There’s a lot more to selling online than listing on an e-commerce site or posting products and services on your website. E-commerce is about developing a relationship with your customers from piquing their interest to having them make a purchase.
There’s no shortage of customers since more and more people are doing their shopping online. But the competition is also fierce, so you have to develop an E-commerce strategy that will help you capture your intended market.
1. Establish your goals
The key to any successful E-commerce strategy is knowing what your goals are so that you can effectively draw a clear path towards achieving them. Your goals as a company should be expressed in concrete terms, such as how much revenue you would want to earn or how many customers you would like to attract in a given time period.
2. Identify your target audience
You cannot be everything for everyone. It is important that you define who your target audience is so that you can effectively market your products to them. There are many different ways to sell and what products to sell online. If you’re marketing to people who are not predisposed to purchase what you’re offering, you will only waste your precious time and money. Most businesses develop buyer personas to define who the perfect customer is.
3. Understand your competition
Determine what sets you apart from your direct competitor. Online customers do a lot of research before making a purchase. They will check if the quality of a product is worth the price you’re asking for, or maybe they’ll look at another e-commerce store to find a similar item for half the price. Your E-Commerce Strategy should take into account what your competitors are doing so that you can adjust accordingly.
4. Detailed product or service descriptions
It’s hard to know for certain what a customer is buying until the item arrives, so there might be a certain level of skepticism before deciding to make a purchase. It’s your job to make it easier for the customer to provide clear and detailed descriptions of the product or service you are trying to sell.
5. Offer discounts and other perks
Expensive shipping is one drawback of e-commerce because a lot of people don’t push through with their purchase when the cost of shipping is already factored in. When you offer discounts or promos like free shipping for a minimum purchase of X amount, you’re encouraging your customers to buy more from you.
6. Focus on user experience
If your e-commerce site isn’t user friendly, you will have trouble converting site visitors to buyers, even if you have a great selection of products or services to offer. The entire user experience must be seamless from doing a quick search, to messaging the retailer, to checking-out. A pro-tip is adding an automatic sign-in feature using the customer’s social media account so that they won’t have to bother creating their own profile on your site.
7. Upselling and Cross-selling
You may have noticed that every time you book a flight, the airline company presents you with the cheapest airfare but also provides more expensive options with more features, like extra legroom or priority seating. That is upselling.
Cross-selling, on the other hand, is when Amazon suggests products related to one being bought. It was reported that this technique accounted for 39% of the e-commerce giant’s sales.
8. Run Retargeting Ads
Most people who visit your site for the first time will likely not make a purchase. About 80% don’t proceed to checkout despite adding something to their cart. Remind them of items they were previously looking at by running retargeting ads on social media platforms and other websites. Setup Google Ad campaigns or offer limited promotions to re-engage their interest.
9. Optimize your site for mobile
69% of 2019’s Black Friday sales were made on mobile devices, and only about 31% on desktops. Mobile shopping shows no signs of slowing down, especially now that the global economy has started to pick itself up after the COVID-19 pandemic. You should optimize your e-commerce website for mobile devices for the best possible user experience.
10. Solicit customer feedback
One way to improve your e-commerce site and product offerings is directly asking your customers for feedback. Know what your customers like or don’t like about the business and ask for suggestions on how to improve on these. You can do these through social media surveys or by having a dedicated portion for feedback and comments on the site.
11. Establish trust with your clients
Your clients will be providing you with personal and sensitive information, such as their bank account details and home addresses, so ensure you handle these with care. You can go the extra mile by encrypting data that passes through your website. It’s also important that you’re transparent with every aspect of your business, from the cost of your products, shipping, and even tax expenses.
There’s no hard and fast rule on how to generate sales. You might find yourself having to experiment on different e-commerce strategies to check what sticks. The great news is that there’s always an opportunity to improve.
