Having an ecommerce website allows you to sell your products to anyone around the world. You are not restricted to the high street where your shop is based, but anywhere.
However, with more and more shops appearing online, it is becoming tougher for your shop to stand out. It's important to make sure that you reach as many customers as possible so that you can sell your products.
Here are 6 areas that we think will help your ecommerce website to grow (with the majority possible within a limited budget should you only be starting out).
Google Shopping
This sometimes slips under the radar as people accidentally believe that once you've submitted your website to Google, it will appear on Google Shopping which it doesn't.
Google Shopping is separate and combines two platforms within Google which are the 'Merchant Center' where all your products reside and 'AdWords' which you'll set up to get your products appearing on Google Searches.
The first step is to export or create a feed to Google Shopping, which then gives you an wider option of customers who will see your products and purchase from you.
We then advise you to then create ad campaigns within AdWords to target your relevant market and show these products on page 1 of Google when people search for them.
Email Marketing
Email marketing is a useful addition to your ecommerce website. If managed effectively, it allows you to reach your customers on a regular basis offering new products, sales throughout the year and flagging up abandoned carts (more on that one later).
By allowing your customers to subscribe to your marketing via the website, social media, in store and any public events you might attend, you can easily start to create a database of customers. You can then organise this and use the data to target different customer groups throughout the year. By gathering a few details such as 'gender' or 'date of birth', you can - for example - target female customers with a range of dresses and offer 10% off as it's their birthday. Or you could offer a voucher for a free birthday cake to customers when they spend over a certain amount. This not only makes the customer feel special but drives them to your website to follow up on the offer.
Be careful though to make sure that the details you get on your customers have been gathered legitimately otherwise you will be in breach of GDPR.
There is a brief overview on GDPR here.
Abandoned cart
Don't you hate it when you track a customer's journey through your website, they clearly like a product, add it to the basket and head towards the checkout - only to leave the website entirely a second later?!
Abandoned carts can be a re-occurring nightmare for ecommerce websites as you strongly believe the customer was happy with the product and price, but something stopped them and now you've lost them, right? Well, that used to be the case but there are now ways that you can get that customer back with an email.
As mentioned above, email marketing allows you many great options to target and sell to your customers and that includes abandoned carts. You can now set up procedures on your website that will take the customer's data and import it to your email marketing software should the customer decide to leave before finishing the transaction. They then get an email reminding them to go back and finish their purchase, with a special offer if you want to sweeten the deal. These don't breach GDPR, as long as you don't include any other products and brand the message as 'legitimate interest' and not 'marketing' which you are doing by reminding them that the shiny product they were interested in is still waiting for them.
Social Media Channels
An obvious, but sometimes underutilised corner of marketing that ecommerce websites don't take advantage of. A lot of companies have social media channels and even post, but are you thinking about what your posting?
Are you posting images of your products on Instagram & Pinterest with the rights hashtags and product tags?
Are you connecting with people on Twitter, Instagram etc. who might be interested in your product and coming to an agreement to promote your awesome products?
Do you use SnapChat to promote your products?
Those are just some of the questions you need to ask yourself if you think you are using social media effectively enough for your business.
Having your products on the social media channels mentioned above can help to create a immersive storefront with subtle, organic visual cues that your customers will love.
Having a social media strategy is useful as allows you to stay on top of all of those channels and plan for and take advantage of upcoming sales, new products and seasonal events. By planning ahead and planning your posts, they can be scheduled to pop up when needed on your social media channels at a date and time of your choosing.
Software like SocialBee helps you; by having a calendar to plan ahead and schedule in your posts to get sent when you want, without having to sit at your computer until the actual moment of posting.
Social Media plugins
With most ecommerce software, they allow you to export your products straight to social media channels. Facebook is one of the most developed versions as it allows you post products, imagery, prices and more straight to your Facebook page so anyone can visit and purchase without ever needing to visit your website.
Doing so will allow you to maximise your campaign performance when doing advertising with Facebook and help you to find and reach more people who are interested in your products. This will help to generate more sales as people don't need to be searching for your products on Google or Bing.
Get Selling with your ecommerce website
So there you have it, 6 areas where you can boost your ecommerce website and increase sales. We hope you found them useful, but if you have any questions or need help with any of them please get in touch.
If you know of any other methods which have helped your ecommerce website grow, let us know and we can include them :-)
Thanks for reading - Sam