When any business is looking for success, it most often turns to online solutions and the capabilities of technology. There is much business success to be had within the online world, and the most obvious of these is an e-commerce store to sell your product or service.
More and more businesses are turning to e-commerce because of the high number of consumers who favor browsing and shopping online rather than in-store. While it’s clear that the e-commerce business is a worthy cause, there are also many key hacks you should be aware of to lead you towards e-commerce success.
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Top Reasons to Develop an e-Commerce Store
You’re Not Constricted to Earning Only During Working Hours
An e-commerce store is going to continue to generate money no matter the time of day, and even if you’re not actively working. You could be enjoying a day off and still earning money as your e-commerce store works in the background. This means a great way to earn a steady stream of income that isn’t dependent on your active 9-5 efforts.
You’re Tapping into a Key Market
e-commerce is extremely relevant, extremely popular, and will only continue to grow as technology advances. That means, as a business idea, an e-commerce store is an extremely sound one.
You’re Giving Consumers What They Want
Consumers will at least want the option of being able to shop online, even if you have a brick-and-mortar store alongside your e-commerce one. Simply providing an e-commerce website is a great way to make sure you’re offering consumers the preferred way to purchase a product.
You Can Broaden Your Target Market
Having an e-commerce store means that you’re not restricted to only the people in your local area. You can receive orders from consumers all over the country — and if you’re able to offer international shipping, all over the world. This means more potential for business growth, more consumers, and more profit.
The Most Common Challenges Faced by e-Commerce Stores
It’s not always smooth sailing for e-commerce stores, however, despite the obvious benefits. There are many challenges e-commerce store owners will face, both at the initial set up of their business and the ongoing upkeep of it.
These can include:
Making Visitors into Paying Customers
You’ll work hard with your marketing to attract the right consumer, but then a different battle begins when they land on your site, and you need to convince them enough to invest in your product. It can often be a challenge to change leads and visitors into paying customers — and loyal, returning customers at that.
Choosing the Right Technology
You may find that your website’s problems are due to technology, such as slow-load times, choosing the wrong platform to host your website, checkout errors, or pages failing to load altogether.
Shopping Cart Abandonment
You might think that if you’ve done the hard work in leading a consumer to your website and impressed them enough to add your product to their basket, the job is done, and success is made. Nevertheless, there is still potential for income loss even during the checkout process, and an order is never secured until fully checked out and confirmed.
Dealing with a consumer who chooses to abandon their shopping cart can be a common issue but a problematic one. The reasons for shopping cart abandonment are varied, but generally, they could be due to a complex checkout process, hidden extras like shipping costs being higher than expected, or any extra effort on the customer’s part that they then decide isn’t worth it.
Online Traffic Problems
Having an e-commerce website isn’t enough if nobody knows it exists, so generating enough traffic to your website through marketing and SEO is key — but it can be a challenge for a lot of businesses, especially those new to e-commerce marketing.
5 Hacks for e-commerce Website Success
In light of these common issues, here are five great hacks to help you get started with your online store.
1. Be Upfront and Honest About Fees
Having a dedicated page for delivery locations and rates can be helpful to avoid shopping cart abandonment and customers feeling tricked regarding higher-than-expected fees. It’s always better to provide as much information as possible so that your customer can make an informed purchase and fulfill the complete checkout process.
2. Put Yourself in Your Customer’s Shoes
If you’re very close to your product and proud of your website, it’s difficult to distance yourself from it and think like a customer. However, putting yourself in your customer’s shoes is key to success. Browse the website as a customer would and imagine how they would react to certain features. Ask yourself: is everything clear enough? Am I displaying the products in the best way? Is the checkout process simple enough?
3. Use Email Marketing
This is key for turning leads into paying customers and connecting with consumers, and encouraging them to make a sale. Build an email contact list and send e-commerce sales, offers, and information to entice those purchases and website clicks.
4. Keep Your Website Updated
Your website needs to be a living, breathing creation, which means it’s constantly updating. You can build an e-commerce website from scratch and add all your relevant product listings, but that doesn’t mean the work is done, and it should remain like that forever.
Keep your website fresh and updated with regular changes. This could be a feed on the homepage with the latest information, website sale information, or updating the theme and colors in regard to holidays, seasons, and events. Do anything to keep it relevant.
5. Don’t Unveil Your Website Too Soon
You have a great product and a great website you’re excited about, so it’s natural to want to make it live as soon as possible. However, it’s always better to wait and take your time to make sure everything is perfect. This means checking your website hosting is dependable, that all pages are loading correctly, that you have all the relevant information on your website and that you’re absolutely ready to launch.
You may think it’s easy to add to and update your website as you go along, but it’s much better to unveil your website as the best it can be for those initial consumers.
