In the last couple of years, most consumers have shifted to online shopping and, as a result, the number of eCommerce websites has increased. However, while creating an online store is quite easy, growing it and boosting sales isn’t.
With big players like Amazon and eBay dominating the market, emerging businesses need to put in extra effort in order to make sure their eCommerce stores thrive.
If you’re having troubles with your eCommerce sales, here are six things you can do to help your online store grow.
Table of Contents
1. The Right Products
When choosing the products you’re going to sell, you need to think about what your target customers want to buy rather than what you would want them to buy. Start by conducting thorough market research. Use keyword research tools to discover trends and see which products have a big market but minimal competition.
Choosing the right products is the key to the success of your eCommerce store. The products you decide to sell will shape your entire business, from shipping and pricing to marketing and further product development.
2. A Branding Strategy
In order to stand out in a highly-competitive marketplace dominated by big players like Alibaba and Amazon, you will need to work on your branding. According to a branding agency from Los Angeles called Digital Silk Strong branding goes beyond things like your logo and store name; it is all about how customers perceive you. So, consider what sets you apart from the competition and why customers would return to your store.
Is your product priced lower compared to your competition? Do you provide fast shipping? Whether you sell something on your site or on several different marketplaces, it is important to make sure your products are high quality but also keep product branding consistent across different platforms.
3. An SEO-Optimized Website
Before diving deeper into SEO, we should not forget the importance of having the right WooCommerce plugins on the board. Every WooCommerce business should consider having those up and running. Those are WooCommerce Order Export PRO and WooCommerce Table Rate Shipping. Why? Read more and find out!
Without proper coordination, you cannot determine which products are selling well and which are not if you wish to grow your business. In addition, you could manually collect all of your data, but why bother (and waste a lot of time) when you could simply export orders from WooCommerce? WooCommerce Order Export PRO, one of the most downloaded e-commerce WordPress plugins, handles your orders and other e-commerce details. Additionally, a free version is available.
Consider how much you’ll charge for shipping if you sell an item online. We’ve got a great answer for you in the form of a plugin called WooCommerce Table Rate Shipping Pro. This plugin offers a variety of distribution options that are quite convenient to have on a website.
Back to SEO…
You need an optimized site and product pages because so many people use Google to study products and make purchasing decisions. SEO will help boost your organic traffic and help your eCommerce website rank higher in search engines. That’s where eCommerce SEO providers come in.
However, SEO can be quite complicated and time-consuming. With search engines constantly changing the rules and updating their algorithms, it can be hard to keep up. This is why using SEO hosting services can be a wise idea.
A good SEO host will reduce the workload related to SEO by providing a dedicated IP for your eCommerce website, private nameservers for each domain, a single control panel, etc. This will help improve your SERP rankings while at the same time allowing you to focus on running your eCommerce business.
4. Multiple Login and Payment Options
Did you know that over 75% of eCommerce stores are providing multiple login options? Offering multiple login options is a great way to make it easy for your target customers to interact with your eCommerce business. Consider providing at least one social media platform like Facebook as a login option. If you’re utilizing a registration form, avoid asking too many questions that make the process long and annoy the customers.
In addition to several different login options, you should also provide multiple payment options. The most popular payment options include credit cards, PayPal, and wallet systems like Amazon.
Furthermore, a good payment gateway such as Stripe saves card details on your site automatically, making the checkout process even smoother because buyers won’t have to enter their card number for every purchase.
5. Outstanding Customer Service
American consumers tell an average of 15 people about poor customer service, which confirms the saying about bad news spreading fast. In addition, nearly 60% of shoppers say they’ve stopped doing business with a brand because of poor customer experience.
Building strong relationships with your customers and offering exceptional customer service should be a priority for every eCommerce store. Make it easy for customers to get in touch with you by providing multiple contact channels such as phone, email, and live chat. If live chat is too overwhelming, consider adding a FAQ section on your website. It will save you time as well as help your customers.
6. A Well-Defined Return Policy
Creating an effective eCommerce return policy might seem like a hassle, but it’s an excellent opportunity to keep customers coming back for more. Research has shown that an inconvenient return policy deters 80% of consumers.
Most shoppers tend to check whether the online store has a return policy in place and see how fast the money will be refunded or the products replaced in case they don’t like what they bought. If you don’t have a well-defined return policy, most of them will leave the website immediately.
Be sure to keep your return policy clear, concise, and practical, and place it in a prominent place on your site.
Final Thoughts
There is no single universal formula for growing an eCommerce company. Each business is different, but if you begin with the tips provided in this article, you will have a good starting point to make changes that will keep your brand thriving.