Just like any marketing and business strategy, you need to develop a fluid plan for improving your revenue generation. This can involve tweaking existing tactics and performance issues while deploying new methods of generating traffic and sales.
In the first quarter of 2009, Ecommerce sales reached just over $36 million. By Q1 of 2016, Ecommerce revenue had increased to more than $90 million in the U.S.
New technology is making it easier than ever for consumers to get the products they need online. You can get a larger chunk of the market share in your industry by making some simple changes to your online business.
1. Integrate social into the buying process
Virtually all web-based Ecommerce platforms integrate with Facebook, allowing you to sell directly through a Facebook store that ties back to your online store. It’s one of the most cost-effective ways to organically expand the reach of your store.
2. Sell more products with social proof
There are several ways to use social proof to get that revenue lift:
Put the number of products sold to date on display (i.e. “X number of people bought this item”).
Use a recommender like “Other people who purchased this item also purchased…” as seen on Amazon.
Display “# sold” and “# of people watching” as seen on every eBay listing.
Put total review counts on display, similar to how Airbnb lists reviews
List how many people saved or added a product to their wish list.
Put testimonials on product pages.
3. Go after the abandoned carts
People abandon carts for a variety of reasons – the key to lowering that number is to remove as much hesitation as possible.
Be transparent with shipping costs as early as possible. Shipping rates are the number one cause of cart abandonment.
Make checkout easy. Eleven percent of abandoned carts are caused by complex checkout processes.
Give them more payment options. Seven percent of abandoned carts are due to lack of preferred payment methods.
Don’t make them register. Fourteen percent of users abandoned a cart because they didn’t want to create an account.
4. Publish amazing content
Content marketing gives you the opportunity to deliver tremendous value to your audience and educate them on a variety of topics. Blog posts, videos, ebooks, buyer and product guides, and even images help you tell a story that connects your audience with answers. In many cases, your content becomes that little bit of extra information they need to make a purchase.
5. Write better product descriptions
Remember, your customers are shopping online so they can’t physically pick up your products and examine them. To envision how they’ll use them, they have to rely on the pictures as well as your product descriptions.
Regurgitated product specs from the manufacturer – or worse, competitors – don’t excite consumers or spark a sale.
Think about your target audience and your ideal customer – the person you want to buy your product.
Courtesy of Forbes
