E-commerce has exploded over the last decade, and this is just the beginning. With the aid of the pandemic and companies needing a contact free way to interact with their customers, the e-commerce industry has accelerated to new heights.
According to the International Trade Administration, the pandemic has propelled the growth of digital commerce with numbers showing “an additional 19% sales growth for 2020, and additional 22% sales growth to the existing 9% and 12% regular forecast sales growth rates, respectively” (source). Additionally, the e-commerce industry raised over $4.9 trillion dollars in the year 2021 (source).
Each year more companies adapt to the ever changing digital world and join digital marketplaces to allow them to create new channels for their customers to purchase products and services from their homes or on the go. With the increased demand for digital shopping convenience, it's clear that e-commerce is becoming a vital staple for consumers. The hurdle that many newer companies face is knowing where to begin and how to create sustainable growth to move into bigger markets. Particl is here to be your catalyst in the market and help you to always be finding new opportunities to grow.
Here are the 5 tips and tricks to intelligently grow your ecommerce business:
In order to increase sales and revenue, goals are essential. Here are 5 tips and tricks to keep in mind when trying to grow your ecommerce business and crush your goals:
The key to any successful business is building brand loyalty with your customers. As a consumer centric business, the needs of your customers can be met by identifying the problems they face and creating a good or service that makes their life easier. The key lies in the interactions between the customers and the sellers- this intersection is where companies can shift from ordinary to exceptional and create a standout experience for those they sell to.
One way your brand can create killer customer service is through a chatbox or a direct form of communication. According to a Hubspot report, “90% of customers rate an “immediate” response as essential or very important when they have a customer service question.” (source) Creating a communication link between the buyer and seller allows brands to gain the trust of its customers and help answer any questions or problems that may be blocking a positive experience. By collecting and analyzing reviews and feedback, it gives you direct insights as to the thoughts and feelings of your consumers, allowing you to identify the gaps in the customers desires and your product. When customers can trust you and feel heard and understood, the shift takes place from brand loyalty to brand equity, meaning that customers are ready to try out any product(s) you put on the market and are willing to offer their insights. You can even reward customers and offer incentives for customer reviews in order to promote repeat purchases and customer success.
One of the major disadvantages of ecommerce is the distance between brand and buyer. Many companies face one of their biggest obstacles with abandoned shopping carts. Buyers can get so far in adding items to their cart, filling out information and then having last minute cold feet and changing their purchase or pushing it off to another day.
There are a few tips to making a checkout process more suitable and simple for the customers to increase their shopping experience and help customers through the sale until they are satisfied with its ease and convenience. (See here for more info). Simple examples of increasing shopping cart optimization (SCO) are to establish trust to show customers that your website is reliable. By making the process as consumer centric as possible, they can quickly buy the product without having to jump through hoops. These tips are mutually beneficial- the customers get an easy way to purchase the items they want on a site suited to them, and ultimately your business is then able to increase sales frequency and consistency and establish greater customer loyalty, positive brand perception, and trust.
Pushing effective content through blogs and newsletters is a great wat to generate buzz for your brand and organically grow your business. This method allows you to expand on ideas, answer questions, and capture the organic attention of the media and increase your SEO. Building a network and list of subscribers takes loads of effort and time, but is a great way to manage information about your company and help you take charge of the content you produce. By always creating new content for followers to engage with, networks expand and slowly your brand is able to gain more traction and ultimately increase sales and revenue.
Implementing content that is relevant, engaging, and helps remove hurdles for your customers can be difficult. It is important to remember with blogs and newsletters to set goals, have a content strategy, and be ready to shift or re-evaluate. An effectively planned and scheduled sequence of content on the blog can aggregate readers and help you determine a target market more efficiently.
In order to build brand awareness, organic content must be frequently sent out to the customers. Creating a plan to develop and integrate a solid marketing campaign will allow your business to take off and climb new peaks. With resources like a/b testing and analytic software tools, you can track your numbers to see how you can spread brand awareness and create higher click through rates and impressions. Simple tactics like adding in your products and relevant hashtags to an instagram post allows your brand to open up a new form of direct marketing and a way for more consumers to buy your products.
Email marketing has taken off in recent years as well, and studies show that 89% of marketers say that email marketing is their key channel for lead generation. (source) With automated email marketing, companies can easily spread awareness, set demos, offer help or services, and inform their audience about new opportunities or products.
Upselling and cross selling are great tactics to help inform the customers about products they may be interested in, while simultaneously boosting revenue. Upselling is all about encouraging and informing customers about higher end products or products with more benefits. Cross selling, as the name implies, is the practice of encouraging a customer to look at and purchase products across different markets as well. For example, many companies like amazon use “products we think you’ll like” to help customers see what other complementary products they offer. Often, customers just don’t know all the information or have all the data to know what products are available. When done correctly, upselling and cross selling is an opportunity to expand customers viewpoints and boost your revenue. It’s a win, win!