If the last two years have taught us anything, it is that nothing is certain.
One thing is certain, even if eCommerce retailers may dealing with some impending uncertainty this year. Both consumers and business owners have shown a great deal of resiliency. Store owners should think about what they already know about the state of eCommerce as we approach the new year and be ready for anything that might come up.
In order to assist your eCommerce business succeed and expand this year, we’ve put up a list of ten tactics and pointers.
Build a community
Creating a brand community encourages connection and loyalty from customers. This involves building a genuine relationship with your customers in addition to increasing brand awareness.
It all comes down to the exchanges and discussions you have with your clients. Social media sites like Facebook, Instagram, and Twitter are where a lot of this takes place. However, more and more companies, such as Lush UK, are re-establishing their communities on their own online stores.
Consider the beauty and personal care company Sephora, which offers a number of community-focused services such as groups, brand Q&A sessions, a gallery of user photos and videos, and an event center .According to the Harvard Business Review, brand communities are beneficial in a number of ways, such as by resolving problems within the community and lowering the number of
Including
A forum on your website is an underappreciated way to build a community around your company. With the aid of forums, you may create engaging dialogues and actively and hospitably increase customer advocacy. Because you can observe your most ardent customers discussing your goods and services, they are also an excellent way to get more in-depth feedback from your clients.
Think like a brand marketer
Small merchants find it challenging to stand out due to the abundance of eCommerce sellers, which include established shops like Walmart, online giants like Amazon, and up-and-coming direct-to-consumer companies like Warby Parker and Allbirds.
As you learn how to launch a firm, you discover that it takes a lot of branding effort to set your brand apart in this crowded market. However, for eCommerce businesses, increasing brand recognition and loyalty is especially crucial.
Pro Tip:
Almost 80% of buyers make purchases based on the brand name. More than 80% of investors prioritize brand recognition, demonstrating their enthusiasm for strong brands. Online business owners this year will have to approach every step with the mindset of a brand marketer. This entails establishing a community (see above), embracing social media, concentrating on producing and delivering high-quality content, and taking advantage of opportunities such as subscription sales options (as well as AI in eCommerce), eCommerce gift cards, and various fulfillment options to increase customer satisfaction and loyalty.
Promote Recurring Business
Selling to a satisfied customer is far simpler than selling to a complete stranger. Don’t disregard customers who have already expressed a preference for your goods. They will return if you provide them with excellent customer service, premium goods, and affordable prices. They might even tell their pals, if you’re lucky.
Too many companies focus the majority of their marketing efforts on attracting new customers to their website. They overlook the fact that they already have a loyal client base of pleased customers who will gladly come back whenever they require a replacement or related new product. Certain businesses give their best deals to new clients, which can make current clients feel ignored, undervalued, and unloved. This can lead to repeated churn as customers switch suppliers in order to receive another “welcoming” discount, and it can be more noticeable when you use the subscription model.
Pro tip
You might think about offering your current consumers on particular product lines promotions like “buy one, get one free,” depending on your markup. Giving your consumers loyalty cards that offer a specific reward after a predetermined amount of use is another popular strategy. This covered in greater detail in a thorough guide to eCommerce loyalty programs that Antavo has prepared.
Examine new avenues for sales.
Paid Facebook and Google Ads are no longer sufficient for brands to generate demand. Given how many channels customers use during their whole purchasing process, a varied marketing strategy is the only viable way to develop an eCommerce firm.
Amazon is an excellent illustration of this; according to recent research, more than 70% of American consumers start their product searches on the e-commerce behemoth’s website.
Therefore, knowing how to sell on Amazon (and having a plan to start selling on the platform) should be part of your eCommerce strategy.
Provide gift cards for eCommerce.
Digital gift cards have the potential to increase sales, foster consumer loyalty, and raise brand exposure. Over the past year and a half. The use of digital cards has increased dramatically due to a number of pandemic trends.
Among these are the growing need for sophisticated payment methods and the pervasiveness of mobile purchasing, particularly smartphone use. This industry is growing at an astounding rate. In 2020, the worldwide digital gift card market brought in $258.34 billion. By 2030, this expected to rise to $1,101.03 billion. ECommerce gift cards can help your online store in a variety of ways. With specialized “gift card” landing pages, they may boost your search engine rankings. Draw in new clients, and draw in last-minute holiday consumers to your website.Â
Given that users typically overshoot the card amount by an average of roughly $60,.Gift cards also help increase income above and beyond the card’s cost.
They’re also a fantastic method to thank devoted clients for coming back.
Encourage the acquisition of zero-party data
Information that a consumer provides to a company directly is known as zero-party data. In contrast to first-party data, it excludes social network profiles. CRM, website analytics, and other client data that is given indirectly.
