Is your eCommerce website stagnating? Figuring out the reason for this might be difficult but many business owners tend to blame it on outside factors: either users are simply unpredictable or it’s just not written in the stars! This, of course, is non-sense.
Any marketer will tell you – the key lies in the details. Every element on your website and every tactic in your marketing strategy can make a difference when it comes to making a favorable impact on your customers. So, it’s time to think about what you can fix and change in order to improve your website’s UX and start generating more revenue.
Need ideas? We’ve compiled a list of 11 great ones that will help you boost your sales immediately.
Image by jannoon028 for Freepik
Table of Contents
Offer an Intuitive User Experience
When it comes to selling online, UX plays a crucial role. However, a user experience is more than just your website design. An intuitive user experience means that your customers can navigate through your site easily, find what they’re looking for fast, and without being overwhelmed by unnecessary elements.
Here are a few things you starter checklist for designing an intuitive UX should include:
- Logical website structure
- Simple menu with listings
- Easy checkout process
You may also want to read: How to Make eCommerce Store with WordPress
Focus on Customer Service
As Jeff Bezos said, “It’s our job every day to make every important aspect of the customer experience a little bit better.” So, taking into consideration how successful Amazon is, it only makes sense to follow his lead, right?
There are different types of customer service such as live customer service, self-serve customer service, and community customer service. In general, most businesses need to combine at least two of them in order to make sure they offer a great customer service experience.
Here are several tips to get you started on creating a consistent customer service experience:
- Implement live chat to speed up response times
- Offer 24-hour phone support if you ship internationally
- Post FAQs on a separate page, your blog, or social media
- Build an informative blog
- Use a special tool to track customer feedback, manage reviews, and coordinate customer service responses.
Check Your Images and Product Descriptions
Online shoppers don’t have the opportunity to touch and inspect products like they do in brick-and-mortar stores. They rely on the descriptions and images you’ve provided to check product details and determine its quality.
Research has shown that products with images taken from multiple angles, as well as those that have a zoom option, tend to sell more. Customers will only purchase a product if they believe it will turn out to be the same as shown in the images.
Your descriptions need to complement the images and be informative, engaging, and unique. If you fail to generate customers’ interest, you’re going to lose lots of sales.
Use Cold Email
If you have an email marketing strategy, you’re probably sending out all sorts of emails: welcome emails, cart abandonment emails, order confirmation emails, etc. But how about cold emails?
Even though it’s often considered an outdated marketing technique, cold email can be an effective way to increase your revenue. That is, if you do it right. Cold email outreach can be quite complicated – after all, people aren’t usually keen on opening emails from unknown companies. Here are several ideas that will help you get started off the right foot:
- Create personalized email templates to make sure your emails stand out in people’s inboxes.
- Inform recipients who they will do business with by adding important info like your company’s name and site, link to relevant products, links to social media accounts, and phone number.
- Find creative ways to pitch your products that will set you apart from the competitors.
Make Sure Your Website Is Mobile-Friendly
Not having a mobile-friendly site might be one of the main reasons your online store is not making sales.
In 2018, smartphones accounted for more than half of the total website traffic, which means that more than 50% of consumers prefer mobile-friendly access. The share of mobile eCommerce sales has increased to 67% and this year, mobile commerce sales are projected to reach $2.9 trillion, which is about 25% more than in 2019.
And having in mind that people spend about 5 seconds deciding whether they like your website or not, it is safe to say that a mobile-optimized site equals an increased number of leads.
You may also want to read: How to speed up your WordPress site
Make Your eCommerce Site More Secure
Nothing chases customers away like an unsecured site, and for a good reason. Hacker attacks happen every 39 seconds, and more than 40% of cyber attacks target small businesses.
If your eCommerce site doesn’t have a digital security certificate, it puts both you and your shoppers at risk. A digital security certificate allows you to safeguard sensitive customer information and avoid fraudulent payments, thus helping you gain customers’ trust, which is crucial for an eCommerce business to grow.
You may also like: eCommerce website
Create a Blog
Blogging is one of the best ways for eCommerce businesses to secure a strong ROI and boost revenue as it allows them to attract quality traffic without paying for expensive ads from Google or Facebook. In fact, according to HubSpot, blogging increases organic web traffic by about 55%.
Blogs serve as the foundation of an SEO strategy. Search engine optimization uses valuable content and technical optimizations to improve your SERP rankings and increase your online visibility.
Big players such as Amazon use their blogs to connect with their audience, not to make sales. Smaller businesses can do the same, but it makes more sense to create soft-selling articles, i.e. blogs that drive conversions.
For instance, educating your customers about specific products can help with cross-selling and up-selling techniques. You can include how-to articles, top tips blogs, and gift guides designed to gently push people toward making a purchase.
You may also like: Best free WordPress blog themes
Get the Prices Right
In the eCommerce industry, the competition is fierce, so getting your prices right is crucial. If you mark prices too low, customers might consider your products as low-quality or fake. On the other hand, marking prices too high can cause you to become infamous among your target audience and lose customers.
But how do you make sure you’ve set prices that are suitable for both the customers and your business? Here are a few ideas to help you:
- Cost-based pricing means forming a price by adding the cost of the product (shipping costs included) and the margin that you want to make.
- Competition-based pricing is a more complex strategy which focuses on researching the competitors in your niche.
- Value-based strategy is probably the best pricing strategy for businesses looking for a long-term, scalable solution to pricing. It revolves around figuring out the value that you are providing for your customers with your products and pricing them accordingly.
Have a Return/Refund Policy in Place
Research has shown that 60% of people avoid buying from eCommerce sites that don’t have a refund or return policy. In addition, more than 90% of consumers said they will buy again if the product return process is easy, while nearly 80% of consumers want free return shipping.
Building trust with your customers before selling them products is crucial if you want to create strong relationships. Providing a detailed and clear refund and return policy inspires a sense of security and assurance that they will get the product as advertised on your site, encouraging them to spend as much as possible.
Ensure You Contact Information is Visible and Complete
Providing complete contact information on your website makes you look more accessible but also allows customers to hold you accountable. Today, almost all online stores have a phone number and 24/7 live chat in addition to their email address and physical address (if they have one).
Customers want to know they can get in touch with you if they need help with any of your products. What’s more, being an accessible and authentic business will also boost your Google Search score.
Image by Freepik
Avoid High or Hidden Shipping Costs
According to stats, about 40% of customers abandoned their shopping cart due to unexpected shipping expenses and nearly 60% canceled a purchase because of high shipping costs. Shipping costs are one of the most important factors for making a buying decisions, so that might be the reason why almost 80% of companies offer free shipping on their websites.
Having a detailed shipping policy is crucial for the success of your online store but can also boost customer loyalty. A very simple and efficient way is to provide a “shipping calculator” on your site that works based on the product and the customer’s location.
Final Thoughts
With more than 7.1 million online retailers worldwide, standing out from the crowd can be really tough. If you want to boost your revenue, you need to come up with effective strategies.
Luckily, these tips will help you make that the case. Identify the reasons that are holding you back and have patience – the desired results are sure to come.
