There’s plenty of tips out there for how to generate traffic to your eCommerce site, but what good is traffic if it doesn’t convert into sales? In this post we focus on some easy modifications you can make in order to drive sales and convert your leads.
1. Embrace your branding
It’s easier than ever to start an eCommerce site, pick a product and get selling. You need to make sure that what you offer stands out amongst all the noise, and ensure that customers remember your store. The best way to do so is by truly letting your branding flow throughout everything you do. A brand is more than a name. It refers to your tone of voice, your colour scheme, your word choice, your fonts and more. To truly set yourself apart, establish a brand that persists across all facets of your store, your communications and your products. You want people to recall your brand over your competitors without prompting them. Further, it’s important that you build strong associations with your brand and what it stands for. A quick google of brand resonance is good further reading.
If you can afford it, consider employing an expert in brand development. Regardless, there is plenty that can be done on a low budget with just a bit of thought and commitment.
2. Offer more than just a product
In today’s market it’s no longer good enough to pick a product and start selling it. Of course, if you’re able to provide a novel offering, perhaps something you yourself have invented and produced, then a product-centric strategy is viable. For most, however, eCommerce stores generally involve either drop-shipping or overseas manufacturing and local distribution. As such, you’re once again operating in a space with many competitors doing very similar things.
So offer more than them - offer 24 hour customer service, free delivery, parcel tracking, a warranty, free returns and more. Your product is just the base point for what your store truly offers its customers. Give them a reason to buy from you instead of someone else by providing a superior customer experience from product discovery to purchase all the way through to post-purchase. Some of our upcoming case study blogs feature eCommerce companies that built their success on the services they provided on top of their product.
3. Don’t overdo the content - drive sales
It’s exciting to build an eCommerce store. It’s also very easy to get carried away with the content you create. The problem with having too many web pages that aren’t directly pushing sales is that consumers may get distracted and click away. The fact is that internet consumers have short attention spans, so don’t expect them to trawl through every page on your site and then proceed to make a purchase. Every decision in your site’s design, from its layout to its content, needs to be driving the customer to make a purchase.
So while it’s OK to have an ‘About Us’ page or an ‘FAQ’ page, ask yourself if you really need much more than that. Keep your web copy short and sweet, with sales conversion tools such as buttons linking to your store prominently displayed. Don’t make the customer have to search hard to find out how to make their purchase. Any content you do choose to include should tie into making a purchase through your store.
At the end of the day, there’s no secret formula to a successful eCommerce store. Every offering is different, and it’s up to you to find out the best fit for your store. Test new approaches, review their success and iterate from there. Nobody gets it right the first time.
Good luck,
The Easy eCommerce Team
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