Competition is fierce in e-commerce. Online mom-and-pop stores spring up on a daily basis. Even if you are in a unique niche at the moment, others will try to copy what you do. If you want long-term success as an online store, you just find a specific audience and meet their needs so they stay loyal to your brand.
How Do You Build E-Commerce Customers?
Statista estimates global e-commerce sales are around $5.5 billion and projected to hit $7.39 billion by 2025. More revenue means more competition as people see the opportunity and open their own businesses.
How can you build your own customer base and send traffic to your e-commerce site? Fortunately, there are some things you can do that attract consumers and help build your business.
1. Personalize Offers
Make sure you fully understand your typical buyer. Create buyer personas and figure out what your users’ needs are. Personalize offers to meet those needs.
Whenever possible, use cookies and greet the user by their first name. Share suggestions based on past buying behavior. Amazon is an excellent example of how to personalize online shopping. They greet the person by name, show past browsing history and make suggestions based on the person’s assumed interests.
2. Improve the Omnichannel Experience
One of the top ways to improve customer experience (CX) is via how your sales agents and customer service reps handle chatting with customers over multiple channels. For example, if a customer reaches out via live chat and the agent can’t fully solve the problem, does someone phone them the next business day?
If they call your brand and then hop online, the agent should have full access to any previous conversations and be able to fully review notes. Making the experience as seamless as possible over different contact points improves CX dramatically.
3. Seek Feedback
Ask your customers for suggestions on how to improve. If you receive a lot of complaints about the same issue, fix it before you get another one. For example, your call center received five calls over the weekend about a new product that broke on the first use. You should immediately stop sales of that product until you figure out how to fix the issue.
Be proactive and your customers will become loyal, raving fans who tell others about your business. Send out surveys, do split testing to see what designs work best for your e-commerce store and ask users to give you suggestions for things they’d like to see. You might be surprised what your customers come up with that you can easily implement and improve their view of your company.
4.Follow Up
Follow up when people leave your site without completing the purchase. Around 69% of online shopping carts are abandoned by consumers. The difference between success and failure may lie in whether you follow up and offer free shipping or a discount to complete the sale. Not everyone will take advantage of a follow-up offer, but each one that does is a sale you didn’t have before.
Tweak Constantly
There are so many ways you can improve your e-commerce business. Make it a habit to look for something to fix. Improve that thing and look for another. You should always have something in the pipeline that you’re making better for users. With intention and determination, you’ll find e-commerce success and rise above others in your field.
