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An eCommerce business is by no means an easy task. It is all about perseverance and the relentless pursuit of excellence. Starting and growing an eCommerce business is all about synchronizing several steps together at just about the right time. There are innovative ways to ramp up your business online such as creating affiliate sites, selling proprietary products, and much more. Each and every type of eCommerce business model comes with its own pros and cons. When starting an eCommerce business, the initial market research phase is one of the most important steps.
As technology continues to help shape our behavior online, consumers are leaning towards e-commerce as their preferred way to buy.
Go the extra mile to realize mobile’s potential
Mobile commerce is the new trend as the penetration of mobile devices is increasing at an exponential rate. In today’s competitive world, it is important to leverage the mobile experience. Whether on websites or apps, it is important to build an extension of your brand’s culture.
In 2021, “53.9 percent of all retail e-commerce is expected to be generated via m-commerce. As of February 2017, Amazon was the most popular shopping app in the United States with a mobile reach of 40 percent, ranking ahead of local competitors Walmart and eBay.”
Courtesy: Statista.com
Ecommerce apps give buyers a chance to upload their photos and attach various styles to their pictures to achieve the best look and fit. It also allows the user to share the photos via social media to get their friends’ feedback; without going to a store.
Personalization is Key to Success
Your ability to respond to individual consumer requests or interests based on preferences and interests leads to a highly personalized experience. Every single audience interaction provides the opportunity to collect data, discover your product, platform, and brand, as well as its ability to connect with potential customers.
Ecommerce personalization can take your startup to new heights, resulting in more conversions and sales. It’s important to note that Personalization does not mean excessive implementation through email marketing or content marketing. Before you take a plunge into personalization, it is essential to understand consumers’ preferences/behavior so that your resources don’t go for a toss.
Here are ways to offer a personalized experience:
- Recommendations based on past purchases and similar user behavior.
- Survey-based user information.
- Communications based on user behavior
- Offers based on personal information such as anniversary or birthday
- Offers based on loyalty program
- Personalization based on location or time
Take a look at the following data to determine a pattern to offer a personalized experience
- Number of orders
- Average Order Value
- Days since the first transaction, last transaction, first or last visit
- Total amount spent on purchases
- Products viewed
- Cart Abandonment
Build relationships with influencers:
Well, startups will be itching to pitch their business and ideas to users, media and investors. But this is not always the right approach. Instead, building real relationships with people who are actually considered influential in your industry will help you grow. Find influencers for your specific industry. They will give your business a push in the right direction through endorsements, testimonials, introductions to key decision-makers, mentioning resources, or a publication in a high-profile magazine.
Content is the King
If you think an eCommerce website is just about products and discounts, you are mistaken. Rich content still works for the eCommerce sites. Be it review or feedback, original content works to attract the attention of users. Reviews help customers to decide and purchase products in case of doubts. Successful eCommerce startups ventures evolve into publishers of original content. This helps shape the opinion of people to buy. Think about it, you are not just a provider of goods or services, but play a role of a trusted role of advisor.
Content is not just limited to client testimonials, for a startup eCommerce there are several ways to leverage unique and interactive content.
Infographics – Visual representation of content to help users gauge the content easily
Memes – Don’t forget humor can take engagement to a new level
Videos/How-to videos– How to videos compel users to spend time on your website. This is a highly entertaining way to attract potential visitors
Product Reviews: One of the best ways for prospective buyers to gain insight into what other buyers think about the product
User-Generated content– Content generated by clients/buyers/customs such as review, ratings, or feedback
Newsletters – Emailed to subscribers to launch or introduce new products/services/events and encourage buying products/services from your website
Ebooks – Downloadable digital content that allows buyers to download content on mobile devices
Slideshows – Series of text and image content to let users grab the information easily and quickly
Keywords: Use keywords and meta tags to raise your ranking in search results
Getting contextual is the key to effective personalization. Contextual marketing means you can send highly tailored messages to users based on their locations, behavior, or device that are relevant to tasks at the moment.
Rise of voice shopping
Voice shopping is witnessing an upward trajectory thanks to voice assistants like Amazon Echo or Google Home. These revolutionary products give brands a chance to connect with the consumer and increase engagement. As consumers gain a level of comfort with the process, more will rely upon the technology to accomplish routine tasks.
Courtesy: Amazon
In past, the strategy revolved around keywords and different combinations of keywords. Fast forward to today, optimizing for voice search now revolves around how people actually talk. If you provide optimized voice search results, you are giving users exact results.
- Optimize and redesign your On-site Search for Natural Language Search Queries
- Focus on Local Searches
- Add Natural Language to eCommerce site content
With the rise of chatbots, digital voice assistants like Siri, Alexa, Google Now, and native language recognition in AI is empowering a new shift towards a conversation-based eCommerce development. Ultimately, this will result in finding targeted customers. Voice commerce through smart Home assistants like Amazon Echo is the beginning of a new era of what’s possible for online shopping.
The shopping experience gets an augmented reality makeover
Right from Pokémon Go to Ikea, Augmented Reality is going mainstream. Its application is increasing at a rapid pace for a variety of different purposes in life. Retailers will have to rethink from start to incorporate AR and VR into shopping to make the process lively again.
With users looking online to buy the majority of their purchases, finding visual ways to show off your product will be critical to making the sale.
Finally
Growing your eCommerce startup can be a challenging task. In a field that is as dynamic as eCommerce, it is important to know that what’s a rage today might be horribly outdated by tomorrow. It’s crucial to partner with a web application development company that refine strategies to meet current trends and technological innovation to grow.
