Whether it be a traditional physical store or an online store, a business owner only ever has one objective. This is to bring in as many customers as possible to increase their sales.
Online, the competition is huge, so it’s essential that you make your site stand out from the crowd to help get ecommerce customers. Your site must feature high-quality content and customer service, all while making it easy for visitors to find what they’re looking for.
If you’re wondering why your online store isn’t selling, don’t abandon all hope of finding success in selling on the internet.
Here are a few ecommerce tips to help you improve your business and boost sales, free of charge!
1. Improve your the user experience for your customers
To boost your store’s performance and increase the traffic to your product pages, put yourself in your customers’ shoes and try to understand their needs.
Develop a plan dedicated to improving customers’ experience on your website, ensuring that they always leave with a good impression. You’ll of course find that this helps you to retain customers and boost sales.
However, it also increases the likelihood that they’ll spread the word about your product or service, garnering free positive publicity for your online store.
2. Create fluid store navigation
Your website should be ergonomic, intuitive, and enjoyable to browse. As people often shop online to avoid the stress of crowded shopping centers, making a purchase at your online shop should be a pleasure.
Like a physical store, it’s essential to offer the best navigation path possible for your visitors. To gain customers online and improve your conversion rate, purchases should be easy and painless.
3. Respond to your customers’ questions
Depending on the nature of your products, visitors to your site could have few or lots of questions. For example, if you sell handcrafted jewelry, you might find that customers ask about precious-metal content, sizing, or gemstone cuts.
If they need advice, give them various ways in which to get in touch and a wide range of times that you’re available. Your ecommerce business might allow customers to contact them via email, direct messages, or by phone.
Be reactive when you are sent questions. Don’t let competitors capture your sales because you were too slow!
Your business may even want to integrate a live chat feature to better assist people visiting your online store.
4. Encourage your customers to act
Different calls to action are integral to your marketing strategy.
Explain explicitly what you expect your visitors to do next and encourage them in the right direction. This will help you improve your conversion rate and your sales.
“Add to cart,” “Contact us,” “Download,” “Buy,” etc. are all calls to action that should appear repeatedly across your website.
5. Publish your customer reviews
To reassure the potential customers of your business, don’t hesitate to publish reviews from previous customers.
Display them clearly on your ecommerce website. A lack of customer confidence is one of the biggest hurdles you need to overcome when encouraging visitors to buy online. Recommendations will help you remove their reluctance to purchase.
With WiziShop, you can add your customer reviews in just one click with the dedicated “Trusted Reviews” block.
6. Don’t hold back on promotions!
Promotions are a great way to encourage impulsive purchases and can be a very effective marketing tool for your brand.
From time to time, create discounts for certain products you’re selling and provide promotional offers or free delivery. You can communicate all this information through email newsletters, social media, and other methods.
These are excellent marketing approaches for converting your site visitors into customers and boosting online sales of your product.
7. Customize your product descriptions
To increase sales, the website for your ecommerce business should contain high-quality content all around, and this also includes how you describe your products. Don’t regurgitate boring, standard product descriptions.
Opt for detailed and inspiring information that shows off your products and can help to create desire. This is especially beneficial if your products are luxury goods.
Are you enthusiastic about the products you offer? Visitors to your site should be able to feel this while reading your product descriptions!
8. Promote your online store
To improve your visibility online and increase the traffic coming through to your website, promote your store online and roll out a marketing strategy.
Facebook Ads, email campaigns, ads inserted into relevant websites…there are lots of different ways to get people talking about you!
Do some research to determine what kinds of promotions work best for your business. You’ll then be able to create a marketing plan that’s tailored to your target audience and will get people buzzing about your business and products.
H2: 9. Use high-quality photos
To add value to your products, don’t neglect the quality of your product photos. Show your products from different angles and make sure your potential customers can zoom in to see further details.
The photography on your website should make visitors feel like they need and want your products. A description is not always sufficient to convince a potential customer to buy an item and ensure a conversion.
10. Create a sense of urgency
Because customers can be indecisive, it can sometimes help to build a sense of urgency by offering promotions or discounts for a limited time only. Increase sales by alerting customers about special deals via email, social media, or other ways.
