Online Selling Tips and Tricks
Online selling requires you to make decisions about your business name, online location, payment method, shipping and marketing. With some e-commerce solutions, it is possible to create an online store free of charge when launching an activity. Often associated paid versions are available to support the future development of the company.
The e-commerce sector is proving particularly dynamic today. As a result, there are more and more e-merchants and competition pushes everyone to constant optimization to stand out. Online selling is very easy, but you need to know some tips and tricks. A number of steps can be easily implemented to boost your sales. Here we go into quick-action tips to help you increase your online sales. Here are some tips to increase your online sales:
1 – Analyze and test your site regularly
One of the key elements of web marketing is the analysis of statistics relating to user practices on your site. This is a relevant way to determine the effectiveness of your decisions, so that you can react quickly and optimize your pages. It is important to know the habits of Internet users within your online store: where they come from, which pages they like and which ones they leave.
The statistics will be invaluable to you to make your site more efficient. To do this, consider performing regular split tests (or A / B tests) by offering several successive versions of your sales pages.
You can try an insightful audit of your website’s quality for better performances with Dareboost.
Perform tests and analyzes of your online selling pages
To find out which strategy works best with your customers, try testing multiple versions of product pages, buttons, messages…
Perform several tests and observe the impact in terms of turnover. This will help you choose the most optimal version of your website.
2 – Optimize your site for a better customer experience
The quality of your online sales site has of course a major impact on your sales. No need to spend a fortune for this: an e-store must above all be functional to attract potential customers. A site with particularly long loading times will be shunned by Internet users and less well referenced by search engines.
It is possible to simply check your loading speed with a tool like Google PageSpeed Insights. In addition, mobile browsing is now an important element to take into account: in 2016, 25% of online sales were made from a mobile. Responsive design, which aims to make viewing a site comfortable from any mobile device, can significantly increase your sales.
Read also: Business Idea for SME (Small Medium Enterprise)
Create a responsive design site
Therefore, your e-commerce site must be readable on a smartphone, computer or tablet. Buyers should be able to complete their orders on any channel.
Optimize the loading time of your pages
Internet users are increasingly impatient and volatile. They no longer want to waste time with pages that are too long to load.
So make sure you improve the display of your site by using dedicated online speed testing tools like PageSpeed Insight.
Simplify the purchasing process
Customers are in more and more hurry. They therefore have no time to waste when shopping. Offer them a fast shopping experience with an efficient checkout, such as with the smart checkout.
A few clicks should be enough to finalize their order!
3 – Improve your logistics to be more attractive
We too often underestimate the impact of efficient logistics in an e-commerce activity. This is a critical sector that has a strong impact on the image and reputation of your business. Online shoppers are increasingly demanding in this area these days: According to a report by Forrester Research, nearly half of unfinished carts are due to excessively high shipping costs.
You can therefore generate more online selling sales by offering shipping costs to your customers, or by reducing them via several delivery methods. By integrating logistics into your sales strategy, you will be able to more easily convince new customers, who will then order for a larger amount.
Pamper new customers
Because acquiring new customers is one of the most difficult steps, it’s important that you pamper them.
To make them more loyal, I advise you, for example, to offer them a small welcome gift on their first order.
4 – Create content to be better referenced
E-merchants know that SEO is a crucial area to hope to perform well compared to the competition. Despite the visual appeal of your site and the quality of your products, if your online store does not attract enough Internet users on a daily basis, it will be impossible to see your sales take off.
For this, your natural referencing (or SEO) depends largely on the quality of your editorial content. This is an effective method of generating qualified traffic that can give you a high conversion rate.
Keywords
In SEO, most e-merchants will seek to position themselves on the main keywords, use short keywors, such as:
- gardening shop
- car accessories
- dog toys
- baby shoes
- rain coat
- car dealer
By looking for rather long keywords, you will position yourself more easily!
Here are some examples to take up the queries mentioned above:
- tool for removing thorns from roses
- rear light bulb Philips brand
- bouncing ball for poodle
- girls winter rain coat
5 – Take initiatives to retain your customers
While it is important to bring users to your site, it is just as essential to achieve customer loyalty from their first purchase. Several simple initiatives need to be carried out for this purpose. A regular newsletter will allow you to communicate around your products. A referral program is a good idea to attract new buyers.
Giving importance to your customers, for example by integrating their comments into your product sheets, is also an interesting process. Several marketing actions (one-off promotions, benefits after a certain number of purchases, etc.) are to be implemented throughout the year to reward your regular customers.
Offer additional products
To increase the average basket of your buyers, make recommendations to your visitors. When they go to certain pages or make purchases, point them out to other items that may be of interest to them.
