How to Make Your Presence Felt on eCommerce Platforms?

Nearly 40% of Internet users prefer buying products from e-commerce stores, suggesting that there is a need to make online shopping a more hassle-free experience. In addition to this, the e-commerce platforms should be properly optimised for mobile devices as most people use their smartphones for online shopping.

How to grow an eCommerce business?

The e-commerce market is ever-changing. You must look for ways to get loyal customers if you want to thrive in the business world. Also, you must come up with a solid SEO strategy by considering the rapidly changing market trends that can ramp up your e-commerce store.

With the market scenarios and customer buying habits changing every day, starting an eCommerce business can be very difficult. So, here are some business growth tips:

1. Start with social media

Using social media to expand your online retail store can be somewhat challenging, depending on your target audience and niche. However, many social media sites facilitate product marketing by providing certain business tools. For example,  you can make your presence felt on Facebook by targeting a specific group of people using their Audience Manager tool. You can also use social media platforms to announce new product arrivals, offers, etc.

2. Use email marketing

You can also tap into Email marketing as you start an eCommerce business. Email marketing is an effective technique, especially when you already have a good customer base.

Sending emails to both existing and new customers can increase customer engagement. Moreover, you can help your customers to visit your online store if you can send sign-up links or newsletters of your business.

With email marketing, you can strengthen your business communication and connect with your customers on a human level. This will increase customer retention and make your business more resilient.

3. Provide free shipping

You can acquire more customers by offering free shipping. You don't need to provide free shipping on every product. You can do so for a specific range of products and by setting a threshold price.

Offering free shipping always goes that extra mile in getting more loyal customers for your e-commerce store.

Another advantage of offering free shipping is that you can prompt the visitors to complete the transaction. In many instances, when customers visit e-commerce websites to buy something, they discard their items at the checkout stage due to the absence of free shipping.

4. Build customer loyalty

One of the essential aspects of starting an eCommerce business is building brand loyalty. To do that, you can offer discounts and cashback offers to your customers. Not only does it increase brand loyalty, but it also enhances the credibility of your business.

For this, you can set up a reward system on your e-commerce platform so that customers get rewarded whenever they buy from your site. They can use those ‘reward points’ to claim discounts and cashback offers on their purchases.

Thus, by helping customers share their pleasant shopping experiences with their peers, you invite more customers to try your products.

5. Get feedback from your customers

Customer feedback is an essential aspect of running an eCommerce business. It helps your business grow as it lets you know how your products are doing. Various e-commerce development platforms provide plugins that you can integrate into your website to get feedback from your customers.

These plugins also have features for collecting and analysing customer feedback. You can integrate the feedback, especially the positive ones, on the product pages. They create positive impressions on those who read them and prompt them to buy from your store.

Some e-commerce business growth tips

Running an e-commerce business is not similar to running an offline retail business. It takes a lot of hard work and perseverance to successfully set up and run an online retail or e-commerce store. However, it doesn't need to be a tedious process if you get these key aspects right:

1. Planning

Every e-commerce business starts with proper planning. Several aspects go into the planning process, including feasibility check, analysis of the available resources and your target audience. It will be good for your business if you evaluate all these aspects before proceeding further.

2. Website design and marketing

Once you draft a good plan, you can start designing a marketing strategy to promote your products. To start doing that, you will need a website. All websites have two crucial elements: content and graphics.

The website’s design should be such that it grabs visitors’ attention as soon as they open the site.

Find answers to the following questions to check whether you have got the design right:

• Does the site immediately tell a visitor about your business?
• Does it provide enough information to the users?
• Does it have appropriate headers and links to the different pages?
• Does it allow visitors to find answers to their questions?
• Does it use the right font styles, colours, and text sizes?
• Does it offer quality information to the users?
• Does every page include a link to the homepage?
• Does it use visuals, graphics, and buzz words sparingly?
• Does it overuse technology?

So, don't forget to ask yourself these questions while designing a website for your eCommerce store.

Similarly, when it comes to developing a product marketing strategy, you must keep in mind the following things:

• Don't try to over-describe or oversell products. Provide helpful information to shoppers about your offerings in a subtle way.
• If you feel that you don't have enough products to offer your customers, try partnering with other stores that have them.

Final thoughts

When you try to solidify your online presence, don't forget the various aspects of building a good website. Having a good e-commerce presence also allows you to connect with your customers. This lets you understand the problems faced by your customers so that you can act accordingly. So, analyse all the aspects and come up with the best strategies for your business. It will help in transforming your e-commerce store into a successful venture.

Also read:

1) What Are the Business Ideas I Can Look at If I Am an MBA Graduate?
2) 20 Business Ideas for Stay-At-Home Parents
3) 21 Successful Small Business Ideas for New Entrepreneurs in India
4) What are Some of the Best Online Businesses?
5) OkCredit: All you need to know about OkCredit & how it works.

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FAQs

Q. What is e-commerce?

Ans. Simply put, e-commerce means buying or selling goods over the internet. Sales, purchases, and transactions take place on digital platforms.

Q. How do e-commerce platforms help?

Ans. E-commerce platforms allow you to:

1. Increase business reach: By setting up an e-commerce store, you can get many visitors who can be your potential customers.
2. Digitalise transactions: E-commerce platforms allow you to digitalise transactions and increase transparency. By doing so, they allow you to analyse the cash flow with ease.

Q. What are the advantages of having an online presence?

Ans. There are many advantages of having an online presence. Some of them are:

1. Smoother shopping experience and checkout process.
2. The customers can choose from all the options by sitting at their home.
3. As customers don’t need to be physically present at the shop, people who live far away from your shop can buy your products. Hence, it increases the number of your customers.
4. Marketing becomes much easier when there is a solid online presence.