Maybe you’ve been owning an online store for a few months, maybe for a few years or you are just thinking about starting. Either way, if you are reading this article, you are definitely wondering if you can increase your eCommerce growth.
Now, take a step back and look at everything you are doing so far. Are you good at it? Are you getting a lot of customers, are they buying your products? Most importantly is there anything you can do to improve your results? Well, the answer to the last question is yes and it always will be. You can always think about what more you can do and what more you can upgrade.
There are a lot of tips and strategies for a successful eCommerce business and they are all useful. But people often forget about the following. So, I decided to collect the most important ways to get you where you want to be with your online store.
First Steps in Increasing eCommerce Growth
Make a Plan and Set Goals
Whatever you are doing – stop. Take a list, open an app or your laptop, and make a plan. What do you want to achieve, what results are you hoping for, and where do you see your website next month, next year, and in a few? It all matters.
Set a timeline, be specific but also realistic. Make sure to set well-defined goals and follow them with time. This will help you figure out what your budget will be and how many resources you will use.
Use your logic to combine all of the factors in the best way so that you don’t have to change your course of action when you actually start to follow it through. For example, take the time to think about how long a certain task will take you.
When you are finished with all of them, make a calendar as well as the plan. This is not something to do in the beginning, but a must-do constantly. You can use the results of every accomplished plan and analyze them to improve your tactics for future eCommerce success.
Connect with People
Social Media Presence
We all know that communication and connection with people can be time-consuming but it also can be the key to increasing your eCommerce growth. It is indeed a very long and vast topic but it is also one of the most important points you need to keep in mind. Often, there are facts about social media that people forget. This article helps you prevent it.
Be present. Share your products and connect the items with people. It doesn’t matter if you are selling handmade jewelry, food, or computers. Always build a bridge to the faces that are going to look from the other side of the monitors. Except for pictures, show videos of how they’re made or maybe some “behind the scenes” action.
I’ll tell you a secret. Some owners of eCommerce businesses think it is best if they focus on one platform. For example, they post photos on Instagram, while others only share links to their website on Facebook. And third tweet news about their online store when there are any. Don’t do that!
You can never lose by growing your presence on every social media. Be everywhere and be there often! But don’t overdo it, because you don’t want to spam people’s free time, right? Before you start, get guidance on how to drive traffic to your website using social media.
Feedback and Conversations
Schedule time to ask people what they think. Make a poll on Instagram, create a Facebook open conversation or send an exit email. Ask them about a specific product they bought, or what about their order – was the shipping good, how fast was it.
Your customers are special and they most certainly should feel that way. After all, your eCommerce business is existing for them. You can also ask them what they would want to change: about the way your site is looking, the items, or anything actually. Here is more about how to track your online business reviews.
Communicating with your customers can go in different directions. You can easily set up an FAQ page (frequently asked questions) on your site.
Answer to the most common, be honest and open. This way you will exclude the basic questions and save time. After that, you can create a live chat and you don’t have to answer within the hour, but same-day is still a good approach for you. Make sure to put your contacts in a visible place and don’t forget to answer personal messages on your pages, profiles, and email.
Email Marketing and eCommerce Sucess
Some of you may think that email communication is forgotten but you’d be wrong. It still has the most power when considering connecting with others. If I take time to explain why it is so important, there won’t be enough time to actually tell you how to use it to achieve the wanted eCommerce growth.
First, keep in mind that email is not only used for people to contact you or the opposite. It can create one very beautiful and successful marketing campaign.
You have to create a list of potential or present customers (audience segmentation is really important), but only the ones that accept receiving emails from you. Now play with your mind. You can think of interesting ways to attract them.
Such as giving some discounts only to people who subscribed, sending special and private offers to them, and letting them be the first to know what is coming soon. Email marketing if given a lot of thought about can be a very effective way to grow eCommerce success. Make sure you acknowledge what is content marketing.
Focus and Expand
Promotions, Discounts, and Offers
As I gave you the hint this part is a must in online marketing, and I would be surprised if you haven’t already thought about it. Nonetheless, it is very important to use them properly and effectively if you want to increase your eCommerce growth.
The difference between small and bigger eCommerce businesses will be the key here. If you have a decent and well-developed larger online store you should use the discounts and promotions for increasing sales and intrigue new customers. On the other hand, if you are still small, you can use it for customer retention.
Always try to engage with people. Offer them promotion by getting them to do something first. It can be sharing their email, picking more products, giving you a review, sharing their purchases with friends, or if it is their first engagement with your online store.
Their interaction will be more valuable for you than the discount itself. It will draw them to getting back to you, and gain confidence and satisfaction from their decision to buy from you. To get closer to them, also read some more about product descriptions and how to influence them.
Research Competition
Ecommerce growth in sales is a worldwide phenomenon. People now sell products, and services, they even sell their thoughts. And with that, the competition has grown more than ever. How can you compete with others if you don’t know what they are doing? Exactly, you can’t. This is why you need to go out there and be Sherlock Holmes for a minute. Find out what they are offering, what social media are they on, what is their concept, what campaigns they have, and more.
This advice is only for helping you open your mind a little more to ideas and thoughts. Copying is not an option. By reviewing their advantages, you will find out what you are comparing to them. This will help you bring out the things you do best and show your customers why you deserve their trust.
Refund Policy, Shipping, and Guarantees
Talking about trust, there is no way we skip this. I saved it for one of the last, but it might as well be first. Do you shop from shady sites you know nothing about, and you can’t find their refund policy or shipping information? Do you check if you can return the product, what guarantees do you have? I hope so. Because it is what drives most people to the final step – buying.
Your eCommerce website cannot be considered complete if you don’t have those three marks. This is after all a human interaction and security is the conclusive point. Not only you won’t have eCommerce growth but you will find out no one wants to buy because they don’t feel safe doing it. Assure everyone that they can have complete faith in your store.
And when it comes to making your customer’s life easier on your website, read some eCommerce web design tips for creating the perfect business. It explains why the call to action button matters, how to provide the best possible customer support services, and website hosting specifics.
Last but Very Important
Upgrade Hosting and Grow
Let’s assume you already know how important your web hosting is. But when was the last time you checked how well your site is working? Is it loading your pages fast, do you need to upgrade your plan, and how well presented it is to your visitors.
Are you using free web hosting? The right host is extremely meaningful not only for your convenience but for your customers too. You need a strategy that is fitting all expectations so that you can provide the best experience for everyone and make sure you take care of your eCommerce growth.
If you are at the beginning of your journey take a look at Shared hosting. And if it has been a long time, you are growing and in need of something even more extensive, you might want to look at Semi-dedicated hosting.
Don’t forget that choosing the right plan for your web host has a very strong impact on your store. The quality of support, the power of security, the maintenance of high traffic that you’ll need when thousands of visitors are on your site, and space availability when your store expands. If you need help with choosing the best hosting service for you, check How to Choose a Web Hosting Service.
In Conclusion
When we are talking about increasing any eCommerce sales, we have to look at the big picture and also every little detail. This way we won’t lose our perspective and we can focus on what is right. The points I selected are not all the paths you can go through, but you can start from here.
In general, don’t forget that your website is going to be visited by ordinary people who don’t want to get lost in it, but to find a clean, simple, and attractive online space.
Think of it as your room – they are visitors and if it is messy they won’t know where you usually keep everything. For increasing your eCommerce growth make sure you provide not only an online store where people can buy things but a journey on which people can experience and engage.