Get your customers to take action
Call to action buttons should be an integral part of your marketing strategy.
By clearly explaining to your customers what you expect from them, you will only be able to improve your customer base, as well as your conversion rate and therefore your sales.
“Add to cart”, “contact us”, “download”, “buy”, etc. are all elements that must appear repeatedly on your site.
Show customer reviews and customers’ opinion
To reassure your visitors, do not hesitate to share the opinions of your customers.
Promote them on your e-commerce site. Lack of confidence is one of the main barriers to buying on the Internet. The recommendations are very effective in removing this reluctance.
On Shopify, add your customer reviews in 1 click with the dedicated “Customer reviews” block.
Make promotional offers
To promote compulsive shopping, promotions are an excellent marketing lever.
From time to time, post discounts on certain products, promotional offers or free shipping. Relay this information by sending newsletters.
These are excellent elements for pushing the visitor to complete the purchase.
6 – Strengthen your advertising campaigns
By running effective advertising campaigns, it will be much easier for you to attract new prospects. However, it is not always easy to know how to carry out this type of search or social media campaign. It may be interesting to go through a service provider specializing in this sector, in order to optimize your campaigns according to your target.
Work with influencers
If you are looking to boost your sales, what could be better than influencers?
By finding a few influential people in your theme on Instagram, for example, you can set up a product placement strategy.
7 – Have photos that well represent your products or services
Many sites unfortunately neglect this aspect… Yet it is a very important aspect for selling online! Keep in mind that when buying online, your customers cannot see or touch your products. This means that as an E-commerce manager, we must offer quality photos of our products in addition to being from several angles. This way the consumer can at least look at the product from all angles before getting it. You have just refuted one of the main objections of your customers!
Also, having photos with the same background on your entire site is a great aesthetic advantage.
8. Write full descriptions for online selling is very important
Indeed, the descriptions are complementary to the photos, a good E-commerce must have good descriptions for each of its products! These must be salespeople and encourage the visitor to take action!
Many companies have very ordinary descriptions since it takes a long time to write, especially when they have 1000 products for example.
On the other hand, it is time well invested, it is your sales pitch for each of your products, so a three-word description is not enough!
Google identifies this regularity and then makes your Web page go up in the first results of its searches. Thus, more customers are brought to your site.
The traffic is increased tenfold, just like your sales!
9. Have all your inventory online
This is the bottom line, any self-respecting e-commerce site should have all of its products online, as quickly as possible! For what reasons?
Having a lot of products makes a difference. Before you go to a merchant, if you check their website and they don’t have the one you want, are you going to go anyway? Probably not. And this is most likely what your customers are doing, too.
The customer who visits your website, if they never find what they are looking for, they will go elsewhere and find what they want on your competitor’s site. If you had what this customer was looking for in stock and it wasn’t on your site, you most likely just lost one sale today, but several maybe several, especially if it was of a product with a high repeat.
Your customer will assume that you do not take this product and will go directly to your competitor’s site in the future.
Trying to convince that same customer to come back for the product a second time can cost you much more than the initial investment of getting your product online.
10. Display your general terms and conditions
Finally, to prove your seriousness to your customers and be transparent with them, post your general conditions of sale on your site and be clear on certain crucial points such as delivery, return or refund conditions.
Offer several payment methods
Some buyers refuse purchases simply because their usual method of payment is not accepted.
To not miss sales, offer different payment methods on your site, such as credit card, the use of PayPal, Amazon Pay, wire transfer or even cash on delivery.
Improve customer satisfaction through your customer service
Because satisfied customers often order multiple times from the same site, make their satisfaction your priority.
Your customer service must be optimal. To do this, answer all their questions quickly. Make deliveries as soon as possible. Include a little gift or a note.
All the attentions of this kind are always a pleasure…
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Many services intelligent advertising tool, allows you to automate the various stages of creation and management of your advertising campaigns according to a given objective. Your campaigns will then be more efficient, guaranteeing better visibility for your online store and an optimized return on investment. You will be able to target prospects similar to those frequenting your site, a useful process for generating qualified traffic on your site, and thus increase your sales without having to perform these time-consuming tasks.
Whatever products or services are offered, increasing your online sales necessarily requires increased organization in all areas of your activity. A few targeted actions are enough to sustainably improve the ergonomics of your site, the referencing of your pages, your logistics, your advertising campaigns as well as the loyalty of your customers. Taking a step back at least an hour a week to think about these questions is the best way to find suitable solutions, which will make your online store more efficient in the long term.
Sources: PinterPandai, Business News Daily
Photo credit: Pixabay