Last Updated on August 31, 2023 by David
10 Simple advice to building a successful business in 2017.
Guest Post by Ethan Brown for Re:amaze. Ethan is a Shopify Website Designer at Milk Bottle Labs in Ireland. He has a passion for helping people in all aspects to sell their goods online with a beautiful mobile friendly Shopify store. He provides eCommerce fulfillment with a complete process, from the point of sale to the delivery of a product to the customer.
To succeed in eCommerce today, you need to be aware primarily of what type of eCommerce model is the correct fit for your products and which model will provide you with the best exposure once your business is up and running. Creating a presence online is of utmost importance for any eCommerce business. Without proper planning and preparation, you will not be able to get your eCommerce venture off the ground. While the concept of an eCommerce venture might be that it exists in the online space, the ideas of establishing an eCommerce venture are not that different from building a physical entity.
Simply by having a website and adding a shopping cart to it, does not ensure that your eCommerce business is going to succeed. Strategies and processes need to be understood and followed if you want to draw customers and build a brand around your products. Let’s take a look at what the features of a successful eCommerce business are.
1. Choose a Specific and Profitable Niche
The first step to running a successful eCommerce business is to correctly identify which niche of the market you plan to target. There’s no shortage of online stores these days, so before starting an online business, you need to decide how you are going to set your business apart from the hundreds of thousands that are already running. Selection of a niche involves, most importantly, pricing. There will be shipping charges, other logistics, and processing costs involved before you can finally calculate your profit.
Apart from pricing, you also need to consider your target audience, i.e. who you are going to be selling your products to. Keep in mind that you have to select a target audience in which you can easily create your brand loyalty. So, choose wisely. Your product should also be in demand within this target audience, in order for you to benefit from the overall process.
2. SEO to Bring Traffic to your Store
Search Engine Optimization, or SEO, has long been an e-marketer’s best. You can use SEO successfully to drive traffic to your website and thus, potential revenue, to your store. A good SEO strategy can make your eCommerce business appear on Google’s first page. This is ideal as it has been found that customers generally click on the first couple of links that show up on Google’s page-one search results.
Some tips you can use to boost your SEO strategy:
- Use relevant keywords for all your content
- Choose your keywords according to their saleability
- Use the keywords in the right places where Google will easily find them (blog, descriptions, marketing content, etc)
- Optimize for SEO on a regular basis.
3. Show that your Company is Trustworthy
In an era of internet and financial fraud, online shoppers are very wary about giving out their financial information. Therefore, you have to make sure that when a customer first visits your site, your website is able to generate trust within them. This is possible by securing your site. Let your visitors know that the data they provide on your website is entirely secure. Make them aware that their data will not be leaked to any hackers or spammers. Also, guarantee them that there is a “money back policy” in place in case there are issues with product satisfaction. Make sure that your website does not carry any viruses at the backend. These are small steps that go a long way in earning the trust of your customers.
Image Source: Google.com
4. Create a Positive Customer Experience
Offering a great customer experience is industry and business agnostic. Everybody knows that the customer is king. A positive customer experience is what can make or break a business. The same rules apply to an eCommerce busines. If you have provided your customers with a positive experience, there is a higher likelihood that he/she will return to purchase again from your company. Happy customers are more likely to promote your business as well. A positive word of mouth has surprising benefits for converting future sales. Even when your client is not on their best behavior, it is important that you, as the business owner, maintain your composure and arrive at a logical solution with frustrated. Keeping a clear line of communication is critical in establishing positive customer experience. Tools like Re:amaze can help you in terms of communications as it brings all your conversational channels (like chat, email, Twitter, Facebook, Messenger, Instagram) under one roof.
Proactive Engagement Message via Re:amaze
5. Optimize Stores for Mobile
Mobile apps have now become the lifeline of any eCommerce business. Plagued by abandoned shopping carts, a majority of retailers are turning towards integrating a mobile app for their business. Smartphones have also become the device of choice for most consumers to browse and shop. A mobile shopping experience will allow smartphone-enabled customers a much faster end to end experience. Don’t let your eCommerce business lose out just because it isn’t optimized for a mobile browsing experience. Many shopping cart platforms will provide a mobile version of your storefront by default. In case it doesn’t, hire a developer and start a simple mobile optimized version of your store. Customer communications platforms like Re:amaze can even help you deliver a consistent chat experience across web and mobile.
