#FocusOnBestPractices
Did you know that eCommerce sales reached $2.3 trillion in total revenue in 2017? In the US alone, over 10% of total retail sales were through eCommerce websites and the percentage was close in the rest of the world. A rising millennial population on a never-ending quest for convenience and fingertip access to amenities are among the primary reasons for the massive rise in the popularity of eCommerce over traditional physical retail stores. However, many online retailers find it hard to compete with established giants like Amazon. It is common to attribute this to lack of funding, but there are other reasons that can keep smaller retailers behind the leading companies. Today, we will look at some exclusive tips to multiply eCommerce sales and boost profits even if you do not have a huge funding source like Amazon or eBay.
eCommerce sites require a healthy helping of search engine optimization to ensure that their products are on the first page for any query on any search engine. A smart SEO strategy would combine multiple entities and best practices to realize the goal of internet visibility for your online store. It encompasses smart usage of category pages for better indexing with relevant product categories, appropriate use of long tail keywords in product and meta descriptions, setting up backlinks from high ranking and trust worthy websites, SEO oriented HTML optimization and many more. Bringing visitors to your website is the first step in the buyer journey and a good SEO strategy is the ultimate weapon in this regard.
Once you have visitors on your online store, you need to ensure the shopping experience is enjoyable for them with quick access to individual product or category pages. This is realized mainly by a better U and navigation supported by lightning fast load times. Your online store may be content heavy thanks to the usage of graphical elements on every single page, but for the end user, all that matters is the speed in which your site loads and how easily they can find the right product. You need to have a clear-cut objective driven UI/UX strategy in place to achieve the right balance of navigation and loading speed. Optimizing code, relying on trusted cloud-based hosting or CDN partners for faster loading, and the use of world-class caching mechanisms are some of the ways to boost the speed of your online store. Utilizing a design thinking philosophy to plan the buyer navigation journey can also help drive more sales by empowering customers to buy a product with the fewest clicks possible.
One out of every 4 dollars spent on eCommerce in the US is from folks who shop online from their mobile phones. This means you should consider a mobile first sales strategy in place while running your online store. Ensure that webpages are optimized and responsive to show the best results while browsing on a mobile device. Test for multiple screen size scenarios and multiple operating systems as well. You never know which device consumers will use and therefore you need to be prepared to address them all. From running tests on multiple mobile browsers to analyzing the speed graphs of site load times, check-out performance, payment gateways, etc. every element of your website’s mobile version needs to be have great performance under peak loads.
eCommerce is a 100% digital consumer touch point. This implies that you get tons of customer info to analyze and create the best shopping experiences for every visitor. Integrate your eCommerce framework into a powerful CRM as well as a smart marketing automation solution to create an intelligent marketing ecosystem for your business. Use data such as shopping patterns, spending history, demographics, and much more from your website to create mailing lists with smart content, provide personalized offers, run intelligent campaigns, and drive more valuable sales from targeted visitors. Today there are AI enabled recommendation engines available for your eCommerce platform to seamlessly suggest products as part of cross-selling or up-selling strategy to visitors. Even though implementing this tip may require a slightly higher investment than just your eCommerce site, it is worth considering the ROI that could be generated in a short time span.
If there is one thing that online retailers can draw inspiration from when comparing themselves to Amazon, it is their culture of testing innovations. While you don’t have to build the next Alexa, it would be a great idea to build a personal shopping assistant like a Chatbot on your website. It could provide users on a product page with suggestions, easy check-out capabilities, spot offers and much more. Other emerging technologies like AR/VR integrated shopping, AI enabled recommendations and much more need to be fearlessly tested in your site to enable the best buying experience for visitors. This culture of innovation needs to be instilled across your workforce so that every new feature or campaign they execute would have something great in store for shoppers.
While, eCommerce technology, shopper’s tastes and the product ecosystem would continuously change, you need to have a solid objective-based approach to scaling up your online store over time. Your end objective should be to become the most loved eCommerce destination for customers just like the big players do. For this you need the best technology advisors, the most creative marketing ideas, and the most dedicated workforce to help you achieve aspirations faster. Write to us to learn how Korcomptenz can be a critical game changer in bringing the best of eCommerce technology and intelligent marketing capabilities to your online store and help you stay on top with the best in the business.
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