How to Improve Your eCommerce Business in 13 Easy Ways

Different eCommerce platforms make it easy for small business owners and entrepreneurs to take their offerings to the digital world. While setting shop might be simple, generating enough sales is a different ball game altogether. After all, the online marketplace is huge, it continues to grow rapidly, and you have to pay attention to aspects like operations, marketing, order fulfillment, and more. Fortunately, if you’re among the list of people who wonder, “How can I make my eCommerce business grow faster?” know that following a few simple measures can set you on the path to success.

So, how can eCommerce be improved? The first point you need to understand is that even a seemingly insignificant aspect may play a crucial role in how your target audience perceives your business. For instance, data shared by MyCustomer indicates that 84% of online shoppers check return policies before making purchases, and 53% have refrained from buying products because of unfavorable policies.

To get the ball rolling fast, implement these eCommerce improvement ideas in the right manner. If you don’t have the required technical expertise, consider partnering with a digital marketing agency that specializes in working with eCommerce businesses.

1. Improve eCommerce Traffic

No matter which eCommerce sales strategy you look at, you will notice that improving the quality of traffic to your website is crucial because the basics of how to grow eCommerce sales revolve around getting the right kind of traffic. This essentially means you are better off without people who visit your website and don’t make purchases. While you need to increase eCommerce traffic, you need to make sure you are reaching out to your desired target audience. Once this happens, there will be an increase in your online sales.

How to Improve eCommerce Website Traffic?

Here are six simple yet effective ways to improve traffic to your eCommerce site.

Grow your email and social media lists
Use social media to link back to your website
Create and maintain a regularly updated blog
Think about partnering with influencers
Offer giveaways
Launch a referral program

2. Show Value

Once you improve traffic to your eCommerce site, you have to keep probable customers from leaving it without making a purchase. Determine what sets you apart from your competitors and make this known to your target audience. For instance, do you offer lower than regular prices, free shipping on all orders, or a wide array of offerings from a specific niche?

Bear in mind that the upfront value your eCommerce website provides plays an important role in the design and development process. Once you tell your customers why you are better than your competition, retaining them becomes considerably simple.

3. Make Product Discovery a Guided Process

If you look at some of the more successful eCommerce marketing ideas from recent times, you will see that creating a user-oriented experience is crucial. This is why delivering a good user experience remains at the forefront of all eCommerce web development efforts. An important aspect of creating a great user experience is to simplify how people may look for and find products.

Consumers typically want to spend as little time as possible when searching for products. Online shoppers usually fall under three broad categories depending on their needs, expectations, and intentions.

People who know exactly what they need
People who are just browsing through your website
People who have vague ideas about their requirements and can do with your assistance in filtering down to the right products

Providing a user-friendly search option simplifies how people look for products when using your website. One way to improve user experience is by incorporating auto-complete because it assists shoppers who might not remember exact names. Besides, it helps save time. You may also consider providing suggestions based on previous search queries and selections.

Giving your customers the ability to customize searches according to their specific needs is another aspect that needs your attention when you are learning how to increase eCommerce sales. For example, if you operate a fashion-based eCommerce store, your users should be able to filter using options such as size, material, brand, and color. With electronic items, you might want to provide filters according to different categories of products like mobile phones, laptops, and tablets.

You need to ensure that search results are well-organized and easy to understand. When it comes to using navigation bars, arrange the categories leading up to the discovery in a suitable hierarchy. Make sure the options in both cases are easy to read and do not appear cluttered. This is because you want to provide the information your customers need quickly and easily.

4. Optimize Conversion Rates

An important aspect of how to improve eCommerce business is to focus on conversion rate optimization (CRO). What this means is converting visitors into customers in the best possible way. Collecting and analyzing quantitative and qualitative data gives you a fair indication of why people leave your website without making purchases. Insights you get through user experience research and analytics gives you further means to implement design changes and run A/B tests on your eCommerce store. The result is usually a significant increase in conversion rates.

5. Think Mobile

Every good guide that tells you how to grow eCommerce sales will ask you to pay due attention to people who shop using mobile devices, and this is not without reason. Data released by Statista suggests that the mobile share of global eCommerce sales stood at 60% in 2023, and one can only expect it to increase.

One way to address this aspect is to go the mobile app development way. If you do not wish to spend resources on getting an app, your eCommerce website needs to have a responsive design. With people using different devices to shop online, from mobile phones to tablets to even smart TVs, your website must look and function as it should across varied screen sizes.

Google has maintained for long that negative user experience on mobile devices can work as a deterrent if you wish to increase online sales. The benefits of opting for responsive web design include making your website faster and using content more effectively. It also helps when it comes to search engines and social media.

