation of your page to make it easy and simple for customers to find these sale items and receive the most clicks on your page.
To ensure that you always have a fresh selection of products to keep customers coming back for more deals, you should rotate the products you add once a week.
8. Give out discounts
Discounts are a perfect approach to boosting sales, creating a loyalty program, and increasing the volume of traffic to your store.
There are several methods to employ to give out discounts in an e-commerce store.
You give out discount sales in terms of buy one get one free, seasonal sale, product brand promotional codes, discount by volume, or by influencers promotional codes.
The downside of giving out discounts as an e-commerce store is that it impacts the average order value of your business.
9. Create a strong sense of urgency
Creating a strong sense of urgency for your customers is all about engaging the psychology of scarcity in humans.
You can create this sense of urgency by adding limited time left in the sale of products or adding a few units left to show countdown clocks on the product.
The psychology of scarcity makes people place orders and make purchases quicker than they would normally have done.
For instance, if a customer is so much interested in a product and notices that it has a countdown clock on the units left, he or she will feel the urgency to buy it now and then.
If there is now a discount option for this product, the customer will be left with no doubt to just buy the product right away.
10. Leverage real-time personalization
An additional powerful marketing strategy for increasing online sales is real-time personalization.
Customers are provided with personalized experiences based on their prior choices and actions using behavioral data.
According to research studies, personalization is revealed to increase sales by up to 10% and generate large traffic of potential customer base.
To tailor an experience to your customer’s locations, you can take location into account when personalizing.
Send customers personalized marketing messages based on their browsing history, interests, and preferences.
You can ensure that they are appropriately targeted and more likely to elicit a response in this way.
11. Run an influencer marketing campaign
Influencer marketing is a clever strategy to help your online store grow.
It enables you to collaborate with creators who generate revenue for you, expand your brand awareness, and reach new audiences.
Influencers serve as brand ambassadors for your business and are comparable to online celebrities.
You compensate them for promoting your goods by giving them free merchandise, money, or discounts. Finding relevant customers is made incredibly easy with influencer marketing.
12. Reward loyal customers
Creating a loyalty program is an incentive way to reward loyal and repeat customers and keep customers around your store and business.
This is because getting new customers is more difficult than keeping existing customers.
Therefore, your goal is to always provide an opportunity to give rewards to your repeat customers. Such that they even refer and bring in new customers.
How you go about this is entirely based on your personal decision. You either achieve it by giving discount coupons, reward points, free shipping, or reward points to the relevant customers.
Frequently Asked Questions
Which e-commerce platform is best?
The top best e-commerce platforms are Shopify, Zyro, Wix, BigCommerce, Squarespace, and Bluehost.
What are the three types of eCommerce business?
E-commerce is divided into three main categories: business-to-business (represented by websites like Shopify), business-to-consumer (represented by websites like Amazon), and consumer-to-consumer (websites such as eBay).
Does eCommerce really work?
Yes, e-commerce still works and is very profitable only if you plan and carry out your strategy.
These markets are still experiencing significant growth as consumers continue to switch from offline to online shopping.
Is eCommerce still profitable in 2022?
Yes, e-commerce has been generating record profits since 2020 and is expected to expand progressively in 2022.
What are people buying online the most?
According to a Statista statistic, people are buying books, movies, and games the most online more than any other product category.
As a result of this is the popularity of companies like Spotify, Netflix, and Disney+ among consumers.
Conclusion
Ecommerce is the new big market now for many businesses due to the rising surge in digital awareness.
Therefore, eCommerce entrepreneurs must engage the right tips and tricks for building a successful business.
In this blog post, I have shared useful tips to engage in eCommerce website design and eCommerce marketing to build a successful eCommerce business.
The fundamental goal of these tips is to ensure that you create a favorable impression for customers and clients which translates to more sales, more organic traffic, increased conversion rates, and high platform usability.
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