Do you have a small ecommerce business you’re looking to grow? According to recent statistics, 93.5% of internet users make purchases online. This data indicates the growing popularity of ecommerce retail stores and the competition they experience.
This being said, if you want to see increased revenue, profit, and retain loyal customers, following a few strategies is imperative for success. Below we have compiled a few effective strategies that can help your small business grow relatively quickly.
Factors to Consider
Before you choose a strategy for your business, consider a few factors. Without these, you may fail to see any dramatic change in your growth.
Target Buyers
A strategy won’t work until you know your ideal (target) customer. How do they think? What do they buy? What drives them to make a purchase? Knowing your target audience is imperative to increase the efficiency and relevance of your marketing plan. Besides, you may fail to implement the strategy effectively without understanding up-to-date consumer trends in your niche.
It’s also essential to build your website according to people who might be using it. So, for instance, if your target buyers include folks over 60 years old, designing a simple website with basic features would suffice and be comfortable and easy for them to navigate.
The Needs of Customers
You can’t implement the right strategy until you clearly understand customer needs. They impact your marketing plans and your product profile as well.
Seamless Channels
To give your customer a seamless experience, you should be aware of the channels they use to interact with your brand. This allows you to produce a good customer experience across all channels and provide consistency when it comes to product pricing and descriptions.
After you are aware of the factors above, you can successfully implement the strategies below.
Strategies for Your Small Ecommerce Business’ Success
Remember, not all strategies may work for your business. So, choose those that suit your target audience and help you meet your goals within your niche.
Include Advanced Filtering
Have you ever used filters while buying a specific product? Did that help create a faster and more convenient shopping experience?
Advanced filtering helps to find and select products quickly, which saves customers’ time on your website. This creates convenience for the users and reduces the chance of an abandoned cart.
Filters can help your customer find a product based on a particular size, color, and design. This strategy prevents manual navigation and, as a result, also helps to increase sales.
Highlight New Items or Bundles
If you want to increase the conversion rate, use your new items or bundles to grab your customers’ attention. For instance, you can highlight these products on the most-visited web pages and create excitement among your customers.
Moreover, you can also increase the hype by creating a particular urgency. For instance, you can consistently offer these items for a limited time and highlight that offer with great graphics.
Also, feature both new and old products together, giving your existing popular products some attention.
Additionally, incorporating bundle deals will help you achieve your goals too. Bundles always look attractive and have a positive impact on your sales. People feel like they are getting more for less; always a win-win. You can then deliver these bundles to buyers through effective merchant processing.
Give Discounts
Do you want to acquire new customers while retaining your existing ones? In this case, offer discounts, and often throughout the year so you can attract new buyers to your ecommerce retail store. New customers are more expensive to attract and need some incentive to shop with a store that’s new to them… give them that. That’s what Amazon utilizes, and if you want to be a small percentage of what this retail giant is right now, don’t hesitate to start offering custom discount codes to new and existing customers.
New buyers love discounts, and this strategy will help you outshine your competitors. Ensure that you mention discounts on the most seen pages on your websites(home page or header) so that they’re easy to locate.
Leverage Social Proof
If you want to attract new buyers and make them trust you, showcasing positive reviews from your existing customers will be a clever move. Positive feedback helps the new buyers understand your brand and evaluate your quality before purchasing. Moreover, they offer a certain reliability that works well when it comes to building trust.
The customer reviews can be about anything. For instance, they can highlight the different customer experiences with your brand or your customer service department.
You can request your existing clients to share their reviews with you. If they don’t, plan to offer incentives to encourage them to write a few compelling and helpful words. There are also apps that integrate into Shopify to help you boost your product reviews and social proof.
Shopify makes opening up a branded online storefront seamless and quick with plenty of useful integrations and even brandable loyalty programs.
Run Loyalty Programs
Some businesses fail to cater to existing customers while grasping for new ones. However, a balance between the two is essential to increase and maintain your overall customer base.
To retain customers and gain their loyalty, you should create and run loyalty programs. These programs can include rewards, coupons, membership freebies, and vouchers to make your older customers feel important.
Since loyalty programs provide a certain degree of exclusivity, they are perfect for making your clients feel valued. As a result, they feel a part of your brand, which works well for your sales.
How do loyalty programs work?
- You can offer rewards in exchange for a review or a specific purchase threshold (i.e. “If you spend over $50 today, earn FREE shipping!”. Alternatively, you can give coupons to buyers who recommend your products to a friend or a family member. Keep the rewards compelling and worth considering, so they help develop a certain attraction. You can even create an Affiliate program for loyalty members and hand out custom affiliate codes to track who referred friends to shop on your website.
- To make loyalty programs work effectively, implement integrations that help customers get their reward as soon as they meet the criteria. Also, ensure that the redemption process is quick and easy, and free of any glitches.
Wrapping Things Up
We can’t deny that scaling a smaller ecommerce store in this competitive time can be quite challenging. However, with the right strategies in place, nothing is impossible.
Before you choose a strategy, ensure you know everything about your target buyers and the consumer trends they likely follow. Moreover, evaluate your competitors’ marketing strategies, so you can easily compete with them. You don’t have to reinvent the wheel as they say.
Additionally, make necessary edits to your storefront and website to offer a seamless and quick customer experience.
No one has time to spend hours on your website, so ensure navigation is made convenient in every way. Sometimes simplicity is best.
