The e-commerce industry has experienced and continues to experience fast growth. With many businesses expanding their tentacles into the e-commerce space and many new e-commerce businesses springing up daily, the competition has become very tight. As such, you need to have a plan or strategy if you want your e-commerce business to remain relevant.
Whether you’re starting a new e-commerce business or seeking to expand an already existing one, business growth is at the core of your business goals. This can be a challenging task, especially with the stiff competition in this industry. There are various strategies to achieve this. However, we have put together ten practical tips for you to consider in your quest for faster e-commerce business growth.
Improve your customer service
Good customer service is essential to retain existing customers and make new ones. A study has shown that 89% of customers will put their money elsewhere when they get poor customer service, while 52% will return after a positive experience. This shows the importance of customer service to grow e-commerce businesses.
You can enhance good customer service by having a good knowledge of your customers, prompt and courteous response to your customer’s needs, and providing support services across various channels, including phone, website, email, and SMS.
Furthermore, content personalization keeps the customers’ products of interest on their screens, increasing the likeliness of purchasing from you. Thus, growing your e-commerce business.
Use Social Proof to get Customers’ Trust
This is one way of getting customers’ attention and getting them to trust your brand in a pool of various other brands. Customers need to know that your services are genuine and your products are authentic. They’ll only buy from brands that they trust. As such, you need to devise a means to get their trust.
Social proof is a powerful SEO tool you can employ to drive traffic and revenue to your e-commerce site. You can achieve this by displaying positive reviews and testimonies from influential celebrities or social media figures on your e-commerce site. This will give customers the impression that your brand is both genuine and of good quality and move them to buy. Thereby, bringing about business growth.
However, negative reviews should not be left out, to maintain the authenticity of the reviews. Also, the influencers you choose for your reviews should have a social persona consistent with the needs of your target audience.
Publish blogs
Publishing good content on your blog site would attract potential customers and increase organic traffic. However, this method is slow in producing results and requires consistency. As such, many business owners overlook it.
However, content posted on your blog should be a right blend of entertainment and information, not purely sales oriented. This will keep your audience interested and increase the prominence of your e-commerce business. Additionally, sending weekly and monthly newsletters that provide valuable information to potential customers will portray you as an expert in your field and keep you in their minds. Thus, increasing e-commerce sales and will drive e-commerce growth.
Upselling
Upselling is a great way to get your customers to buy more and generate more income for the business. For example, a customer about to finalize the purchase of an item from your e-commerce site can get a recommendation to get a bigger and better similar product for just a little extra. He’ll be more likely to take your offer. Thereby, bringing in more income
This is also a good way of building strong long-lasting relationships with your existing customers. You can use various upselling apps that are easily integrable with Shopify, WooCommerce, and other e-commerce platforms to achieve upselling on your e-commerce stores.
Be Active on Social Media
E-commerce businesses can leverage their online presence to create social media presence. A strong social media presence can go a long way in getting traffic to your e-commerce store. You can use various ad campaigns like video ads to draw the attention of your target audience through social media platforms like Facebook and Instagram. Therefore, you need a strong presence on these platforms as they have become very prominent in product promotion.
Again, promotional content should not be all about selling your products. You should offer authentic and valuable information alongside your products. This will keep your customers interested and increase their chances of patronizing you. Thus, bringing about e-commerce business growth.
Leverage Push Notifications
In a world where most people now access the internet using their phones and email copies are becoming less popular, push notifications are a good way to get the attention of your target audience and get them to patronize your e-commerce business.
These push notifications will help you connect with your customers and convince them to visit your e-commerce store and social media pages. You can also create awareness of your brand and products, build trust, and improve the brand image with the quality of content you include in the notifications. One special benefit of this method is that you get to engage those not familiar with your site.
Expand your Horizon to the Global Stage
Another way of getting more income for your business is by customer base expansion. There are various ways to achieve this, such as launching new products or opening new branches. However, these methods can be costly to achieve. One way of achieving this is by catering to a global online audience.
Restricting your products and services to a local customer base will only limit the inflow of income into the business. Include information for international shipping on your website. This will give room for a global customer base and increase the revenue inflow into the business, thus bringing about business growth. For example, a container shipping company in Ajman can extend its services to businesses in other parts of the world.
Leverage Affiliate and influencer marketing to Create Revenue
Affiliate marketing is a high-return, low-risk revenue opportunity that leverages the services of specific audiences to sell your products and get a percentage of the sales made as a commission. This method requires minimal resources or time input and as such, has a very high success rate in ensuring more business profitability and growth.
Influencer marketing, on the other hand, involves the engagement of renowned personalities to promote your products or service for improved sales and profits.
Understand your target audience
Understanding your target audience will help you better cater to their needs and improve their chances of choosing your brand in an ocean of thousands of other brands. This is essential in running a successful e-commerce business and ensuring its growth.
Conducting market research can help you better understand your target audience and develop better and more innovative ways to make the business grow. Another way of achieving this is by analyzing customer journeys to get better insights on improved strategies for enhanced market demand and interest in products or services.
Offer free stuff
This might sound like an outright loss of income. However, it’s far from that. Offering freebies to your customers will go a long way in establishing their trust in you and improving long-term sales. This can be in the form of free trials that allow customers to see the value in your product before purchasing it.
Furthermore, you can offer free shipping or delivery for orders above a certain volume. This will move your customers to buy more and improve average order volume. Therefore, think of this strategy as an investment to attract new customers and maintain existing ones rather than an income-loss method.
Other strategies include using multiple payment methods, email marketing, making your e-commerce business mobile-friendly, using paid traffic etc.