17 Ecommerce Tips

The number of online shoppers is increasing at a brisk pace, and so are their cumulative sales. According to Statistics Brain, web-based retail sales worldwide have grown by an average of around 15 percent each year over the past decade or so. In 2016, e-commerce sales surpassed 2.3 trillion U.S. dollars for the first time ever, and it seems that the upward growth won’t stop anytime soon.

As global e-retail sales continue climbing at a fast pace, there is growing interest in the existing players on the market, as well as new customers that joined the industry in recent years.

In 2019, an estimated 3.53 trillion U.S. dollars in retail sales were generated worldwide. The largest share of total retail sales came from the United States (32 percent), followed by China (12 percent).

E-commerce sales are expected to continue increasing in the future, and even go beyond the 4.96 trillion U.S. dollars mark by 2022. These positive projections should also result in a significant spike in the number of online shoppers, which will rise to 3.99 billion individuals by 2022. The trend is most visible in emerging economies such as India and China, where e-commerce adoption rates have been rising exponentially over the past few years.

The world’s leading economies are home to the largest number of online shoppers around the globe; China (565 million), the United States (284 million), Japan (141 million), and Germany (91 million) account for over 1 billion digital buyers alone.

According to forecasts from Forrester Research, the online retail industry will be worth nearly 7 trillion U.S. dollars by 2022, and while this goal may seem idealistic at first sight, there are several signs that prove this prediction could become a reality in the near future.

Do you want to learn how you can tap into this growing economy? Our article has detailed 17 Ecommerce hacks that you can use to grow your online store.

Creating a successful online store is trickier than it seems. While more customer traffic means more sales, every new customer that hits your store must be qualified as a potentially valuable buyer. Here are 17 tips to keep in mind as you curate your online store.

1. Engaging Web Design

Designing a functional and attractive ecommerce website from scratch can be quite expensive, especially for a designer. On the other hand, not only is it easy to find high-quality templates on the web, but many ecommerce companies will distribute them for free or for a nominal fee. By staying up-to-date with ecommerce trends and keeping in mind your target audience’s preferences, you can create a successful online store faster than you think.

With a good template and a bit of ability to tweak it to fit your business’ needs, you can have yourself an effective online storefront that will not only look beautiful but also have the features and functions that your visitors need.

Make sure to choose a template that is highly customizable. That way, you have the option to make all sorts of changes—be it changing colors, adding new pages, or including sliders. If possible, go for more premium templates that contain multiple pre-made website demo options. These lucrative deals are offered by template providers who have spent thousands of hours designing and perfecting their products.

2. An Awesome “About Us” Page

An about page is a starting point to building trust with website visitors. It’s a good idea to keep it simple and include the high points of your story to let people know they can expect more from you.

The “About Us” page tells the visitor about your business, why you started it, who runs it, and what you hope to achieve. It’s a great place to put all those accolades you received from customers and media coverage.

3. Partner with Other Brands

Tap into the power of other trusted brands to establish trust with new customers. A partnership demonstrates that you’re a credible and established company who takes care in who you associate yourself with. On your site, it can be subtle in the footer or next to the logo on every page.

Use other brands to boost your credibility and build trust with buyers. Whether they’re an established company like Coke or smaller entities like websites that recommend your product, other brands can prove that you’re not out to scam people. Focus on the good stuff companies say about your brand and avoid anything negative.

4. Offer Excellent Online Support

When your buyer has a question about your product, they will want answers fast. Live chat is a tool that can help you answer questions and provide support quickly and easily. After someone converts on your site, make sure to promptly assist them via live chat so they feel satisfied with their purchase. This will increase the likelihood of them becoming repeat customers.

For years, companies have been touting the importance of providing “online support,” but many businesses overlook the best method: live chat. Live chat can be incorporated in almost any website, even sites that deal with complex medical and financial issues, or must comply with strict privacy laws. Not only will online support convert more people into customers, but it also delivers a 110% increase in customer satisfaction.

Live chat is the most requested customer support feature. They want to talk to a human when they have a problem instead of posting on a forum or sending an email. By providing this service, you can expect more repeat sales and referrals.

5. Provide Popular Payment Options

When you’re building an e-commerce site, the big question is how to accept payments. Online payments have definitely evolved to cover a wide range of customer tastes, offering everything from credit cards to gift cards and more.

Payment options for your store are a critical element to any eCommerce project. Offer a wide variety of popular payment options for your customers so they can conveniently and efficiently make a purchase. PayPal reigns as the go-to payment solution, but there are other popular options for your business to consider.

6. Advertise on Social Media

Social media advertising is a great way to connect with potential customers in fun, creative ways. A simple Facebook post or an ad on Snapchat can be a powerful way to connect with your customers. Google Analytics can help you figure out which social networks are the most popular among your target audience members and where they’re located, so focus your efforts on these networks.

Many social media platforms, like Facebook, Instagram, Snapchat and Twitter offer the opportunity to advertise on their platform. This can be done in many different ways, such as sponsored posts or videos, or promoted accounts. Using these tools will allow you to introduce your business to new potential customers in creative and fun ways.

7. Create Quality SEO-Driven Blog

Creating good quality content is the first step in having a well-trusted blog. Add your SEO keywords, and write your posts in an engaging manner so that people will want to share your content online. Take a look at what other bloggers do to gain more followers who will respond to your products as well.

