The world of eCommerce continues to grow. While many people think that Amazon is the only game in town, there are many other eCommerce businesses that are carving out a lucrative niche for themselves. If you want to get your share of the eCommerce pie, then you will want to have a strategy to get attention, get sales, and scale your business. Here are five proven ways that you can optimize your eCommerce website in today's market.
The first thing you will want to do is know as much as you can about your audience. According to Virtual Xcellence, a company that works with eCommerce in Canada, this is a critical step towards a successful effort, as your eCommerce advertising will need to be geared towards that audience. So ask yourself, who are they? Where do they live? What do they want? What are their pain points? Knowing what your customer needs are the key to sales. You want to be in the business of solving your customer's problems. For instance, if your audience is trying to find a better to sleep at night, then you'll know what products to offer them. Going beyond that, you will want to know how your customer's potential objections. Will they think your product is too expensive? Then you will have to sell the value of your product to justify the price. Research is key to selling a product that your audience will want.
When it comes to eCommerce, there are really two categories - Amazon and everyone else. Amazon sells everything to everyone. In fact, some people probably wonder why anyone would even try to compete with the world's largest company. Here's the thing - you should not be competing with Amazon. While Amazon sells everything to everyone, they can not specialize. Therefore, if your audience wants a top-quality product, then they will want to go to someone who specializes in that product. For instance, Amazon sells make-up. However, a woman who wants make-up that she loves will go to an eCommerce site that specializes in make-up. The specialist can charge a premium because people will want that product. Notice that Kylie Kardashian specializes in selling only make-up and she has become a self-made billionaire at 21 years of age from her Kylie Cosmetics. Be the specialist in one corner of eCommerce and you will dominate that corner.
When you have an eCommerce store, you don't want to bombard your audience with flashing banners, pop-ups, opt-ins, and other gimmicks. Top sites like Amazon rarely use these intrusive add-ons to their site. Therefore, you will want to keep your site simple. This will also help with your site's loading speed. Make it simple for first-time visitors to quickly know what your site sells. You should continually ask for feedback about your site from first-time visitors. Find out what's confusing and overly complicated and simplify it. The simpler the website, the better.
You will want to make sure that your eCommerce site is running as smoothly as possible. Therefore, you will want to have the right software to handle everything from site speed to managing your inventory, calculating the shipping rates, and managing security. It is a good idea to see what software big, successful sites are using and simply implement their software into your business. Don't try to reinvent the wheel when it comes to building your site. Trust what already works.
Marketing is more expensive than ever. Right now, the ad rates on Facebook and Google have never been higher. Therefore, you will want to control your marketing costs. One of the most effective ways to get sales for free is to turn your existing customers into your sales advocates. You can do this by asking your customers to post a review, post product images to your social media account, and offer rewards for referrals. People are more likely to trust a recommendation from a friend than a company. Try to get as many of your customers to advocate for your business as possible.
You can grab a piece of the eCommerce pie by following a few simple steps. Know your audience, specialize, simplify, use the right software and turn your customers into advocates to gain serious sales. By following as many of these steps as possible, you could be well on your way to scaling your business to the moon.
Katie earned a BA in English from WWU and loves to write. She also adores hiking in redwood forests and photography. She feels happiest around a campfire surrounded by friends and family.