Shoppers, both Retail & Wholesale, are researching and buying online in higher percentages each year, with no sign of the trend slowing down. There was a time when….
“Cyber Monday” was it’s own sale day, leaving “Black Friday” for brick and mortar sales, but you can now get many Black Friday sales online too. Similarly, Wholesale buyers are less likely to place orders at trade shows, or wait for next season’s catalog to arrive in the mail. They’re now more likely to simply purchase online at a time that’s convenient for them.
So, how does a business succeed in this climate of digital sales? There are a few major components to succeed in the technological mega mall that we all know as the internet. These include:
List your products.
In most cases, you’ll choose to build your own eCommerce website for these means. When doing so, you’ll want to plan just like you were going to open a brick and mortar location. You’ll want to bring in a good “general contractor” to help plan out the project, build your online storefront and help you through the decisions along the way. This step will include questions about technology, and vendors, such as for credit card processing, shipping methods and website hosting, to name a few.
In some cases, you may choose to list your products with other online marketplaces like Amazon or eBay as well. The benefit is that these websites have lots of traffic of their own. The downside is that they are not your partners and you have much less control of your destiny. Your sales can be great one day and plummet the next because of new competition. These are great places to sell, but tough places to rely on for your “bread and butter.”
Attract Shoppers
There are a great many ways to draw traffic to your eCommerce website. For instance, you can reach directly out to existing and historically loyal customers through email marketing, direct mail, or phone calls. While that will help make your previous shoppers aware of the new, more convenient way to shop, there are still lots of customers that haven’t heard of you yet. Common ways to direct these consumers to your website include:
- Search Engine Optimization
- Pay Per Click Marketing
- Social Media Marketing
- Content Marketing
- Affiliate Marketing
and more
Build a Better Mousetrap
Physical storefronts change the layout of their merchandise, and make many other changes over time to maximize sales. To get the most out of your eCommerce website, you’ll want to do the same with your digital store. You can test and measure different design and functionality changes, and monitor their effects on sales. For instance, you might want to:
- Speed up your website loading times
- Add new checkout options to help a shopper purchase quickly
- Improve your Site Search, making it easier to find products within your site
- Add Search Filters so that customers can shop more easily
- Increase trust with logos and symbols related to security and reliability
- Offer more convenient payment options
- Attract more product & merchant reviews
- Bring down shipping costs, making you more competitive overall
- Set up a Loyalty / Rewards program to keep customers coming back
- Use LiveChat to help customers through the purchasing process
- Translate your site into other languages
Conversion Rate Optimization, the process of improving your conversion of website visitors into sales, is a personalized process, focusing on the particulars of your business, and looking at your actual website reports and statistics.
To learn more about selling online, including many more specifics on these topics, we welcome you to register for eCommerce Expo South Florida, a free event for local businesses who want to expand through eCommerce sales, including those who want to help their existing eCommerce sales grow.
Robert Rand of RandMarketing.com was educated at NYU Poly and has managed the development and marketing of hundreds of websites. Along with Rand’s award winning team, he helps clients take their businesses to the next level by employing best practices, while staying at the forefront of the eCommerce and internet marketing industries. From technical issues to traditional marketing efforts, Robert takes pride in providing our clients with services that will make a difference in their bottom lines.
