Statistics prove that profit will continue to rise for eCommerce businesses through the years and it is up to the owners to take advantage of this growth.
If you’re looking for ways to boost your e-commerce sales, here are some surefire ways that you can start with:
1. Focus on Your Market
If you’re selling to the wrong people, you’ll only be wasting money.
It is important to know how to reach out to your target market, recognize what they want in a product or service, identify how they search for what they want, and understand how they compare their options.
If you don’t have data to begin with, talk to your prospective customers and start doing your own research.
You can do this by meeting them in person or by sending out surveys to customers who purchased in the past month.
2. Reach Out to Repeat Customers
Spend time and resources on acquiring new customers but keep your loyal customers happy.
Your repeat customers bring in the profit.
Build relationships.
Keep in touch.
Send them emails or messages whenever you have a new campaign.
Be personal in your approach and send them greetings on their birthdays.
Show them gratitude for being regular customers through personalized notes and if they have special requests for their orders, go out of your way to find out ways to meet their needs.
3. Use Brilliant Product Descriptions
So how do you make product descriptions that make the sale?
First, think of it as writing to one person who completely embodies the buyer’s persona.
What are this person’s hobbies? What are their interests?
These are some of the questions that you should answer to know the tone of writing that you should use.
Should you be funny and conversational or should you be business-like and direct?
This will depend on what your buyer finds engaging.
Next, focus on the format. Research suggests that users only scan words on websites and rarely read the entire page content.
This means that you should make your product descriptions easy to read.
Use subheadings, bullet points, large, readable fonts, and lots of white, uncluttered space that will make reading a breeze.
4. Stop Forcing Users to Register Before Buying
Most of the users don’t proceed with the purchase if you ask them to register before checkout.
It does not Ducer whether your users don’t have the time to do it or they don’t just like the process of creating an account.
The point is they will leave your site and get their stuff elsewhere.
You should be after making sales, not increasing the membership list.
To address this, provide an option for Guest checkout.
Users will save a few minutes of their time in making the purchase.
If they become a returning customer with their good experience on your site, they might see the value of signing up.
5. Use Great Product Photos
You may have the best product in the industry but if the photos suck, there’s a huge chance you won’t make it in e-commerce.
Online shoppers rely on the website photos for a sample of what they will be buying.
Make these photos as enticing as you can but remember to always keep it real.
6. Use Product Reviews to Your Advantage
Product reviews are social proof that the item or the service works.
A hesitant buyer can read product reviews and immediately be converted.
So how do you get customers to review your products?
How we could gather reviews:
7. Manage Shipping Costs Wisely
It’s good to be upfront.
Let your customers know about shipping costs early on in the purchasing process.
Aside from costs, provide details on the estimated delivery duration as well.
Next, consider if you can offer free shipping once customers reach a specific purchase threshold. In a study by RJMetrics, 40% of buyers will add more products to their cart if they are offered free shipping.
Make sure that this offer can be seen by the customers on most parts of your website – from the home page, product page, up to the checkout page.
8. Sell More with Personalization
Statistics show that 10-30% of revenues come from product recommendations.
To do this effectively, decide on the features that you would like to focus on in upselling.
Is it additional functionality or a better material for a slightly higher price?
Use data from customer’s previous purchases and searches to strengthen your up-selling, add-on sales, and cross-selling strategies.
Business.com provides an insightful tip on cross-selling: follow the rule of 25.
Make recommendations within 25% of the customer’s total purchase.
Any upsell or cross-sell beyond 25% of the price will come across to the user as ridiculous.
Keep your recommendations to a minimum too.
9. Offer Discounted Bundles
Bundling benefits both shoppers and businesses.
Shoppers get discounts on products and businesses to increase their AOV – average order value – without additional overhead costs. You can encourage cross-selling too if you will include products from other categories.
Several techniques that you can use for bundling:
11. Use Video to Increase Sales
It’s not every day that you’ll see a phone inside a blender set to the smoothie option. Blendtec’s video of blending an iPhone 6 Plus and Samsung Galaxy Note 3 went viral and instantly increased the company’s sales.… this only means that video sells. This is backed up by statistics with figures such as 800% conversion on landing pages with video and that video sells 6 times more than print and online ads.
Here are some different video strategies that work:
12. Study the ‘Why’ and ‘When’ of Abandoned Carts
Understanding the reasons and the occurrences will help you address cart abandonment.
Use the following ways to help resolve the problem:
Knowing the reason why it will help give you ideas on how you can win the sale back.
13. Add Live Chat to Your Website
If shoppers have a question for a specific product that they’re eyeing, would they wait for someone to pick up the phone or to answer their email?
Chances are they would do neither. They will just switch to other stores offering the same thing.
Incorporating a Live Chat to your page makes the difference.
Live Chat conversations can help identify customer’s needs that might be a potential new source of income.
14. Give Referral Discounts
This is the digital equivalent of word-of-mouth marketing. 84% of shoppers value referrals from people they know.
Offer irresistible referral rewards and turn your loyal customers into your site’s marketing helping hands.
Double-sided referral, the kind that rewards both the sender and the new member, draws more conversions.
Rewards can either be monetary or non-monetary in the form of early access to new stocks.
15. Set Your Eyes on Your Best Product
This follows the Pareto 80-20 principle. 80% of your profits come from 20% of your products.
Therefore, 80% of your efforts should be focused on maintaining the top profitable 20%.
Cutting down on portfolios allow businesses to develop, maintain, and promote their performing products.