Because privacy laws like California’s CCPA and Europe’s GDPR restrict the gathering
and sharing of customer data by third parties without the approval of the user. Zero-party data is becoming more and more significant.
eCommerce personalization is made possible by zero-party data, which lets you tailor content to your consumers’ online shopping experiences. Such as offers, promotions, and product recommendations. Since you probably already have a database of customer information and people are prepared to give their data to businesses when there is a definite advantage, concentrating on this method is cost-effective.
Offer cross-selling and upselling
The goal of both cross-selling and upselling is to provide more value from a sale. They also offer the benefit of strengthening your bond with a client, which eventually promotes repeat business.
Upselling is the practice of persuading clients to buy a similar, more expensive product than the one they were first contemplating. Cross-selling is the practice of urging clients to purchase complementary or related goods.
For instance, you might have written an eBook that you offer for sale through your online store.
You might program a pop-up to appear when a consumer buys the eBook, recommending that they purchase a more costly “elite” version that contains more sections. This is an example of an upsell since you are offering them a more lucrative and updated product rather than the more basic one. Product feature charts are a common way to upsell, showing the consumer how much more value the more expensive item offers compared to the less expensive one they were initially planning to buy.
Despite having to pay more, the consumer will typically leave feeling more satisfied because of this additional perceived value.
Finding complimentary items that provide satisfaction that the original item is unable to provide is known as cross-selling. These products are frequently ones that the buyer could have bought anyhow. Cross-sells are frequently found on the checkout pages of online merchants. Amazon frequently does this, for instance, when they recommend additional products that you might find interesting.
Both of these strategies can lead to recurring business and demonstrate the breadth of your product line.
Create a program for client advice
Most companies want to know what motivates, inspires, and drives their consumers, but it can be difficult to gather this data from straightforward surveys or customer feedback forms.
You can gain a deeper understanding of your company by developing a customer advisory program. Advisory programs don’t have to be expensive and are excellent for fostering a sense of community. You can encourage your clients to engage by giving them free items or gift cards.
A successful customer advisory program gathers valuable input from your customers regarding your company, goods, and user experience through a variety of outreach techniques (such as focus groups, surveys, beta testing, etc.).
eCommerce businesses can experiment with alternative messaging and learn more about the products that customers like. Gaining insight into preferred online payment methods, developing more user-friendly and conversion-focused user experiences, and uncovering subtleties like whether clients want international purchase possibilities are all made possible via advisory input.
Create a model for a story-driven product detail page
It takes balance to create product description pages that are engaging, conversion-focused, and effective. For consumers to be motivated to buy, a number of factors must cooperate.
Lack of information, clear photos, a badly designed call-to-action, and a lack of trust-building components (such as accreditation badges, a link to the return policy, etc.) cause the majority of customers to leave product sites.
Through the use of thorough product descriptions, eye-catching images (including video components), and persuasive social proof in the form of badges and customer reviews/ratings, merchants may maximize the purchasing experience by making every product page tell a narrative. Additionally, you should communicate urgency and explicitly indicate product availability (e.g., low supply, shipping cutoffs around the holidays, etc.).
A product page with a narrative includes clear, educational product descriptions together with pertinent details (e.g., the model’s size and specifications). It should address your target market directly, convey the qualities and advantages of the product in an understandable manner, and evoke feelings (e.g., festive, cozy, comfy, etc.).
Spend money on content
eCommerce businesses may engage, educate, and inform their clients with the use of appropriate content. The bare minimum of material for your online store should be included on your category, home, and product detail pages.
You must synchronize message across all customer touchpoints and integrate your content and commerce strategies if you want to sell online.
Plan your content according to the needs of your customers while creating an eCommerce marketing strategy. Ensure that people may get information about your products on mobile devices and on social media.
Every channel that your material will be displayed on should be considered in your content strategy. For ease of retrieval and repurposing, content should be available and documented.
Making a wish list (e.g., live stream video events, long-form blog entries, updated product photos, etc.) and auditing your current content to see what’s missing and out of date is a wonderful way to start creating content for the upcoming year. This will assist you in comprehending the resources and schedule required to regularly produce and distribute content all year long.
Try out new markets
If nothing else, the internet is a huge worldwide marketplace that makes it difficult to distinguish between local buying and selling. Purchasing power is increasing globally. Eighty-five percent of the 1.4 billion middle-class individuals worldwide lived in Asia-Pacific nations in 2020.
Let’s just say that now is a better time than ever to explore new eCommerce marketplaces. For digital store owners looking to enter new markets, international eCommerce offers a plethora of opportunities.
According to our own statistics, Wix online store owners that sell internationally typically see sales that are almost 700 times higher than those who don’t. Researching local laws and regulations in detail is crucial when exploring new markets. You should also localize your store (for example, by adding native languages, making sure the content is culturally relevant, and hiring a native speaker to assess all website features).
You may stand out from the competition by selling to new markets. It’s a fantastic method to expand your online store