If you are reading this, chances are you already have an eCommerce business and just want specific tactics to increase eCommerce revenue. What you will hear here will not be earth-shattering information, as we need to be reminded of what needs to be done more often than told something we did not already know.
So, here are 40 practical ideas that will undoubtedly help you boost sales for your eCommerce business, and “How to improve my online business” will not be a question for you anymore. E-commerce digital marketing agency Catapult Revenue prepared for you this complete guide!
But, before we jump into the tactics, it is important to recall the fundamentals and rules of the eCommerce game:
Distilled to its essence, there are actually just three primary ways to increase eCommerce sales:
How to boost your eCommerce sales and how you should go about achieving those three primary goals are expanded on below.
Whether they search for products and services on Google, Amazon, Walmart, or any other channel, you must show up with your product pages, listings, ads, and content. If they donât see your products front and center, itâs like you donât exist and your business will not grow. SEO for eCommerce is the right way to be near your customers.
Make it easy for your prospects to make a buying decision. Put yourself in their shoes, proactively and preemptively answer every possible question they may have, and remove every possible barrier that could impede the buying decision (ask yourself, âwhy wouldnât I buy this product?â and address these reasons).
Most eCommerce online stores get a customer to make a sale: there is no follow-up of any kind and most customers never come back to make another purchase. This is very short-sighted thinking.
Start businesses adopt a reverse approach, knowing that year over year, the same customers will buy from you again and again if you do things right.
And, in comparison to customer acquisition costs, it barely costs anything to provide customers with better-than-expected service and continue to engage them in meaningful ways, so as to keep them coming back.
If your eCommerce business has some trouble nowadays explore the post-pandemic marketing tips for eCommerce. Now, here are the 40 tactics to help you get more customers, get customers to spend more, and get customers to spend more often:
Not a shocker, but if I were to search Google right now for, letâs say, a dozen of the products you carry, would your listings pop up high up in search, or would I find your competitorsâ?
While eCommerce SEO is not easy, you must keep in perspective that, according to RetailWire, 31% of all shoppers start looking for specific products on Google.
So, if you leave SEO up to chance, or contract an inexpensive agency that will do the bare minimum, the millions of online sales that could be going to you, will be going to your competitors. Remember that organic search is the most powerful tool to attract more customers.
Learn more about effective eCommerce SEO from this SEO guide.
There is no reason why an e-commerce business should not be leveraging this powerful platform given that tens of millions of people use Google to shop for products monthly.
Signing up for Google Merchant Center is easy and free, and the only direct cost incurred is through clicks on Google ads. Of course, running a successful ad campaigns requires substantial skills and ongoing oversight and optimization. Here is a great guide to Google Shopping ADS.
Bing may not dominate the search engine market like Google, but nearly half of the US population searches on Bing. And, for most categories, Bing has a lower cost per click and higher click-through rates. So, if your online store has a good fit for Bing user demographics, you can sell a lot of products at a lower customer acquisition cost.
Of course, the flip side is that there is less overall search volume. But, you can be a bigger fish in a smaller pond, as, chances are, your competitors may be missing out on this opportunity.
The data wonât come as a shock: $.49 of every shopping dollar spent online is spent on Amazon. And it is a very crowded market. But you should be there if you:
9 out of 10 shoppers always price-check on Amazon before making purchases. In other words, Amazon serves as a second search engine when it comes to consumer products. Even if you donât want to sell on Amazon, you should list your products there, but at a premium price over what you charge on your website. After checking out your products on Amazon, they will come back to your site to make a purchase.
Facebook Marketplace is an option for sellers that are seeking a highly targeted audience.
Some examples of eCommerce platforms Facebook Marketplace is partnered with include:
Product categories best suited to Facebook Marketplace include:
If you are a B2B business, you can skip over this point. But if you are e-commerce that sells in the fashion, food, health, beauty, or wellness space, you must be promoting through Instagram. According to HootSuite, 130 million Instagram users click on shopping ads every month. While we donât have any reliable data on how many online sales that translates into, it must convert to a lot of revenue for the advertisers.
eBay is no longer for used stuff or private sellers only. The platform averages 164 million active buyers who move billions of dollars worth of merchandise. If you have a good product fit, sell here to boost your revenue.
