The world of eCommerce keeps growing every year and that’s a trend that doesn’t seem to be leaving us any time soon. Over 2.14 billion people worldwide are expected to buy goods and services online in 2021, which means eCommerce merchants will have many opportunities to sell their products.
But it’s important to remember that the eCommerce market is incredibly saturated, and you need to compete against online retail giants and millions of other online stores. If you, as an eCommerce merchant, want to stand out in the crowd, you need to use the best sales strategies.
Social selling
Selling your products via social media, which is also known as social selling, is a technique many eCommerce stores use to make as many sales as possible. And with over 3.6 billion people who use social media globally, we can’t blame eCommerce merchants for taking advantage of it.
Social selling allows businesses of all sizes to leverage social media to attract customers from all over the world. If you have the right strategy for social selling, you can achieve a lot. Here are some of the main reasons why you need to give social selling a try:
- It’s one of the cheapest types of advertising. Popular social media platforms such as Facebook and Instagram offer sponsored posts that don’t cost too much but still have enormous potential to bring traffic to your website.
- It gives you more promotion opportunities. There are multiple ways to market your business on social media, and social media campaigns are also much easier to create than any type of offline campaign. Furthermore, when you use social media, it’s much easier to follow viral trends and stay relevant.
- There’s no better place for networking. People and businesses from all over the world use social media to communicate and create long-lasting relationships. And if you use your platforms to communicate with customers, networking will be easier than ever.
- Social media is the future of marketing. Offline marketing will undoubtedly become obsolete in the next few decades and judging by the current climate, social media will become the most powerful marketplace.
Social selling is very beneficial, but it also requires a lot of time and work. If you’re not ready for this kind of commitment but still want to enjoy all of the benefits, you can hire a social media agency that will do all the hard work for you. With these professionals, you can rest assured that you’ll be getting the best results aligned with the latest rules and regulations, following the latest trends and staying on top of your game.
Recover failed payments
If your online store accepts credit cards, which it most likely does, you know the troubles of failed payments. There are many reasons why this can happen, such as if your customer is using a card with a spending limit, they don’t have sufficient funds, or perhaps their billing address is outdated.
There are also many instances when a customer’s credit card has been canceled or it expired, and they simply forgot to update their information. While there is always a slight chance that a payment failed due to an error on your website, more often than not, errors occur because of the human factor.
Even though you’re not at fault for these failed payments, you still suffer when they occur. While they have many negative impacts on you and your website, the biggest one is that it’s delaying your revenue. If you’re not careful, all of that tied-up money will become a serious issue in no time.
Luckily, failed payment recovery services can help you recover a majority of failed payments, most of which would probably be lost otherwise. You will be able to do that thanks to software that helps you:
- Create dunning email campaigns that alert customers when their card is expired.
- Capture unpaid invoices and resolve any revenue delay.
- Take care of any customer chargebacks and disputes.
- Discover the biggest reasons why payments fail and churn occurs in your business.
Optimize your checkout process
Nowadays, most online stores have great design, easy navigation, and excellent product images, all of which are important when it comes to leaving a good impression and making a sale. As long as visitors are on your website, you need to provide them with a seamless experience while they’re shopping.
However, many merchants fail to realize that one of the most important things for an eCommerce store is its checkout process. When the website visitor is finally ready to checkout and complete their purchase, the experience needs to remain as seamless as it has been until then.
The most important thing with every checkout process is that it’s easy, smooth, and clear. After all, eCommerce stores see a 35.26% increase in conversion rates through better checkout design.
There are a few things you can do to optimize your checkout process. Start by allowing guest checkout and never forcing your customers to set up an account, as that is one of the biggest reasons for cart abandonment. Make sure the checkout on your mobile website works just as well as it does on the desktop version.
Keep the checkout process to one page if possible, reduce the number of form fields as much as you can, and use auto-populate tools so customers have to do as little work as possible. Try not to show ads during checkout, as they’ll distract the customer’s attention. Allow multiple payment methods so your customers can choose the method they prefer.
Put a lot of focus into your email campaigns
When it comes to marketing, you need to direct a lot of your focus into strategies that always give good results, and email marketing is certainly one of them. Email can bring you a high ROI and increase sales, but only if you know how to use email campaigns in the right way.
Some emails you need to include in your marketing campaign are:
- Welcome emails. Whenever someone makes a purchase from your website, send them a welcome email in which you will thank them for their business and make them feel welcome. You can also include a special discount or promo code to incentivize the customers to shop at your store again.
- Newsletters. Send out regular newsletters to your subscribers in which you will inform them about your latest products, discounts, product tips, and any other information your customers may find useful.
- Special occasion emails. Reach out to customers on their birthday, during the holidays, or any other special occasion to remind them how much you appreciate them. Once again, this is the perfect type of email in which you can include an incentive such as a discount or a promo code.
- Wishlist/abandoned cart reminder emails. Whenever a customer doesn’t complete their purchase or has items on their wishlist for more than a few days, send them an email to remind them about the items they haven’t purchased yet. Include a link back to their wishlist or cart as well.
Final thoughts
The world of eCommerce is very competitive and online merchants need to think about sales strategies all the time if they want to stay ahead of the competition. The most important thing to know is which strategies work better than the others, and you can rest assured the strategies you read about here are some of the best.
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