Your eCommerce business is up and running and you’re selling enough to justify the expenses, but you get the feeling that your business could do more.
What’s an eCommerce business owner to do? There are lots of ways to increase your eCommerce sales, here are some of our favorites:
Monitor Your Numbers. Even if it seems like things are going well, you’ll have no way to know where you can improve if you’re not tracking your sales data. Even basics like the number of visitors versus the number of people who actually buy something can speak volumes. Choose a high quality tracking system and learn more about what motivates your customers (or lack thereof).
Embrace Mobile. Your customers are everywhere, so you need to be everywhere, too. For eCommerce, that means having a viable mobile presence as well as a website. You don’t necessarily need an app, but you must have a mobile-responsive site. According to the 2015 UPS’s Pulse of the Online Shopper report, 56 percent of your customers research products using a mobile phone and 58 percent have used a tablet for the job. Of those, 41 and 46 percent, respectively, have made a purchase. That’s a lot of sales to be missing out on.
Provide Detailed Product Descriptions. Have you ever purchased a product online without being entirely certain about its dimensions or the materials it was made from and were very disappointed when it wasn’t what you imagined? Your customers have, too — and they learn from those experiences. They’re far less likely to purchase items that aren’t described in vivid detail, even if your prices are seriously competitive. According to UPS, customers most want to see detailed product information (73 percent) followed by multiple images (59 percent) and customer reviews (55 percent). Sizing tools are also invaluable for eCommerce businesses that sell clothing.
Focus on Fulfillment. Customers are more focused than ever on the purchase experience. If you’re not offering the kind of fulfillment services they need, you’re not going to earn long-term customers. Instead of trying to save yourself a buck, think about what it takes to make your visitors loyal for life. Speedy checkouts, transparent order fulfillment and easy returns are invaluable cogs in the machine of eCommerce success. If your fulfillment is falling behind your order volumes because of a surge in business, consider partnering with a 3rd party logistics (3PL) firm that can give your customers the kind of service you’d want for yourself.
Once you have more data about your customers and are giving them more of what they want out of an eCommerce business, you may find you’ll have to expand rapidly to keep up with the demand. That’s a great problem to have, especially when you have a dedicated order fulfillment team to keep your products flying out of the warehouse quickly and efficiently.