Creating promotions that only last 24 hours can help encourage certain customers to complete their orders!
You can also indicate when stock is low, which may make them want to purchase your product even more.
11. Offer different kinds of payment methods
Certain buyers will not place orders simply because their usual payment method is not accepted by your site.
So that your online shop doesn’t miss out on any sales, make sure to offer different kinds of ways for customers to pay. These can include options such as credit cards, PayPal, Amazon Pay, and Apple Pay.
12. Increase customer satisfaction
Satisfied customers often come back for more. Their satisfaction should therefore be your priority.
Your customer service should be fantastic, no matter what goods or services you’re selling. Reply quickly to customers’ questions, whether on social media, by email, or otherwise, and deliver earlier than expected. Add a little extra free gift or a personalized note.
It’s the little details that will keep your customers coming back to your online store.
13. Optimize your editorial content
To improve your SEO, create a habit of writing new content regularly on a variety of different topics. Make sure you include your keywords, but ensure that they are linked to the subject at hand.
Google will take notice of this consistency and will continue to improve your ranking in its results. Optimizing the content on your site is a great way to help get the word out about your online business. Plus, it’s free!
Your traffic will increase, as will your sales!
14. Increase your possibilities of being found
When it comes to SEO, many online retailers will try and position themselves using a few short keywords:
- garden shop
- car accessories
- dog toys
By looking for longer phrases, you’ll be able to improve your ranking more easily!
Here are a few examples:
- tool for cutting rose thorns
- Sylvania tail light bulb
- bouncy ball for poodles
These keywords, or phrases, are not searched as often but are of higher quality. The search is therefore much more targeted.
15. Work with social media influencers
According to Statista, the rate of global social media usage was 49% in 2020. This percentage is only expected to grow in the years to come. If you’re looking for an increase in your sales, what better method than a social media influencer campaign?
With a variety of social media platforms available, such as Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, TikTok, and others, your business has several options from which to choose. Statista reports that as of January 2021, Facebook is the most used social media platform worldwide.
However, you’ll likely need to do a bit of research to determine which platform works best for your brand regarding your involvement with social media influencers.
For example, your product placement strategy could involve identifying a few influential people that fit with your brand on Instagram and contacting them. The trust that followers have in influencers on different social media platforms is remarkable, so why not try this strategy out?
16. Offer additional products
Sometimes, people might plan on only making a single purchase, but an additional product may catch their eye while they’re visiting your online store. Each additional purchase adds up and can aid in increasing your total online sales.
To increase the average order value of your customers, you can recommend other products for them to buy. When they click on certain pages or place an order, suggest extra items that complement the product that they’re already ready to purchase.
17. Test and analyze your site pages
To identify which strategy works best for your customers, try to test multiple versions of product pages, buttons, messaging, and more.
Experiment with different examples and take note of the results in terms of sales and browsing time. This will help you to continually optimize your website.
18. Pamper new customers
The acquisition of new customers is one of the most difficult steps. For this reason, you need to make them feel valued.
A small, thoughtful gesture can help encourage people to remain loyal to your brand. You may want to, for example, gift them with a free welcome present or discount when they place their first order.
19. Simplify the buying process
Customers are increasingly busy these days. They don’t have time to waste on trying to navigate your website. Offer a quick checkout option to ensure rapidity.
For example, take a look at our Smart Checkout. A few clicks is all customers need to finalize their order!
20. Create a responsive design
A significant number of online purchases are done on mobile devices. In fact, a Statista study determined in Q2 2020 that 31% of online purchases were accomplished via mobile devices.
If your goal is to increase sales for your online business, your ecommerce site must be readable on a smartphone, tablet, or computer. Buyers should be able to place an order from whichever device they choose.
21. Optimize your page loading time
Internet users are becoming more and more impatient and volatile. They don’t want to waste time on websites that take too long to load.
So make sure that you improve the display of your site by using dedicated online speed testing tools like PageSpeed Insights.
22. Display your terms and conditions
Finally, to show visitors that you are serious and transparent, display your terms and conditions on your website. Be sure that you’re clear on certain points such as delivery, returns, and refunds. This helps to strengthen customer trust, ultimately leading to more sales for your ecommerce venture.
