How to grow your eCommerce sales
It’s important to remember that businesses always go through different phases. This fact is true for both new eCommerce businesses and more experienced brands alike. Today, we’re looking at how to grow online store sales during times of prosperity.
We’re going to share some methods you can use to grow your eCommerce sales.
1.Build an email list
An excellent way to build a following is to gauge brand interest and capture the corresponding email addresses. While it may seem daunting to start from scratch, it’s worth the effort. An email marketing strategy is vital to boosting sales.
Email marketing is successful because your customers choose to opt-in or not, so they don’t have to be targeted by paid promotions. You have complete control of your email list, which is not the case for social media platforms.
There are many forms this can take, such as a weekly newsletter or a daily promotion. Remember to send emails relevant to your audience, as they’ll likely get annoyed with too much communication that doesn’t appeal to them.
You should segment your audience by their behaviour – what are their preferences, and what have they bought from you before?
2.Upsell and cross-selling
If you’ve already got customers who are adding items to their cart on your eCommerce website, it’s a great idea to upsell your visitors and grow your sales potential.
On average, eCommerce stores that upsell get an average of 70-95% of their revenue from upsells and renewals, which constitutes a large amount of income you could be missing out on if you’re not upselling or cross-selling. Upselling is an easy way to utilise your existing customers without needing to attract a new audience.
A simple way to introduce upsells is to insert pop-ups or recommendations that offer related or similar, more expensive products once an item is added to their cart.
3.Social media integration
Instagram and Facebook now have Shoppable posts, meaning that you can use your social media profiles as a direct link to your eCommerce store. However, you’ll need to be compliant with specific commerce policies, and your business should be located in a supported region.
There are over 1 billion people who use Instagram alone, meaning that you could be tapping into massive sales potential. Instagram relies on visual branding, so you should aim for high-quality and exciting images of your products to draw your customers’ attention.
You can then link back to your store on your posts. You might also integrate your social media pages to your eCommerce site, which could encourage social interaction.
4.Target existing customers
You might assume that you need a wide variety of customers, but you should be looking at your customer retention strategy past a certain number of customers.
According to recent studies, when compared to new customers, return customers added more items to the cart, had a higher conversion rate and generated more revenue per site visit. This could be a great way to grow your sales.
This method can be a cost-effective marketing strategy, as you’ve already got an existing customer base, so you won’t need to use harsh measures. These customers enjoy your products and are familiar with your brand already.
They could benefit from an improved experience – whether through a customer loyalty program or discount codes.
5. Use videos in your marketing effort
Buyers love videos, and it’s now purported that they have the top ROI rate compared to other marketing strategies. Websites are great because they encourage users to spend more time on your website.
You can also repurpose your videos as ads – which will increase engagement and interest in your brand and products. Videos resonate more with people, so they’re more likely to remember what they’ve watched when compared to text only.
Product demonstrations are a feasible way to include videos on your eCommerce site that are relevant and not overly promotional. Customers are interested in seeing how they can use your product in their daily lives through examples that involve other people in real-time. This may not be applicable to every category of products e.g. clothing.
6.Optimise for mobile shopping
Mobile sales are taking over as customers prioritise portability and ease of access when shopping. Having a well-run web store on mobile is a perfect way to grow your sales.
Mobile commerce is here to stay – so you need to make sure that you’re equipped to deal with it. You should consider:
- How responsive is your website? It should be pretty fast and display products correctly
- Do you have a mobile payment processor?
- Is the design of mobile checkout adequate for different screen sizes?
- Is checking out easy on a mobile device?
7.Showcase top-selling items
Highlighting your most popular items shows what people are buying the most. It gives your customers direction if your offering is relatively large.
Doing this could be as simple as a ‘bestseller’ category on your homepage. Not every visitor to your eCommerce store will know what they want, so it’s great to lead them to a location where they can see your brand’s success.
8. Create scarcity
Scarcity and limited-time promotions create a sense of urgency for your buyer. Doing so encourages shoppers to act swiftly before discounts end or stock runs out.
You should advertise limited quantities of items and be transparent about supplier delivery dates. This strategy can get a price-sensitive customer to make an impulsive purchase that could result in more sales for you.
The customer feels a sense of missing out because if they don’t buy now, they’ll have to pay a higher price for the same product in future.
You could also do this by running flash sales, which create a sense of urgency – such as sales ending at midnight. If your campaign is actionable, you’re likely to make more sales.
9. Use multichannel marketing
Consider how you can move into territory where your competitors have not yet gone – such as multichannel marketing.
Multichannel marketing involves direct and indirect communication, such as websites or eCommerce stores, physical stores, email, mobile, and more.
There are many options you can use that can integrate well with CRM’s. Multichannel marketing aims to engage with customers, increase customer loyalty, and solve customers’ problems. By doing this, you might even see repeat customers and increased sales.
Remember to keep your messages personalised to retain a relatable connection to your audience.
10. Consider using a Marketplace
While you may think that your website is bringing enough sales, you’re not recognising that popular marketplaces have a significantly high traffic volume.
Marketplaces draw in diverse groups of people, many of whom are regular customers. You also have the chance to sell globally by using a marketplace – even if you aren’t the cheapest product.
There is massive selling potential by listing your product on the appropriate marketplaces, and it’s pretty easy to set up a seller’s account.
Conclusion
It might seem tricky to grow sales, but it doesn’t have to be. There are a lot of methods you can use to grow your eCommerce sales.
It would help if you focused on layering your strategy to not blow out every option all at once. Social media integration can harness your business’s existing fans, or you might use a marketplace to list your products.
Of course, we’ve not written an exhaustive list, and there are many other methods you could use in addition to the examples mentioned.