Walmart attracts up to over 460 million unique visitors per month and does not charge its marketplace members any monthly or initial set-up fees. And, given that it has fewer marketplace sellers than Amazon, you can be competitive on the site.
Cons are that this marketplace garners low-profit margins and little to no backup support in the sales or return process. Sellers are prohibited from using FBA for fulfillment.
Should you choose to participate in Walmart Marketplace, instructions for signing up, as well information on referral fees can be found here.
Affiliate marketing is a good addition to your online sales and eCommerce marketing portfolio as it costs you practically nothing unless someone else helps you make sales (itâs a win-win really).
Below are some resources to help you find the affiliate partner(s) that are right for your business, browsable by niche.
You may already be leveraging the simple power of free shipping, and if so, this section does not apply to you. But if you are a hold-out in this department you are costing your business substantially. The key here, again, is to remove any and all potential barriers a shopper might have.
Stats compiled by WordStream note that 79% of shoppers say free shipping would make them more likely to make a purchase online.
Another factor: make sure that your customers know when their order will arrive, because, according to the same study, 53% will NOT make a purchase if they donât know when it will arrive.
Itâs a hassle, and itâs part of operation costs, but they are necessary. If you do not offer a simplified, robust return policy, your prospects will simply make their purchases elsewhere (like Amazon or your competitorâs store). Simply put, offering a transparent, easy return policy eliminates uncertainty.
Mitigate the potential for more returns by offering accurate product descriptions (bolstered by video demonstrations as noted later in this post) and proper packaging.
Some powerful stat to consider: 63% of shoppers said they would not make a purchase if they could not find the online storeâs return policy easily on its website.
The shopping cart abandonment rate at 69.57%, which is inevitable and goes with the territory. Carts are often abandoned because shoppers were either just browsing and/or the checkout process was too complicated (this is especially true for mobile users who have an even higher abandonment rate of 85.65%).
A way to mitigate the opportunity cost of abandonment is by making sure the checkout process is hassle-free and by sending follow-up emails to shoppers whoâve abandoned their carts in the preceding three months; AddShoppers and BouncePilot offer great tools for that.
Zappos is a prime example of product demo videos done right. Sure, you think that Zappos is a massive retailer with money and manpower to make these videos a reality, but you should be looking at it in a reverse way: maybe Zappos, in part, became as big as it did because it took the time and effort to produce quality demo videos that enhance the shopping experience. Whenever applicable, you need to as well.
According to HubSpot, a leading authority on all things digital marketing, video is the number-one medium for marketing products, and 73% more shoppers who view those videos, will make a purchase.
Whatâs more, 43% of shoppers will âshowroomâ or go to the nearest retailer to see products in real-time, if a video is not available. In most of those cases, you will lose that sale permanently. As well, 58% of online shoppers believe that retailers that feature videos can be trusted. Building customer trust is key, of course, to a long-lasting revenue stream.
âThe Customer Is Always Rightâ used to be the mantra all businesses lived by. But itâs amazing how many e-commerce websites are simply transactional and donât go the extra step to offer truly phenomenal customer service.
Follow up with customers whoâve made larger purchases to see how satisfied they are. Offer special promotions to loyal customers and even downsell on very high ticket items when the occasion is warranted. Building long-term customer loyalty takes building trust. And trust is built by showing them you have their back.
According to AdRoll, only 2% of shoppers convert on the first visit to any online store. The goal of retargeting is to convert the remaining 98%.
This is especially important for B2B companies as they outperform B2C in retargeting campaigns by over 400% on conversions per impression, according to data compiled by 99Firms.
