The e-commerce business is one of the most rapidly growing industries becoming the first-rate choice of worldwide consumers. It offers a wide spectrum of benefits such as 24×7 shopping, convenience, best discounts and offers on prices, allowing retailers to sell their products, and much more. However, this billion-dollar industry also poses a few challenges in its endeavor to move forward. One of the biggest challenges that any entrepreneur has to face is the stringent competition to drive traffic to his website or mobile application. Secondly, converting your site visitors into potential buyers is quite a daunting task.
If we believe the stats and figures presented by Statista, the current number of digital buyers in 2019 is about 1.92 billion worldwide. This whooping digit is expected to exceed further up to 2.14 billion by 2021.
The current total market revenue of e-commerce is about 2027.94 million USD, which is estimated to be 2854.20 million USD by 2023 at a Compound Annual Growth Rate (CAGR) of 8.9%.
The moral of the discussion is that if you want to excel in your e-commerce business on a successful note, it is important to build a professional strategy. Here are 5 effective tips that you can follow to end a winning streak.
Conduct a Thorough Analysis and Research on the Market
Whether you are a startup e-commerce business or an established one, extensive market research and analysis is compulsory. You may say that this is a basic rule, which business should follow. But it is one of the growth tips for e-commerce that will show its positive result if carried out effectively. While doing your market research, you need to focus on these crucial aspects.
Identify Who Your Target Audience
It is pivotal to first identify who your audience is before pitching them with the right strategy. One of the key factors in deciding the target audience is demography including age, gender, area of residence, and income. You have to find out the important channels using which the potential customers will reach your site such as search engines, social media platforms, and so on.
Identifying Your Closest Competitors
Next, you have to identify your close competitors and constantly monitor their performance and progress. You need to check out how they are different and similar to your site.
Demand for Product
Analyze the demand for the product you are selling. You will have to take a few steps here. You can conduct an online market survey hiring any professional agency or take the help of expert market analytics to tell you the mood of the consumers.
Follow Top Prevailing E-Commerce Trends
If you are into the e-commerce business, it is essential to understand that this is one industry, which is on a continuous roll. A lot has changed ever since it made its inception a few decades ago. Thus, you have to necessarily keep yourself up-to-date with the latest and top prevailing trends.
Now, considering the e-commerce trends for 2019 and beyond, there are quite a few that need to be implemented. For instance, e-commerce sites have already adopted digital transformation. They are using innovative technologies like
- Chatbot AI to streamline conversations with customers.
- Augmented Reality and AR to enhance the user experience.
- Add more videos to explain their products and services.
- Voice Search allows customers to find their products in real-time.
- Personalizing the experience of the customers through important data and insights.
- Creating micro markets where customers can buy products from outside e-commerce sites such as social media platforms.
- Streamlining the Payment process with multiple paying options
- Implementing cryptocurrency as a payment option
- Support for multiple languages
Blue Ocean Versus Red Ocean Strategy
Have you ever heard about these two terms before? Well, to begin with, both are business strategies with a completely different approach.
The Blue Ocean Strategy is referred to as a market where the entrepreneur will come across either no business rivals or very few competitors. This means that you are choosing an e-commerce business area with wide market space, no pricing contest, and get an opportunity to capture new demand. In short, you are unveiling and introducing a new concept, which hasn’t been heard or employed before.
The Red Ocean Strategy, on the other hand, offers you a very stiff competitive environment in which every e-commerce site tries to outperform others. It is an overcrowded place where the margin for obtaining profit gets decreased. You often have to keep lowering the price of the products to succeed in the cutthroat competition.
On a comparative note, blue ocean strategy offers more benefits than the red ocean strategy. However, it solely depends on your decision as what you want to choose.
High-Quality Authentic Product Photos With Genuine Description
Since most of the customers do not have tangible access to the product, they depend on the images and descriptions provided on the website. It has become very essential to offer them high-quality genuine product images that are high on appeal. Remember, customers have several other options, so the margin for error is much less. According to research, 80% of consumers say that their purchasing decision is influenced by visually attractive photos. Furthermore, 60% of customers say that they consider a business whose images are uploaded on local search engines.
It is also important to provide your customers with thorough and detailed information about the product. Make sure that the product description is original and authentic. Don’t make any false promises in the product. It should be customer-centric and not very long.
Engaging Customers Using Social
Social media platforms are big game changers when it comes to influencing customers and driving success towards e-commerce sites. It provides a spectrum of benefits that you can cash in to engage more audiences.
- One of the key factors that affect the buying decision of the consumers on social media is reviews from social influencers, for example, public figures.
- Customers also give a lot of priority to reviews and comments given by their family and friends. According to research, 81% of customers buy products referred by their close friends.
- You can showcase your entire online store on social media such as Facebook by creating a separate business landing page.
- Social media also provides you with an opportunity to advertise and promote your brand using social media marketing strategies.
- You can run a contest on social media to create awareness among the audience.
Planning Strategy to Reduce Cart Abandonment
Most e-commerce websites and mobile applications fail to get customer attention due to cart abandonment. According to a study, the average rate of abandoning a cart is 68%. A different percentage of customers leave the cart for different reasons. For example, about 56% of consumers abandon their cart due to unexpected costs such as additional shipping.
However, there are solutions to counter this problem. One of the strategies that can help you win the battle is increasing the trust of the customers while buying the product. You need to have a valid SSL certificate and secure payment options with genuine logos.
Use the cart abandonment emails to notify the customers that they have left their carts without making the purchase. If they are not responding to your emails, then you can offer them attractive discounts.
Boosting Your E-Commerce Business in 2019
The e-commerce business is exploring new heights with each passing day. However, if you have to come up with a unique online store idea with growth potential to land your business in the profitable zone. You might have an exclusive idea however, it is equally vital to focus on optimum product quality and uncompromising customer service.
