By 2021, the predicted eCommerce share of total global retail sales will be 17.5%. In other words, just under one-fifth of the total sales in the world will be realized online. Whether this is a frightening prediction or a precise statistical probability is not the subject of the current article.
This, however, illustrates an increasing tendency that is no secret to anyone. The commercial interaction gets more and more digitalized with every passing year and getting on this board is imperative for any retail business.
Despite this ubiquity of online commerce, today it is not enough to merely be on the web. eCommerce businesses struggle with daily challenges to attract enough relevant audience which then converts into sales. With web hosting becoming more accessible than ever the actual challenge nowadays is differentiating your own business from the overflow of providers.
To be one of those brands that you look at for inspiration, you do not need to accumulate an insane amount of sales daily. What you need to do is follow some simple tips for small retail business websites and luckily enough, we have prepared not one but three of them!
1. Keep your audience in mind
Whenever a sale is made on your eCommerce website, you might be seeing just some numbers that register the transaction. In reality, however, an actual human is navigating through the net and deciding to trust exactly you and not someone else to provide the product they need. With this thought in mind, look at your retail website through the eyes of your customers.
So, why is this so important or useful in the case of finding a relevant audience? First of all, marketing a certain product online through promotional campaigns inevitably involves a psychological analysis of the prospective audience.
To comprehend their behavior online and to predict their decision-making, getting to know not only the demographics but the psychology of your customers is essential.
Keeping your audience in mind is not only useful for acquiring new customers but also obviously for retaining your already existing ones. Following the typical path visitors take on your website, their approach to your products, and the categories they’re interested in will give you an invaluable insight into their needs.
Getting back to them through email marketing or social media publications will allow you to form a meaningful relationship with the people who trusted you with their money.
2. Give your products a story
Aside from the audience’s personal interests, you can offer additional value with your products too. And we’re not talking about product bundles or freebies but something much more effective in modern-day marketing – storytelling.
When a product is presented to a group of people, its features and actual properties take up about 30% of what’s of actual interest to them. The rest is what you make the audience believe in such as a story accompanying the production or use of the product, a mission for its existence, and an innovation to one’s life.
Just look at any Apple presentation that still manages to take people’s breath away only by constructing an alternative reality where the product in question seems essential.
If you feel lost, whenever someone mentions storytelling, do not worry. You’re just one of the thousands who feel the same. Storytelling, however, does not have to be this exquisite art only accessible to a handful of talented creators.
You, as an owner of a small retail business, can also add a story behind your products. Try thinking of what makes your company stand out, what are values you follow through your work, and what is the story behind the production and application of the products offered.
Looking into these can provide you with an eternal resource of inspiration for stories that will be written with ease.
3. Sales pitches do not work
Is this true? Do sales pitches not work even a bit? What about the ‘buy one, get one for free’ types of pitches? No? Not at all?
Okay, let’s talk seriously. Yes, sale pitches were the wonderful creation of the advertising dawn when action verbs induced the expected behavior in the average consumer. Today, however, people have become so sensitive to advertising that an invisible filter appears in the mind of a person who feels like they are being sold something.
This has become such an obnoxious and annoying aspect of online media that users have learned to ignore them as magic.
To manage to get to these people who have such a low tolerance for advertising is speaking to them as humans. Interact with those humans. Show them that your products were manufactured by people and for people.
Who are you? Introduce yourself without the fancy stock images – just your environment, your team’s faces, and lives. Let people feel like they are actually putting their money into something human and approachable. This is what makes the difference between an average company and an exceptional one.
Where to now?
Marketing is an ever-evolving ever-branching field keeping pace with it is often almost impossible. To achieve a somewhat relevant behavior that suits modern times, it is enough to follow only three simple stips for small retail business websites.
Personalized marketing is taking over all advertising and getting in the brain of your customers is what actually helps companies turn into beloved brands that people remain loyal to. Also, constructing mythology around a simple product helps to turn it into a special item, owning which has the capacity to affect the quality of life of the consumer. And finally, while all of these matter just the same, retaining your humanity in the age of technology is what may actually put you on the map. And this is what fills your work with purpose.