Some other compelling stats that show why retargeting is so important:
User Experience (abbreviated as UX) is an integral part of the digital experience and has to do with how well your website and mobile applications are built. Do they upload fast? Are they easy for users to navigate? Is the content flow presented in a concise, easy-to-use manner?
Proper UX is critical in facilitating online sales and a good overall customer experience. 80% of Americans are online shoppers and half make their purchases on mobile devices, according to a Pew Research Center poll.
Google analysis reveals that a staggering 62% of shoppers who had a bad mobile experience with your business are less likely to ever return as a customer, 69% are more likely to buy from businesses with mobile sites that properly address their questions and 59% will make purchases only on sites that facilitate quick and easy mobile checkout processes.
When your customer has a question about your product or service or policy, make it your priority to answer it via a channel that your customers prefer, including, Facebook Messenger, WhatsApp, chatbots, phone, email, and through social media portals.
The volume of reviews counts as much as the quality of each review, sometimes even more. So encourage as many reviews as possible.
Respond to every review you receive, including negative ones. Share positive reviews that may be hidden, or post them as testimonials on your site.
According to Fan and Fuel study, 97% of shoppers said that product reviews play a major role in their buying decisions, with 94% reading written reviews and 35% saying that even one negative review can make them decide not to buy.
B2B — this applies to you too. G2.com reports that 92% of B2B buyers are influenced to make a purchase after reading a trusted review.
People are busy and even if they mean to leave a positive review, they will often forget, but 68% of consumers will leave a review if asked, and, donât forget to address every negative review, if the platform permits.
You want to keep people on your website and make the buying process for them as easy as possible. If a potential customer has to go scouring the Internet for the information he/she is looking for (i.e. product comparisons), you could well lose them.
Fortunately, a variety of plugins are available to implement on your e-commerce platform to make product comparisons absolutely pain-free.
People always want to find the best item for the money. Capitalize on the fact that prospects are searching online for this information and be the one that provides them the answer. Create blog posts ranking products in their respective categories that are relevant to your business. Examples include:
Email customers who bought products that may require some knowledge on how to operate, videos on how to do that after they buy the products. Here are some ideas for successful email marketing campaigns.
Use trusted secure tools to ensure the safety of your shoppers and ensure your customers can clearly see that their transactions and personal information will be secure.
Speed is a major factor in customer user experience. Whatâs more, it is a major factor in how Google and other search engines rank your website. The faster your site uploads on all devices, including mobile, the higher the ranking. You can test your upload speed using this Google analytics tool.
According to Google, a score of 90 or above is considered fast and therefore, will rank favorably. A score of 50 to 90 is considered moderate and scores below 50 are deemed to be slow.
Your web development agency can help you optimize your website speed if it is not performing as it should. Also, it is so important if your start a new eCommerce business.
Cross-selling accounts for up to 35% of Amazonâs revenue, so these powerful strategies should, without reservation, be implemented on your own e-commerce site.
Thereâs an art to upselling the right way and it entails ensuring that youâre not just trying to get customers to spend more, but actually add genuine value to their overall purchase and customer experience.
In addition to having your web developer build in an upselling function to your e-commerce site, you can also use the following plugins, depending on your e-commerce platform:
Shopify
BigCommerce
Magento
WooCommerce
Think outside the box. Free shipping isn’t the only type of promotion you can offer at this stage: a cap for someone buying a hoodie, a filter and oil for a B2B buyer of a commercial air compressor, volume discounts, BOGO, free gifts, and so on are all great incentives for shoppers.
By ensuring that you are head and shoulders above your competition in terms of user experience, the benefits of using promotions will outweigh potential negatives.
Offer discounts on orders over a certain value and encourage increasing the per-transaction spend by offering free shipping on purchases over a certain dollar amount.
Itâs human psychology. The perceived scarcity of an item or commodity engenders more desire for that item or commodity. Inform your customers that a deal is only available for a limited/set amount of time, or that there is only a limited amount — letâs say â4 leftâ — in stock. Scarcity will encourage them to take action now.
If youâre running low on ideas, some other great examples can be found here.