In order to generate more traffic and sales for your store, you have to optimize the blog for search engines. This means creating content that has a lot of value for the reader and targets popular keywords that people are searching for, like “how to use X product”. Once the blog is optimized, it is up to you and your team to consistently post on a schedule that entices daily return visitors and grows a loyal base of fans.

8. Build Buyer Trust with Product Reviews

Reviews and ratings can help build trust among customers. The more product reviews and ratings that a product has, the more trustworthy buyers find the seller. To encourage your shoppers to leave product reviews and ratings for all of your products, consider providing incentives for leaving feedback. Reviews provide valuable feedback from buyers who have used or purchased the product in question. They also provide a glimpse into what potential customers should expect when they purchase a product.

To encourage feedback, consider including a question like, “Did you find this product useful? Please consider leaving a review!” on your order confirmation page.

9. Make Your Site SEO-Friendly

Seo-Friendly WordPress themes are the perfect solution for any business trying to attract traffic to their website. They will allow you to create a good looking, highly functional website that will generate sales without any coding knowledge or expensive design services.

To increase your product conversion rate you need to present products that are related to what our customers are looking for. In order to do this, each product in your store has two fields for Product Title and Description.

The Product Title is the first thing potential customers see in search results, while the Description appears directly below the title and contains essential information like key features, pricing, and availability. The more relevant your titles and descriptions are to a specific keyword or set of keywords, the better chance you have of ranking higher in search engine results. You could also employ the service of an ecommerce SEO agency.

10. Ensure Your Store is Mobile-Responsive

As more buyers prefer to do their shopping from mobile devices, merchants have to ensure they don’t lose customers. Ensure your store is mobile-friendly today by using responsive online store design templates.

There are two kinds of mobile-friendliness: Responsiveness and adaptive design. Responsive web design is where a website changes its delivery format based on device usage. Adaptive design is where a site will automatically detect the device or software a customer uses and deliver the best experience for that platform.

11. Track Analytics and Iterate

Marketing is an ever-changing field, which is why it’s so important to take a data-driven approach to growing your online store. You need to know what’s working and what’s not. Google Analytics can help you gain more visibility into your customer activity on your site.

Online sellers who are looking to make their sales grow need to track their analytics and iterate. Through a Google Analytics tool, you can organize your web data into charts and helpful reports.

These reports will show you the percentage of product sales or number of cart abandonments, among other metrics. Track your sales with Analytics so that you can see how you can be more effective in marketing and selling to your customers.

12. Offer Free Shipping

Offer free shipping. By eliminating the added cost of standard shipping, you’ll likely gain an edge over your competition and improve your conversion rates. Keep in mind that free shipping usually only applies to standard shipping, so be sure to specify a deadline for your customers to receive their shipments to avoid any confusion.

Small or large online retailers can benefit from using Free Shipping for their shoppers. Regardless of a shopper’s purchase amount, giving them free shipping on their order can assure that they will keep coming back to your site again and again for future purchases.

13. Build Your Outreach List

The key to growing your business is making sure that you are connecting with the right people.  The most successful businesses use networking to extend their reach in the marketplace and grow their business.

By generating an outreach list, you’re able to stay focused on connecting with targets that could actually help you build your business at a faster rate than if you had just sent out emails blindly.

14. Use Ready-to-Go Storefront Tools

If you’re a merchant who doesn’t have a coding or graphic design background, you should strongly consider using a software company to set up your online store. These companies have built-in store templates that make it easy to customize your site without any knowledge of programming or graphic design. And, if you ever run into any issues, there are customer service representatives available to help keep everything running smoothly and efficiently.

Merchants who don’t have a coding background should consider using software, like Shopify and BigCommerce, to set up their online store. These programs have built in store templates so sellers can easily customize their site without any knowledge of programming or graphic design.

15. Keep an Eye on the Competition

One of the best ways to find out what makes your competitor’s business more appealing to customers is by creating an online comparison chart. By putting together a spreadsheet or chart that shows your product compared to its closest competitors’ version, merchants can see why customers may shop at one store over another.

While you’re on the lookout for the competition, don’t forget about their products. Are they offering the same products for a lower price to entice buyers away from your store? Researching and analyzing how others operate their businesses is crucial to keeping customers interested in your brand.

16. Use High-Res Photos

Make your products jump off of the page with full-color, professional photos taken of each angle. Feature different views of your product so buyers have clarity around every product feature—from every angle possible!

Many ecommerce clothing companies are now shooting their items on expensive flat lays with a minimal, amount of editing in Photoshop to create highly compelling product pages. Angle your shots to emphasize key details from all angles, and shoot several photos so you can use the best one(s) on your site.

High-resolution images are vital. It’s important to look for options such as high-quality, starting at 1,000 pixels wide although 2,000 pixels is preferred.

17. Offer Generous Refund and Money-Back Guarantee Policies

You have to trust your buyers if you want to sell something online. And while there’s always a chance that someone will return an item they purchased, offering a refund or money-back guarantee is one way take some of the risk out of online buying.

Not only does it show your customers that you trust them, but it also makes it possible for them to make a purchase without fearing they’ll lose their investment if they change their mind or aren’t satisfied with the product.