Are your Ecommerce sales faltering? Are you struggling to gain ANY sales?
The key to a successful Ecommerce website is knowing how, when, and where to sell. If you know your customers and what they need and want, you will have found the formula to success. If you know them well enough (market personas), you will speak their language and your sale attempts will be that much more successful.
Once you know your customers, you can implement key strategies to boost your sales. Here are some examples:
Email Capture
Every good marketer knows the money is in the list. By gathering email addresses you can develop a relationship with your customers and send them periodic email messages with company information, discounts, industry news, social connections and other valuable content. The more your customers become familiar with your brand, the greater chance they will return to you for return purchases and provide referrals.
Give your customers the chance to optin to your list at checkout. At this stage, you will already have the sale and an email address is a necessary element for most checkouts. Be sure to inform your customers they will receive emails and what they can expect. If they receive emails they never authorized, they may look at your store unfavorably.
Cross-sell
Imagine you are walking towards the checkout line at your local grocery store and you spot two AA battery packs, a pack of gum, and a tabloid magazine. You didn’t necessarily come to the store to purchase these items but for some reason they are calling your name. The store is using cross-selling to entice you to buy. You can use similar tactics in your Ecommerce store by showcasing related products while customers are searching.
Reduce Cart Abandonment
There are far too many customers leaving shopping carts before making purchases and many stores can prevent this from occurring. Below are some of the top reasons customers leave your shopping cart:
- They have a question and they don’t know how to contact you
- They want to find out how much shipping will cost but they don’t want to complete the checkout to find out.
- They entered the wrong information and could not find an easy way to go back a page, or when they went back their information was gone.
- Customers return to the chopping cart 1 week later and their items were gone
If you notice some abandoned carts, send the customers an email about their experience and make sure all of their questions are answered. You can also offer a one-time discount to entice them to come back.
Don’t make customers wait until checkout to enter their coupon codes. The faster they can see how much they save, the more of a chance they will make the purchase instead of abandoning the cart. The Shopping Cart with Coupons module for Zencart displays the discount for customers on the cart page instead of making them wait until checkout to see their savings. This reduces cart abandonment and increases conversion rates.
Seasonal Discounts
Use the seasons and holidays to create money-saving promotions. Customers expect deals during key times of the year such as Memorial Day, July 4th, Presidents Day and Black Friday. Consider special days within your industry as well, like back to school sales or Valentine’s Day travel getaways. Plan months in advance so you are prepared to handle the additional orders.
There are many strategies to boost sales and the above methods just scratch the surface. If you think about your products from your customer’s point of view, you can devise creative methods to acquire return purchases and generate more buzz around your products.
If you used a strategy that has boosted sales for your store, please share with us in the comments!