There are over 26 million eCommerce stores worldwide, with retail sales of $4.9 trillion in 2021, which is growing daily. One cannot ignore such a huge market space, but creating a successful eCommerce store is not a cakewalk.
As a businessman, it makes sense to start an eCommerce store without a brick and mortar location. Furthermore, you can enjoy flexibility, affordability, and the opportunity to be successful.
Let’s imagine considering all the above, you started your online venture and unfortunately felt that you could not get what you were promised, don’t worry; success is not a straight path; it has its ups and downs.
In this article, we try to help you to run your eCommerce store successfully. We will guide you through the simple eCommerce store do’s and don’t so you don’t make the same mistakes as others.
Planning
Planning is vital if you want to sail smoothly in the eCommerce space. Moreover, planning an eCommerce business is different from other businesses.
The first thing to do is goal setting. You can then strategize your efforts to achieve those goals. This may require research and knowledge of the industry. You must calculate the challenges you may face.
The crucial part is choosing the right eCommerce platform; since many are available, choose wisely. Following are the major things you need to do
- Know your business.
- You must know the niche market of your business.
- What kind of problem do you solve with your product
- What is your business model like, such as, B2B or B2C
- How do you want to sell your product
You need to do proper costing of everything. And when you are sure that your plan is practical, execute the plan with full energy and be patient; success doesn’t come overnight.
Platform
Choosing the right platform for your eCommerce business is challenging; you should take the time to choose which one matches your needs.
There are two major types
- Self-hosted platforms like Shopify, BigCommerce, etc.
- Open sources like WooCommerce, Magento, etc.
With self-hosted platforms, you don’t worry about anything. The vendor covers everything. All you need to do is to upgrade your subscription. But they are expensive, so don’t go for them if you don’t have enough finance to afford them.
Open-source platforms come without hosting, but WooCommerce is free to install; you only need to arrange a hosting provider, which can cost you a little but not as much as a self-hosted platform. Moreover, WooCommerce offers multiple free plugins, customization, and flexibility to run your store as you want.
SEO Optimization
You must be wondering why SEO optimization is the first thing to do; the reason is that 46% of customers take the search engine route to start the buying process. And if your store, no matter how organized it is, cannot be seen by your customers, it’s useless.
It is vital to have a good ranking for SEO if you want to be seen and make some sales. Building a good ranking in SEO is a time taking process. You may need to integrate an SEO plugin into your store platform or hire an SEO expert to do the job. And believe me, it is worth it in the end.
You can also teach yourself how to improve it; for example, you frequently create awareness through blog writing posts or collaborate with other sites in the same niche.
Homepage
One thing you should keep in mind is that customers are impatient. And your store must be hospitable to keep him. It will take 10 secs for customers to form an opinion about your store, and this is when you have to impress them with your homepage and convert them.
An engaging homepage goes a long way to the success of your eCommerce store. Make every effort to make it pleasing for your customers. You can randomly test them with A/B testing on your website copy to know how your customers respond to them.
Organizing Product Pages
Don’t spend all the time building homepage; product pages are as important as the homepage. Make sure they are equally good when your customers navigate to them.
Showcasing and organizing your products is vital because it makes or breaks the sale. Showcasing products with the right description can win you more sales.
Always use crisp images of products with 2 or 3 perspective views and add product zoom. This will have a pleasing effect on customers. This also makes them think you value your products, which builds credibility and helps in conversions.
Call to Action (CTAs)
It is the most indispensable factor between lead and conversion and cannot be overlooked. CTA motivates customers to take action. You must take care of where to place it.
It is crucial to provoke customers with what you write on CTAs, and it can be some benefit you are offering or anything that goes well with the product. Following are a few things you should be sure of before implementing CTA
- It should have a vibrant color different from the background.
- Use easily eligible fonts.
- Not too wordy.
- You can also add a flash feature.
Integrating Social Proof
You can build your eCommerce store business by stimulating your marketing tools with social proof. It helps you in engaging customers and increase conversions. Social proof is a psychological phenomenon that is widely utilized in the eCommerce space. It refers to the fact that people follow the action of the masses.
You can incorporate user reviews and ratings. It is documented the customers read at least 4 positive reviews before buying anything. You can also add endorsements of experts regarding your products and share them on social media.
Many plugins are available in the market to integrate with your eCommerce platform. These plugins help you incorporate pop-ups for reviews, free good offerings, email subscriptions, etc.
Build Your Brand
Another mistake that businesses make is that they don’t focus on their branding. Your brand is what sets you apart from your competitors, and it should be reflected through your logo, design, color use, and tone.
Get your eCommerce store a name and logo. Choose colors that go with your business. All this will help you in building your brand. Brand building takes time and effort, and it will help you grow your business in the later part.
Good branding assures repeat clients who contribute 50% of your total sales, and building a brand contributes heavily to that aspect.
Designing plays an important part in building a brand. You can engage many people with your eCommerce homepage and product page designs. Your brand should also reflect on your social media to register the image of your brand in the mind of your customers. Be sure to make it a better image.
Smooth And Quick Checkouts
Optimized checkouts are essential in conversions, so make it smooth and quick. Following are some tips to optimize your checkout page:
- Don’t make your customers click through multiple pages, or you will kill your sale.
- Keep information collection at the minimum possible.
- Offer multi-channel payment gateways to your customers.
- Shipment should be prompt; your customer wants their purchase as soon as possible, so don’t make them more than 2 to 3 days, if possible.
Success is Not A Straight Path
You need to be patient and consistent; running an online business is not easy as you think. Don’t accept overnight success, or don’t get disheartened by failure in your marketing campaign. Remember, success is not a straight path; it has many ups and downs.
Just keep experimenting with new things and be vigilant about the services you are providing to your customers. Build your customer base with good services even if it costs you a little; take it as an investment.
Keep running your social proof and marketing Campaigns. Do all you can to provide an excellent optimized experience to your customers through your eCommerce platform.
I wish you all the success. GOOD luck!
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