Setting up an ecommerce website is nowadays the easy part. Generating sales is much more complicated. Fortunately, you can always boost sales if you follow the advice presented below. The tips you read will get you calling your tax advisor in no time to deal with the extra profits.
Build Your Email List
When you start, it will look very daunting. However, if you manage to build a strong email list, you increase repeat sales. This can give you more stability and faster growth. Fortunately, there are many ways in which the email list can be built. Some options include:
- Setting up custom signup forms
- Use signup popups (preferably with some sort of discount deal attached)
- Use an opt-in checkbox (for those that make a purchase)
Create An Email Marketing Strategy
An email list is not enough if you do not have a strategy to use it. Most businesses simply send the exact same newsletter every week to every single subscriber. This is not an effective approach.
What you should do is segment the audience based on personal actions. Think about things like the products bought in the past and email preferences. Ask your visitors to confirm the subscription with a simple checkbox allowing them to make choices. Then, use them to personalize all the emails you send.
Create Scarcity
Using scarcity marketing is one of the easiest ways to increase sales. When a product looks like it is only available in a limited supply, the sale can help, as long as you do not overdo it. You can use scarcity for ecommerce sales-boosting through several things, like:
- Flash sales
- Countdown timers as sales happen
- Show how many items remain in stock
- Use scarcity for some item sizes
You can use email marketing and scarcity at the same time to increase click-through rates by up to 14%.
Minimize Shopping Cart Abandonment
Shopping cart abandonment is a common problem for ecommerce sites, especially new establishments. Unfortunately, this tends to happen much more often than you might think. Fortunately, there are many different ways in which you could minimize abandonment.
As a very simple example, exit intent popups will make the visitors think again. Such a form will automatically detect as the user tries to move away and a brand new opportunity will be offered with a very tempting offer. This would drastically increase sales.
Showcase Top Selling Items
Your store’s landing page should always showcase your very best products, those that sell the best. Site visitors should first see these items since this is a very good way to make the best possible first impression, which always counts.
As you showcase these items, you also offer visitors a great starting point for a shopping spree. You do not overwhelm them with all existing products through countless menus.
In addition, the fact that your products sell the best means that they have a proven worth. They basically sell very well for a clear reason. Take advantage of this and entice newcomers so they shop from your store.
Use Ad Extensions
Ad Extensions are available with Bing and AdWords. They make the ad bigger, which offers more website real estate for clicks to come from. And the best thing about them is that they are available without an extra cost. They increase the click-through rate for ads and are particularly effective for ecommerce websites.
The simple reason why ad extensions work so well is that they are larger. Use them to showcase some of the best products and potential customers will end up on your website to read more about them.
Highlight Trust Signals
People buy more from stores they trust. This is why customer feedback is so important these days. Fortunately, you can highlight the experience of satisfied customers. And you should do this in order to show potential customers you can be trusted.
Having satisfied customers is much more influential than a sales copy. As a result, you want to include great reviews and testimonials on your site. Consider adding them to pricing pages, landing pages, product pages, and your homepage. If possible, combine these with your other video marketing efforts since video testimonials tend to be more effective.
Several other trust signals can be used and should be considered since they actively increase online sales thanks to creating a much more favorable brand percentage. This includes options like professional accreditations, even if you add something common and simple like a membership to the local chamber of commerce or a BBB (Better Business Bureau) certificate. Add such trust signals where potential customers see them.
Create A Money-Back Guarantee
Risk aversion, which in this case is wanting to avoid potential losses, is a very strong factor consumers take into account when making a purchase. In many cases, the only reason why customers do not buy is that they are afraid they will lose money. This is true even for the smaller purchases since they can always create buyer’s remorse. You can overcome it by offering a very strong money-back guarantee.
The basic notion with this is that you remove risk from the decision of a prospect. This increases the possibility that they are going to buy. A great way to increase ecommerce sales is to remove the reasons why people might not buy.
Use Tiered Pricing
Most people that eat at restaurants choose mid-priced dishes. This is a concept that applies to most shopping opportunities. Restaurants take advantage of this by pushing customers towards those meals. Since we naturally avoid the really expensive and cheap dishes, middle-tier options tend to sell more. In sales, we refer to this as “decoy pricing”, which is a principle you can easily use in ecommerce.
The idea is to add a decoy option, which is a third option in the pricing structure. You thus push customers towards the items that you want them to buy. A part of your customer base will choose the expensive option. This is a welcomed revenue increase. However, most will subconsciously move towards middle-tier options.
Present Fewer Choices
Most businesses try to offer as many choices as possible. The belief is that this would increase sales since there is a higher possibility the customer will find something they like. The problem is that such an approach will backfire and will actually decrease sales since a high choice variety leads to indecision. You lose sales simply because you offer too many options.
When you sell several products, look for a way to structure the site or the product pages in such a way that visitors will see fewer options. You can thus avoid the unwanted situation in which the potential customer is overwhelmed. Do this by arranging products into narrower categories.
Offer Several Payment Options
Nowadays, accepting credit cards is a must for ecommerce businesses but you should not stop there. There are several other payment options possible, including Google Wallet, ApplePay, WePay, Stripe, and PayPal.
When the visitor has several choices, they can use the payment option that offers the most advantages for them. This increases the possibility a sale will be made. Optimizing the site for extra options can be a hassle but this simple modification can easily increase sales. This is especially true when ecommerce sites have several mobile visitors.
Final Thoughts
As a business owner, you want to always look for new ways to increase sales. with ecommerce websites, as you can easily see from what was listed above, you have access to several opportunities. Keep your eyes open for technological developments and your competition to figure out what you should do and what you should avoid.
At the end of the day, you want to increase ecommerce sales. Implementing the tips above will help you do that. Just make sure you properly implement them to take full advantage of increased sales.