Image Source: https://www.groundreport.com6. Differentiate Your Offer
The internet is a vast marketplace, and there are many players offering the same product as you. Think about how you can differentiate your product from your competitors. Even if your product cannot be distinguished, you must differentiate your service or business model from others. Your value proposition is the single biggest offer your customers will remember. Make sure that all your marketing channels and campaigns are delivering on this value proposition and advertising it well. Make the extra effort to rope in clients who are on the edge about purchasing. A little extra effort from your end can ensure those additional customers get converted.
7. Use Social Media Marketing
Social media can now be thought of as a single platform every eCommerce business needs to be on. Specifically, social media marketing is the ultimate tool for reaching out to customers and connecting to your customer base and giving them a voice. Social media allows eCommerce business owners to use smart marketing techniques to not just reach out to their target base, but also to gather information about their customers’ online behavior, their likes, and dislikes, etc. This information can then be used to create targeted campaigns to convert leads into sales, and sales into repeat sales. Social media also allows businesses today to maintain a relationship with their customers. You can reach out in terms of customer support and also gather first-hand market intelligence on the performance of your products — all without leaving the comfort of your office.
8. Secured and Easy Checkout Process
Your shopping cart is the most potent tool for your business. It is the lifeline that brings in sales. You need to ensure that the shopping cart software your use on your store provides visitors a completely safe and secure shopping experience. Since the cart is responsible for collecting a customer’s shipping, billing, and payment information, it needs to provide them with the assurance that their data is in safe hands. Otherwise, the result will be an abandoned cart. Re-marketing to customers who have left your storefront is a task that’s immensely difficult to get right the first time around. Invest in a reliable shopping cart platform like Shopify, BigCommerce, or WooCommerce. Their services, in addition to a secure and trusted checkout process will pay for itself.
9. Have a Flexible Returns Policy
No business owner wants returned goods or have to deal with the hassles of international returns. However, the inevitables exist and you have to provide customers an easy and flexible to process returns. It’s the cost of doing business. And if done correctly, it’s a marketing channel to procure more conversions. Create a streamlined returns policy internally and publicly before you launch so problems don’t creep up on you. A good returns policy should be transparent for the customers and, at the same time, be feasible for you, the business owner. It needs to lay bare the terms and conditions clearly. There should be no ambiguous language in the policy that can later be used as a loophole by either party. As mentioned earlier, a good returns policy will positively boosts a customer’s confidence in your business as they get a sense of security that their purchase is guarded against any wrongdoings.
10. Launch, Learn and Improve
At the end of the day, we all learn from our mistakes, and there are no definitive hard rules to running an eCommerce business. There is also no such thing as a “perfect” eCommerce store. So, launch your store, learn from your mistakes and improve as you go along. You will also come to know with time what part of your inventory is selling well and what is not selling. With experience, you will have the freedom to pick and choose which products to increase in exposure and marketing and which products to discontinue. There is always a scope for improvement. Start small and let your experience guide you forward.
Summary
It is no small feat to run an eCommerce business in today’s world. Technology is changing rapidly, along with the likes and dislikes of your consumer base. While it may seem like there are many pieces of the puzzle you need to find altogether in the beginning, you will see that as you progress from one step to the next, pieces start coming together on their own to give you a complete picture or a roadmap of what is up next.
An eCommerce venture not only allows you to market your product but at the same time, it gives you the freedom to live a lifestyle of your own choosing. With the eCommerce industry only expected to increase further in numbers, there is no better time than right now to launch your eCommerce store. The key to success is to treat your business like it is earning you millions of dollars already. Do not neglect it and pursue your desire to grow your store into a massive business. Choose the correct platform for your business and launch your store with an innovative marketing strategy. With a variety of social media marketing tools at your disposal, achieving success has never been easier.
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