The eCommerce space was already growing steadily before the pandemic. When the pandemic hit and everyone started shopping online, online businesses experienced an unprecedented uptake.
Global eCommerce sales have now shot to $5.4 trillion in 2022, up from $4.28 trillion in 2020. Statista also predicts that this boom will lead to at least 50 percent growth in eCommerce sales by 2025, hitting a record $7.4 trillion.
If you own an eCommerce business, now is the time to start positioning your business to reap the rewards from the boom. And you don’t have to worry about big brands such as Amazon and eBay dominating the market!
The eCommerce space now has a new breed of customers excited by upcoming eCommerce players; who are ready to give you a chance.
It is time to get up and start revamping your eCommerce business with these 7 little changes.
Table Of Contents
1. Define Your Brand
When people see The Swoosh, they think of Nike, and when they see the gecko, they think of Geiko.
What is the one thing that will make people think of your eCommerce business?
The answer to this question is your brand identity.
Your brand identity is a collection of everything that defines your business, including the name, logo, jingle, tagline, images, fonts, colors, mission statement, values, tone, etc.
To define your brand, you must determine what you stand for as an eCommerce platform.
How to...
To better define your brand identity, you need to ask and answer these questions:
- Who is your ideal customer; what is their:
- Age
- Gender
- Nationality
- Religion
- Level of education
- Etc?
- What are you selling; is the price point:
- Affordable
- Luxurious
- Somewhere in the middle
- What does your ideal customer care about the most?
- Which color schemes, mission statement, tagline, tone, etc., would the target customer identify with the most?
- Do you take a playful and youthful route or a mature and smart one?
- What are your business's founding story and objectives, and how relevant are they to your unique value proposition?
- Which aspects of your business make you the proudest? These are the aspects that you want people to associate your brand with.
- Which are your brand’s most significant weaknesses, and what can you do to prevent them from influencing purchase decisions?
*Note: A strong, unique, and memorable brand identity will boost online sales by distinguishing your brand from the overcrowded online marketplace.
It influences how shoppers feel about your products and services.
2. Reinvent Your Customer Service Approach
Customer service gets a whole new meaning when it comes to eCommerce businesses.
That’s because eCommerce is disadvantaged due to the lack of physical contact between the seller and buyer.
How to Improve Your Customer Service
Work with Reputable Manufacturers
Make sure the manufacturers you work with are highly reputable.
Their product quality has to be stellar, their sustainability efforts must be evident for consumers to see, and their packaging has to be spot on.
Remember that your eCommerce shop is what clients know- they don’t know or even care to know who the manufacturers are.
Focus on Fast Shipping
Ensure timely deliveries and products reach the customer in excellent conditions. Invest in tracking systems that buyers can use to track their deliveries.
You should offer free shipping to improve your conversion rate if you can.
Make Payments Secure
Invest in a safe and secure online payment system for a convenient purchase and checkout process.
Empower Customer Service Teams
Should clients have a question or a problem, make your customer care team easily contactable.
Ensure that everyone in your team is equipped to give accurate instantaneous answers.
Use Chatbots
Automate customer service through chatbots that respond to FAQs.
You can also invest in an eCommerce helpdesk like Gorgias or an eCommerce chatbot for easier coordination of queries from different platforms.
3. Get Your SEO Game Right
Proper SEO optimization will make your eCommerce platform an organic search powerhouse.
It will help your website become:
- Useful
- Trustworthy
- Valuable
In addition, you’ll get more online traffic which translates to a higher search ranking.
Audit Your Website
Audit your site’s current performance on Google.
If you have already invested in On-page SEO and Off-page SEO tactics, you can hire an SEO agency to help you with that.
Review Your Key Words
Check keyword usage on your eCommerce platform.
Have you optimized the right keywords? How are your keywords competing with your competitors’ keywords?
You will get reliable insights here if you work with a reputable SEO agency.
Create a Content Marketing Strategy
Leverage content marketing to drive lead generation.
Ensure that your eCommerce blog posts are relevant, timely, and valuable to online content searchers.
Your posts should give actionable answers to frequently asked questions within your niche.
Optimize for Mobile
Optimize your website for mobile!
Ensure all buttons are clickable on mobile, the loading speed is reasonable, images resize correctly, and navigation bars on all pages function properly.
4. Leverage Link Building
Link building will boost your eCommerce site in two ways.
Improve Traffic
When you place backlinks on high-traffic platforms, some of their traffic might trickle back to your site.
Improve Site Authority
By being seen to associate with high-authority websites within your niche, your site gives the impression of an accurate, relevant, trustworthy, and authoritative platform.
Google will likely trust you more when you “hang around the big boys.”
With a practical eCommerce link-building strategy, you can build backlinks through guest posting on top-quality sites, an affiliate marketing program, or online back-linking contests and promotions.
5. Make Your Website Attractive and Highly Functional
Your website is the face of your eCommerce shop.
It will boost conversions significantly if it’s beautiful and functional.
So, ensure that your website:
- Showcases a great homepage and landing pages
- Tip: Use these pages to convince online visitors to stick around a little longer
- Narrow down product choices on the site or sort them into categories to ensure shoppers aren’t overwhelmed
- Make your checkout process as painless as possible
- Tip: Remove unnecessary questions, prompts, and fields that clients have to fill
- Ensure carts are recoverable in case a client comes back after abandoning their cart
- Tip: You can make it even more convenient for clients by making it possible to recover and modify
- Provide clients with clear product images and accurate descriptions to raise clients’ perception of your product's value
- Write your FAQ page to be as valuable and informative as possible
6. Switch Gears in Your Social Media Strategy
All online platforms are intertwined.
You cannot, therefore, afford to ignore the impact social media has on your bottom line. Be sure to combine paid and organic social media strategies to get social users to your website.
Paid Social
Paid social is when you identify your target customer, the platform they are most active on, and the hours they are online, and then sponsor ads to be displayed strategically where the clients will see.
This method is perfect for spreading awareness about your new [or existing] eCommerce platform and its product catalog.
Because this process is not organic, your ads can get millions of engagements but struggle to bring any conversions.
Organic Social
Organic social is where you create valuable social media content, engage social users, and gain followers organically without necessarily pushing them to buy.
The good thing about gaining followers organically is that almost everyone who engages with your content is a potential buyer.
7. Go International
Targeting customers in multiple countries is quite expensive for brick-and-mortar businesses, which is different for eCommerce businesses.
You only need to add translation plugins to your site, target keywords for different countries/regions, develop a reliable international shipping channel, and install a payment processor that accepts payments from multiple currencies.
Simple, inexpensive steps!
You can think about more sophisticated steps such as professional translation after touching base in the international market.
Final Words
eCommerce will continue to grow in the new normal.
Now is the right time to strategize if you don’t have a marketing strategy to help your eCommerce business move forward.
More competitors are coming on board daily- you have no time to waste!
About Lori
Lori Lake is a business analyst at NHGlobal Partners with seven years of experience in the field.
Her responsibility is to connect with potential candidates online and offline, screening applications, and supporting hiring managers. Besides her working hours, she likes to share her experiences online as well.
She possesses excellent writing skills and puts these skills to work by publishing on various blogs and sites.
