Since opening your e-commerce business, things have gone quite well. You and your team have poured all your knowledge, expertise, and creativity into the e-store. Daily operations stay relatively smooth. Despite these, transactions have not picked up lately.
Online sales seem to have come to a standstill. You wonder why.
This slowdown typically happens to e-commerce businesses. If your e-retail stagnates, do not be dismayed. It is a natural process of having an online store. You need to take some actions to accelerate growth.
Let’s look at five useful tips to grow your e-commerce business further.
Table of Contents
1. Focus on Customers
Adopt a customer-centric strategy to build loyalty and retention. Customers must be the focal point of your e-retail. Develop an approach that improves their online shopping journey and experience. You must be flexible to change how you do business to align with the buyers’ needs and wants.
Recommended strategies/tactics:
- Pay attention to product reviews. Customer feedback helps others in their purchasing decision. So encourage buyers to post reviews on your website. If they are busy, you can ask them to provide a ranking instead (e.g., 1 to 5 stars). Offer freebies or discounted items in exchange for a review to incentivize customers.
- Include product suggestions. On your product page, introduce a portion of recommended items similar to the ones the customers view. These options give them more choices to pick from and keep them browsing.
- Launch a question-and-answer (Q&A) section. This feature forms and keeps a community where consumers can inform each other and progress in their customer journey. This helps your site gain customer trust and eventually boost sales.
2. Conduct Data Analysis
Gather, evaluate, and track statistics and figures about your customers to gain deeper insights into their behavior and preferences. Use data analytics tools and software to help process and analyze information more accurately. With data analysis, you can improve revenue by anticipating better what online shoppers will likely purchase and at how much.
Recommended strategies/tactics:
- Customize the shopping journey. Data can supplement your customer-centric strategy. It helps individualize user experience by analyzing previous purchases and browsing history. With data, you can provide menu options such as “recent views or orders” that bring relevant items to customers.
- Manage inventory. Data analysis enables you to predict sales. It can assist you in balancing the supply and demand for items. A well-adjusted stock means better consumer prices and lower storage costs.
- Identify fraud. Analyze recent and real-time data to determine whether real customers are transacting, not scammers, hackers, or impostors. Online frauds and thefts are costly to your business reputation and shoppers.
3. Invest in Omnichannel Technology
The business landscape has significantly changed since the pandemic. Social distancing and lockdowns led to numerous physical store closures or slowdowns and a growth spike in e-commerce. U.S. shoppers spent about $1.7 trillion online in the last two years of the pandemic from around $600 billion in 2017.
If your online business sees minimal activity despite the uptrend, it is time to upgrade to omnichannel technology. Omnichannel provides seamless communication and helps put you back on track with next-level customer experience.
Recommended strategies/tactics:
- Meet customers through all channels. Expand communication lines from phones and email to social media, live chat, chatbots, and community forums. Ensure that current and potential buyers can reach you via their preferred channel anytime.
- Integrate physical and web stores. The technology lets buyers place orders online and pick up the items at the nearest physical store. This helps you save on costs and manage inventory better.
- Optimize channels. Millennials and Generation Z depend on social media and live chat, while Generation X and baby boomers opt for phone calls and email. Focus on the touchpoints your customers prefer. Remove the ones that are seldom used.
4. Improve Content Marketing Efforts
Promote your products through content creation and build a solid relationship with current and potential consumers. Develop consistently high-quality, engaging, and relevant information suited to them to increase brand recall. When it is time for customers to buy, you will likely be on their top list.
Recommended strategies/tactics:
- Generate Google- and reader-friendly content. Ensure the textual content produced is geared toward both search engine optimization (SEO) and reader satisfaction. Over time, this improves your site’s organic SEO and ranking on search engine results pages (SERPs).
- Publish newsletters and blogs. Frequently publish relevant and valuable content to establish a stronger online presence. Produce and publish different easy-to-understand, interesting, and educational subjects for your customers in the form of how-to articles and listicles.
- Harness the power of social media. Maximize the market reach of developed and curated content by regularly posting it on various social networks (e.g., Facebook, Instagram, and Twitter). Social media is one of the most effective content marketing tools.
5. Outsource Customer Service
Delegate customer service processes to a third-party vendor, such as a business process outsourcing (BPO) company, to free up more of your time and effort for higher-value tasks. Outsourcing is also cost-effective; many BPO providers offer their first-rate services at reasonable rates.
Recommended strategies/tactics:
- Choose a service provider with 24/7 omnichannel support. Customer service must be available to customers around the clock, including on weekends, holidays, and late nights. Ensure it has omnichannel support for smooth customer interaction.
- Pick a third-party team with advanced technologies. Having an outsourcing partner that uses the latest customer service software and systems helps boost customer experience. New customer relationship management tools help track and analyze buyers’ behavior and interaction.
- Recruit a reputable BPO company. An established service provider with broad customer service experience and expertise can provide you with trained and qualified agents. It also has a list of well-known clients it has successfully worked with.
Final Thoughts
These tips give you some ideas on dealing with your current sales stagnancy issues from a different perspective.
E-commerce businesses looking to regain momentum must address several items. First, admitting that you might have overlooked certain opportunities is necessary to help objectively solve your concerns. Second, review thoroughly to find the root problems. Third, do not stop until you find the best possible solution.
Finally, consider getting the assistance of outside experts, such as consultants and offshoring service organizations, to raise the chances of spurring growth. As the old saying goes, “Two heads are better than one.”
About the Author
Rene Mallari is a B2B content writer for Unity Communications, an Arizona-based Inc. 5000 company specializing in outsourcing and offshoring services.
