We live in extremely competitive times, with more new and innovative businesses joining the playing field regularly, giving customers more options to choose from and other businesses more reason to level up their game. In addition, more people are switching to online purchases for almost anything under the sun, from food, clothes, and footwear, all the way to tech tools, books, and accessories. Furthermore, the current global crisis makes e-commerce all the more popular worldwide since social distancing and lockdown regulations have pushed more people to switch to online purchases. In this blog, we’ll analyze how to increase online sales and the steps you need to take to achieve it.
All in all, e-commerce will flourish and help revive the economy one smart sale at a time. However, from the perspective of a business owner, you still need to make sure that you’re doing everything in your power to run a competitive, customer-centric store. In this changing environment, you need to use the latest, most relevant strategies and ensure the success of your e-commerce business for years to come.
4 Ways To Increase Your Online Sales
Refine Your Retargeting Efforts
Considering the number of abandoned carts for any e-commerce business, retargeting campaigns are a valid strategy to help mitigate the issue, in addition to improving your checkout process, to which we’ll get shortly. Every time someone leaves the site mid-purchase, you have the opportunity to analyze the situation and target that specific user with a time-limited discount for a final offer. Then again, you can publish a content piece with an influencer review discussing that particular product line to increase sales.
Make sure that your ads showcase the specific products your customers or website visitors have browsed but haven’t yet bought. Showing those same ads to someone who has already made a purchase is likely wasted, so it’s best to refine your retargeting as much as possible.
Master the Art of Resource Management
Your inventory, the manufacturing process, the sales cycle, your supply chain – these are all crucial puzzle pieces in a complex network of processes that make each purchase happen successfully. Miss one step and you risk losing a customer for good.
To boost e-commerce growth, it’s essential to use reliable manufacturing software for small business operations that enable you to align all of your resources under a single digital roof and ensure a superb customer experience. That means that you’ll never have to worry about selling an item you no longer have in stock because of mismatched data or that your sales team doesn’t have access to customer information that can help them improve their lead generation strategy. Connecting all the dots within your e-commerce cycle is essential, and software solutions are the best possible way to achieve that.
Check Out Your Checkout Process
More often than not, customers are interested in your product, but they might not be too eager about the shipping costs, the available methods of payment, or the need to open a mandatory account with your store. That said, you might be losing loyal customers and even individual purchases because your checkout process isn’t fully optimized to serve your customers.
Some of the more common tips to improve the checkout process, and consequently, conversion rates, as well as your brand perception, include the following:
- Add clearly visible security seals
- Keep the checkout as short and sweet as possible – the fewer clicks, the better
- Show the complete price as early as possible to avoid surprise added costs – if possible, free shipping
- Add varied payment options
- Provide product tracking options
- Up-sell and cross-sell relevant products
- Include customer reviews
Data Analytics for Smarter Marketing
How do you know that your SEO strategy is on point, that your content is appealing, or that your customers are genuinely interested in a particular product collection? You don’t unless you turn to unbiased analytics tools that will help you analyze your website visitors, social media followers and shoppers, and their behavioral patterns. To put it simply, knowledge is power, even for digital marketers. Your strategy might need improvements you’re unaware of, hence the need to look for data-based facts.
Use tools such as Google Analytics to track what makes your customers tick, what kind of content they find the most engaging, and when your site fails to keep them interested enough to go through with a purchase. When you have the right data and reports at your service, you can update your SEO, post more relevant content, and improve the customer journey from start to finish.
Scaling your business through customer loyalty and better conversion rates starts with your own growth strategy. Base that strategy on tried and tested e-commerce trends like the ones listed above. You’ll grant your business a better opportunity to appeal to more customers and inspire more loyalty in your target demographic. Some tactics on how to increase online sales might fade in relevance, but these will persevere in the years to come and enable your e-commerce store to excel and grow to benefit you and your customers alike.
Author
Keith Coppersmith is a business and marketing expert who has experienced both the rise and fall of many businesses. As a regular contributor at BizzmarkBlog, he enjoys writing and providing insight into the marketing industry based on both practice and theory.
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