Creating an eCommerce store has never been so more comfortable. With eCommerce platforms like Shopify and WooCommerce, you can now build your online store and start selling in no time. However, running an online business is not as easy as putting a few products up on your site and waiting for the “magic” to happen.
What you need to do is put in some work to get visitors to your website, convince them to make a purchase, and get them to return to your eCommerce store again and again. If you’re someone who’s never had an online business before, it’s time you learned from the best. There are a lot of guides on the Internet like Website Advisor that can be helpful in your beginner’s journey.
Today, we’re going to show you six proven ways you can keep your eCommerce store up and running successfully. So, without further ado, let’s jump right into it!
#1: Simplify the Menus
One of the best ways to group your products and stay organized is to use simplified menus. However, you needn’t overcomplicate things. Unnecessary menu categories can confuse the customer, keeping them from finding their desired product.
Your menus should not be super-specific. Consider using broad terms instead of categorizing your items. For instance, let’s assume you sell clothing items like sweaters, vests, t-shirts, and tank tops. Now, instead of keeping five different menus for each item, you can place them into one key category: “tops.”
#2: Avoid Clutter
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The more options you provide, the longer it will take for the customer to make a decision. Thus, complex navigations and designs could crush your conversion rates.
Your visitors’ eyes must be drawn to the products you’re selling. However, too many options can make it harder for them to locate your CTA.
Remember, eCommerce is competitive. The only legitimate way you can start a business and keep acquiring, as well as retaining consumers is to stay up-to-date with the latest technology and marketing trends. However, regardless of what strategy you have, remember to always stay close to the customer and personalize their shopping experience.
#3: Get a Premium Hosting Service
Never underestimate speed. It’s one of, if not, the most crucial elements of a successful online store. Each webpage has to load faster to generate high conversions. However, if you’re already on a budget hosting plan, keep in mind that it will cost you a lot in the future.
A one-second delay in page load times yields:
- 16% decrease in consumer satisfaction
- 11% fewer page views
- 7% loss in conversions
So, if your website has a 2-to-3-second delay, it’s bad news for business. What’s even worse is when the website glitches, crashes, or shows error reports—all this can be prevented with a premium hosting plan.
If you find an eCommerce website for sale, make sure it comes with a premium web hosting plan along with other important things. Of course, the entire reason you are buying an eCommerce site is to get there faster. You don’t want to go through the whole process of setting it up and finding suppliers. While it would be neat if you could buy a profitable eCommerce site for cheap, going with a cheap hosting plan will only put you at risk of losing it all.
#4: Build Your Email Subscriber List
If you want to run a successful online business, you must have enough customers ready to purchase. But how will you drive traffic to your store?
Well, there’s a secret!
Creating an eCommerce email subscriber list is probably the best solution to this. When you have your prospect’s email address, the next step is to send them special offers with promotions in order to entice sales.
One of the most effective ways to collect email addresses is by doing it in the checkout process. Here’s an example:
As you can see, the box that says “Keep me up to date on news and exclusive offers” is unchecked. What you can do is keep it checked off by default. This way, customers will have to manually uncheck it to prevent subscription. However, as we all know, most shoppers won’t even pay attention to this box and leave it as it is.
LinkedIn is another place to find a lot of prospects. However, after hours of searching, you may only end up obtaining 10-12 email addresses. Don’t worry; there’s a faster and more efficient way!
With LinkedIn email extractor, you can capture thousands of email addresses of prospects and scale your outbound outreach to a few hundreds of emails per day. Once you have enough prospects in your list, you can start sending out personalized offers and promotions to drive more traffic and increase sales.
#5: Prioritize SEO
Customers don’t grow on trees. They won’t simply navigate to your site and buy your goods. The majority of your customers will come from search engines like Google.
If your website doesn’t rank higher in Google’s search results, chances are you’ll be losing hundreds, if not, thousands of potential customers to your competition, depending on the size of your eCommerce business. Therefore, it’s vital to focus on SEO.
Here are a few tips:
- Create quality content
- Start a blog and publish articles regularly to keep your audience engaged
- Use a simple and clear URL structure
- Use Google’s Keyword Planner
- Use internal linking smartly to rank for specific target keywords
- Use your website search data for those target keywords
- Optimize for mobile
- Write informative, relevant product descriptions
- Encourage customer reviews
- Keep an eye out for the latest SEO trends
#6: Eliminate Unnecessary Steps In the Checkout Process
When a visitor decides to purchase something, they should be able to purchase without a hassle. Too many steps during the checkout process might increase the odds of cart abandonment.
Studies found that 58.6% of US online shoppers have abandoned a cart within the last three months because they found the process to be time-consuming and complicated.
The best way to prevent this from ever happening is to collect only the most crucial information from the shopper. Avoid asking unnecessary questions at all costs.
Also, 65% of online shoppers are basically comparison shoppers. They open a few tabs, find similar items, compare terms and prices, and then make a final selection. Therefore, you need to incorporate the “Save the Cart” feature. It’s important that shopping carts are saved so you can retarget those who previously added something to the cart but forgot to check out.
Wrapping Up
The internet is a shopper’s heaven. From the comfort of the couch and with a simple click, a customer can buy whatever their heart desires, without the hassle of battling traffic, finding parking, and dealing with adverse weather. Thus, as an eCommerce owner, you need to provide customers with an efficient online shopping experience.
Is your eCommerce website well-organized?
Feel free to share your thoughts and suggestions with us in the comments below.
