According to data from Statista, E-commerce sales were approximately $3.5 trillion in 2019. By 2021, it is likely to hit $3.5 trillion.
Do you know that 96% of Americans have purchased products online in their life? Additionally, Americans allocate 36% of their budget to online shopping. Although the expectation is that the E-commerce industry will continue increasing in the future, you can only reap its benefits if you understand how it works, and how tools like OKRs software can be a game-changer in your business. Here are some tips for making your E-commerce business successful.
1. Direct Liquidation Sales
You can boost your E-commerce business by buying returned or refurbished products. Identify retail auction sites with fair prices, and that can allow you to obtain discounted merchandise. Good sources of auction sites include Amazon and Walmart returns. They might even be offering free shipping. When starting, concentrate on first-moving products.
2. Don’t rush the launch.
One feature of unsuccessful E-commerce entrepreneurs is forcing or rushing to launch a business website. You only have one opportunity to do it right, and you can’t afford to make blunders. The right time to launch your website is when you have mastered the art of SEO, content marketing, social media marketing, and paid advertising.
3. Focus on clients.
According to Forbes, 88% of website users consider in-depth product content as particularly significant to their buying decisions, and 38% of site visitors leave if the website layout is unappealing. Additionally, a complicated return policy discourages 80% of purchasers.
Although the customer can’t feel, touch, or smell the product before buying online, it shouldn’t hamper your E-commerce business. You can still attract many clients whether you are selling brand new Apple products, their refurbished products, or other open-box products. Focus on perfecting customer service through services such as:
- Improving the average response time
- Fair pricing
- Showing products with limited warranty
- Simplifying shopping carts, clearly showing new products, refurbished items, and returned products
- Including customer self-service features
- Offering guarantees and warranties
- Offering a phone support line
- Free shipping
4. Test absolutely everything.
Invest in analytics and testing before, during, and after launching your E-commerce business. Try out the suitability of tools like OKRs software in managing team members. Put yourself in the shoes of a customer when testing what is working and what is not. Fix the bugs that might hinder a friendly user-experience. Incorporate both regular users and experts in your analysis. They might have varied opinions about necessary changes.
5. Incorporate social elements.
You need to understand the behavior of customers in your business. Furthermore, having an insight into what customers think can help you create for consumers who need them. Thus, your site should have features such as:
- Social media login options
- Product reviews
- User recommendations
- Customer ratings
6. Go mobile.
Build your E-commerce business with mobile phones in mind. Smartphones have outshined TVs as devices attracting the most hours of attention in the US. As mobile phones become more available to all demographics, they will inevitably continue playing a vital role in E-commerce. Below are a few stats showing the current state of mobile phones in E-Commerce:
- According to the Washington Post, 80% of Americans are now online buyers. 50% make procurements using smartphones
- 55% of shoppers have purchased a product online after seeing it on social media
- In 2019, mobile phone sales hit a record $3.1 billion on Cyber Monday and $ 2.9 billion on Black Friday
7. Stay on top of SEO.
You are not the only player in the E-commerce industry. The industry is extremely competitive. Thus, staying on top of SEO can make you stand out from the competition. With proper SEO, you can appear in the search engine’s organic key results and bring organic traffic to your website, hence more conversion.
8. Collect information.
When you collect enough details about your clients, you can customize information and send it to them when the need arises. It’s useful when launching a new website in the future since you can extract a specific database from your store and use it as a stepping stone for marketing.
You have many options to boost your E-commerce business. You can do it by buying refurbished or returned products and selling them at a profit. Other considerations include not rushing the launch, focusing on the customer, testing and analyzing your site with tools like OKR software, and incorporating social media.
