4 Essential Ecommerce Tips for Online Retail Success
The shift from in-store to ecommerce has been defined by growing accessibility and changes in consumer behavior. This has led to an increase of ecommerce shops popping up online, and business is good. In fact, ecommerce sales are estimated to hit $735 billion by 2023. That is a lot of money on the table for online retailers.
A few other ecommerce facts worth knowing include:
- 80 percent of people using the Internet have bought a product online once
- 50 percent of Internet shoppers have bought more than one product online
- 71 percent of consumers think they will get better deals online
- 15 percent more money is spent online by Generation X than Generation Y
- Online retail sales will be in excess of over $550 billion in 2019
There is definitely a marketplace online for nearly every industry. If you have an existing business, or thinking of starting an ecommerce site, it is important to set your business up for success. The following four essential ecommerce tips can do just that. Let’s dive in!
1. Really Narrow Your Niche
Ecommerce certainly serves up a large marketplace to sell products, both nationally and globally. However, if everyone is your customer, you may not have a customer at all. This is important to remember when thinking online retail success.
To ensure you are leveraging ecommerce for maximum profits, narrow your niche. “Remember that after you master your niche, you may choose another! But don’t try to develop 2 or 3 at one time,” Maria Tabaka explained in an Inc. article. “Learn from your mistakes and your wins and then develop your second if you like.”
For example, if you want to sell phone cases, it may be best to narrow in on mobile device cases for specific devices, like only iPhone, or even a not so popular phone brand. This lets you really target that specific smartphone user, rather than competing against the entire marketplace.
2. Keep Your Eye On Shipping
Shipping has become a pretty popular topic in the ecommerce industry. With online retail giants like Amazon serving up relaxed shipping options, it makes it hard to compete at times. Sure your product may be a little cheaper than Amazon, but free two-day shipping is a compelling purchasing factor for consumers.
This makes keeping your eye on shipping an essential ecommerce tip for online retail success. If you are selling apparel, it may be in your best interest to find a company that provides apparel fulfillment services, as returns are higher in this segment of the ecommerce world than in any other industry. If you are shipping nationally, look for areas of your online business to cut costs in order to lighten the shipping burden on your customers. You can streamline shipping processes to offer two-day shipping as well. If shipping for your ecommerce order fulfillment is too complex for the scale of your business, you can hire a company that specializes in such things.
If your shipping internationally, know that things have become a lot less complicated. There are businesses out there, like BluePostal that can alleviate much of the global shipping headache, whether receiving inventory or sending products to customers.
3. Leverage Target Specific Landing Pages
Unless you have tens of thousands of dollars to spend on PPC campaigns for your products, which you most likely do not, think about organic traffic driving. Even if you have a lot of ad money to spend, why spend it when you can get the same, if not better results going the organic route to make money online.
To drive more organic traffic and net more conversions on product pages, you need to create multiple landing pages. These landing pages can be product specific, capitalizing on multiple keywords associated with a product. For example, if you are selling a line of bamboo sunglasses, you can launch a product landing page filled with keywords like, bamboo sunglasses, organic, all-natural, sustainable, eco-friendly, UV, and the list goes on.
4. Get Social With Your Ecommerce Business
The power of social media is very strong when it comes to ecommerce. If you are not using social channels to promote and increase the online visibility of your products, you may have some trouble competing. For instance, there are over a billion active Instagram users that are always on the hunt for latest product offerings.
Promote your products on social media often and use plenty of hashtags to attract your target audience. You can even employ the help of an influencer in your niche, giving you access to a built in audience that already likes products similar to yours.
In Conclusion . . .
There are many ways to grow your online retail business into a success. The above four essential ecommerce tips are not the end all. Always research latest trends and learn as much as you can daily about how you can tweak your online business for more sales. What is your top ecommerce tip for success?