Again, this is about providing value to your customers. Donât recommend products simply to generate a transaction, but do so because those products or services are truly what your customers would reap benefit from.
According to research, Loyal customers are worth up to 10 times the amount of their first purchase and 83% of customers believe loyalty programs engender their continued spending.
To craft your customer loyalty program determine:
For e-businesses, this can be an online fashion show, a class, a demo, or Facebook Live. Whatever the case, engaging your audience in this low-cost manner not only attracts potential new customers but also encourages them to spend then and there.
Throughout the year, in all seasons and all climates, opportunities abound. Holidays, weather-related changes, school and sports-related events, and seasons offering such potential.
Think creatively and make a seasonal promotional calendar that maps out your ideas. Ideally, you should have at least one promotion for each month, with specialized promotions are major holidays and events.
Market your promotions properly and ensure you factor in any increases in operating costs or shipping times over holiday periods.
Itâs low-cost, fast, and there is still something to be said for a tangible âleave behindâ that customers can hold on to long after theyâve logged offline. Best, promotional fliers still work.
The traditional coupon code works as it makes shoppers feel as if they are getting a discount in addition to any other sales or promotions your online store may be offering at a given time. Theyâre also trackable, serving as a great way to measure your digital marketing ROI.
There are multiple types of coupon codes you can offer:
Tiering is a form of discount that encourages higher spending. Many department stores use tiering models. The more a customer spends, the more of a discount the seller can reasonably afford to offer while maintaining the right profit margins. Hereâs an example of tiering:
Another method to boost sales is to offer a scaling incentive. For instance:
This is important and applies to B2B businesses. After a buyer places an order for a high-ticket item (particularly one of a large category), follow up with a phone call, thank them for the order and ask a few questions to make sure they bought the best product for their needs (example: HVAC equipment). If they did not, then upsell or down-sell them to the right product for them.
Learn as much as you can about their business and how else you can serve them. Sometimes, using this method, a $700 order can turn into hundreds of thousands of dollars and a multi-year-long relationship.
Follow with appropriate offers.
If you sell items that are purchased with any frequency, launch a subscription so that they wonât need to rush out to buy stuff.
If you sell products that are gifts, ask buyers who they shop for, occasion, and offer to send ideas a month before the next anniversary or birthday.
When the economy experiences turbulence, reach out to your customers with some ideas on how you can help them and actually do. Nothing builds loyalty as much as the reciprocity people feel toward companies and people who helped them in a difficult situation. And loyalty leads to customers buying more often in the long term. It is key to build your brand.
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Now, as you are aware of how to increase online sales, you can use some or all of these tactics and see how your online business grows. We created a checklist to help you implement some or all of these strategies in your eCommerce business and track their efficiency. Always remember: there are many options to boost your revenue. And if you need a great partner that knows how to increase eCommerce sales, Catapult Revenue will be happy to help you!
If you are reading this, chances are you already have an eCommerce business and just want specific tactics to increase eCommerce revenue. What you will...
40 practical ideas that will undoubtedly help you grow your eCommerce by at least 25%
Wow itâs a lot of information, thank you, I recently started my own e-commerce business and didnât know where to start improving it
Hi, Telma. Glad to help you!
Thank you for the great tip about amazon, didnât know that you can list items but donât actually sell them there.
Hi, Daniel. Amazon is a good platform to start your own eCommerce business.
Whatâs the price for google shopping ads or its depends?
Hi, Milton, in general, we can say that it depends. But you can set up a budget that will good for you.
Tried to use the website speed tool, itâs showing that my e-commerce is pretty slow, is there any way to improve it on my own?
Hi, honestly there almost no way to improve page speed without a developer. You can try to optimize the image size, but if it won’t help you need to ask a specialist to check it.
Are there any other ways to motivate people to leave reviews on the site other than offer another product?
Hi, Mirabelle. It is a good question. We recommend testing different e-mail campaigns and offers for your buyers.
Once or twice a month. 100% goodness, 0% spam.
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