The successful e-commerce store is a happy blend of art and science. Although you likely spent a great deal of time building your brand and creating an online store, the really hard part comes next: selling your products. That’s when your mastery of social media, customer service, shipping, and more truly matters.
Consider the following tips as you turn selling online into an art:
- Get the fundamentals right: If your online store works like a charm on a stationary computer, but crumbles as soon as you pull it up on a smartphone, you need to take action. The site must be optimized for all screens or your sales will suffer the consequences.
- Clean up the design: Would you consider shopping at a ramshackle or disorganized brick-and-mortar store? The appearance of your online store is just as important. Your customers love a clean template design, professional images, enticing product descriptions, and a user-friendly shopping experience.
- Share the good news: Help your customers spread the word on their recent purchase by including big social sharing buttons on the product pages. You can also encourage customers to leave a review
- Know your customers: Can you answer the following questions about your customers: What are their interests? Who do they want to be? What motivates them to make a purchase? The more confident your answers are, the better you can tailor your marketing efforts and store design.
- Write an interesting blog: A well-written blog can become one of your best marketing tools. This is where you can share tidbits about your products, showcase your industry knowledge, and draw people in with giveaways. By including keywords in each post, you also improve your search ranking.
- Be friendly: A hand-written thank-you note does wonders for customer relationships. So does personal interaction on Twitter, Facebook, Instagram, or whatever social media platform you’ve chosen.
- Make shopping easy: When it comes to your shopping cart system, the old adage “the more, the merrier” does not apply. Limit the number of pages and clicks between “add to cart” and the completion of payment to prevent customers from abandoning their cart.
- Build your audience: Internet sales are directly related to traffic. And building your audience takes time and hard work. Act like your own PR agency and reach out to relevant bloggers, press, and Instagram influencers. Social media also provides a great vehicle to increase traffic (check out our post on that topic here).
- Consider paid advertisement: Kick start your sales with a paid advertisement campaign. If you pick Google Adwords, make sure to create many versions of the same advert and track which ones outperform the others.
- Take shipping seriously: The last part of your product’s journey should not be taken lightly. Picking the right shipping partner will help you keep customers coming back, build a stellar seller’s rating, and take control of costs.
- Focus on your strengths: If warehousing, fulfillment, or shipping are not your forte, hiring a third party will put your focus where it should be―growing your business. As the owner of the success story Beardbrand told Shopify: "Stick to doing the work that makes you the happiest, and outsource the stuff you don't enjoy doing."
Consider these tips to boost online sales during the holiday season.
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