6. Use High-Quality Images

People still like to pick and hold products in the real world before making purchases, which is not an option when shopping online. The next best thing you can do is to provide images that capture your offerings as close to real as possible. If you plan to sell products where appearances matter, consider hiring a professional photographer to take pictures.

You want to give your target audience the ability to look at your offerings in close detail. In some instances, 360-degree view photographs can prove to be rather useful. When you provide clear high-quality images of the products you wish to sell, it helps build a level of trust. This, in turn, works in increasing sales

7. Offer Collections and Bundles

Giving your target audience carefully curated bundles that cater to their specific needs is a great way to show that your brand cares about them. In addition, it gives them ideas about what to buy, and it gives you another way to increase eCommerce sales. From your customers’ point of view, bundles and collections help them save time because they get the products they need in a single package. What also helps is they make for perfect gifts.

8. Minimize Abandoned Carts

According to statistics compiled by the Baymard Institute, online shoppers abandon around 70% of all shopping carts. Every time a person adds items to a shopping cart, only to abandon it later, your business loses money. Some of the top reasons for people abandoning their shopping carts include:

High additional costs
The need to create an account
A complicated or elongated checkout process
Unable to see or calculate the total price upfront
Prolonged delivery timelines
Unsatisfactory returns policies

If you are wondering “How do I make my eCommerce store successful?” it is important that you address as many of these problems as possible. In some instances, you might be able to remind people about their pending purchases and even persuade them through discounts or promotional offers.

An easy and effective way to minimize instances of abandoned carts is to run an email recovery campaign. This method is a part of almost every successful eCommerce sales strategy because it gives you the ability to convince visitors to return to your website and complete their purchases.

9. Streamline the Checkout Process

If you wish to increase eCommerce sales, it is important to make the checkout process quick and easy. After a customer begins the checkout process, do not add distractions in the form of alternatives or advertisements. You want them to stay on track. Give them an indication of how many steps they need to complete.

Customers should be able to access the shopping cart from every page of your eCommerce website or web application. Make a clear mention of additional costs such as shipping fees and taxes in the shopping cart. If they may benefit through any ongoing special offer or promotion, provide the required information. Giving consumers multiple payment options is another way to ensure they complete their purchases.

10. Focus on Customer Service

Experts who have spent years mastering how to increase eCommerce sales know that the one aspect that has remained a constant over time is customer service. People who shop online are no different from people who prefer brick-and-mortar stores when it comes to the levels of customer service they expect.

Your company’s contact information such as phone numbers and email addresses should be easy to find, and it makes sense to list this information as part of the header or footer on each page. Given that several people use mobile phones to shop, list your phone numbers as clickable or click-to-call links. This way, your customers may contact you easily when they need details about your offerings or information about their orders.

You may provide different types of information through a “Frequently Asked Questions” page. However, do not make this section extensive as it may overload probable customers with information and deter them from completing their purchases.

Your customer service team should be well-equipped to handle online and over-the-phone interactions, and provide resolutions in a time0bound manner. If you have the resources, consider offering live chat support. This ensures that you can address customers’ problems in real time and it gives them all the more reason to move forward with their purchases.

While several people look at email as a slow medium, some others do not wish to interact over the phone. In such scenarios, live online chat can work as a game changer. In addition, some businesses are already using artificial intelligence chatbots to place orders, resolve complaints, and provide different types of information.

11. Leverage Social Media

No matter what your target audience is, it is out there on different social media platforms such as Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram. Taking advantage of these platforms to promote your business and attract customers requires that you develop and follow various strategies. This not only works as a rather cost-effective way to reach out to and interact with your target audience, it also serves as an effective means to increase eCommerce sales.

12. Update and Upgrade Regularly

If you wish to hire the best eCommerce web development company, it might be worth your while to take a look at ones that are adept at keeping up with changing trends and technologies. It is important to maintain a regularly updated blog that gives your customers access to new products, promotions, and any information they might find useful. With web design and development technology changing every so often, keeping your website up-to-date minimizes the possibility of your customers turning to your competitors.

13. Use Giveaways and Promotions

Another way how to increase eCommerce sales is by giving your customers access to promotions and giveaways. For instance, you may improve traffic to your eCommerce site by running a competition that participants can share via social media. Product giveaways, when carried out in the right manner, have the potential to lead to increased sales in the future.

CONCLUSION

Learning how to improve your eCommerce business might not be as challenging as it seems, provided you have access to the right resources as well as the required time the process entails. Several leading websites show they have what it takes to keep up with changing times, making it clear that following the right approach can keep you on top of the game.

If you’re still unsure of how to grow your eCommerce business with digital marketing, hiring a company that has the required expertise might be in your best interest. This is because achieving your goals requires following a professional approach.

Originally posted in: https://www.topnotchdezigns.com/how-to-improve-your-ecommerce-business-in-13-easy-ways/