With the widespread use of the Internet, website development has been simplified to drag and drop the shares and growth of the e-commerce industry projected at an astonishing rate of 8.7%; the promise of online sales has attracted millions to launch their e-commerce businesses. In the United States alone, total revenues peak at $ 322,171 million.
Despite its popularity, the e-commerce industry is constantly changing. The strategies that have brought you here will not be enough in 2017. Online businesses will have to keep up the pace if they want to survive. This will be even more difficult for startups who have just started taking baby steps. However, in the midst of the difficulties, there are opportunities, because by simply pointing their resources in the right direction, owners of online startups can not only support their businesses, but also generate profits.
Here is a list of steps that e-commerce startups can take to ensure smooth navigation until 2017:
He will become personal:
With nearly 53% (1 billion) of internet users shopping online, the e-commerce industry will attract both large and small brands. Increasing competition is making customers hard to reach, easy to lose and take away as never before.
So what can you do to differentiate yourself in the midst of this swarm of online businesses? Simple. Make the customer experience the best possible. Try to immerse each visitor in an empathic, personalized and memorable shopping experience.
Customization will allow you to develop a personalized experience for every interested buyer. You can do this by first getting a thorough understanding of the needs, desires, and desires of your target audience, as well as enlightening yourself about how they interact with your website.
Based on this information, you must modify each step of the purchase process by simplifying it if necessary, improving it if necessary and gently pushing your users to make a purchase via personalized suggestions. . Customization can be achieved by several means, including:
- Predictive Recommendations
- Personalized Navigation
- Third-party information
- Customization of line of object
- Segmentation of database
- Custom Content
- Point-to-point collaborative filtering
- Real-Time Real Estate Offers
- Dynamic Remarketing
Predictive recommendations alone increased the value by about 40%. So, invest in some, if not all, of these customization techniques to establish an ongoing relationship with your buyers.
User Experience = Conversions:
The biggest challenge for e-commerce businesses is converting visitors into customers. A proven way to improve your conversion rate is to offer a pleasant and rewarding user experience.
To do this, start by focusing on your web design. Almost 38% of Internet users left a website because they found that this site was not attractive.
Secondly, make sure your website does not take more than 3 seconds to load because 40% of users are known to drop websites after this threshold. Fast loading times are also among the factors that Google takes into account in determining search rankings and improving your online visibility.
Third, simplify the buying experience by making products and services easy to find. and streamline the payment process.
The mobile is the new way:
If you do not have a website compatible with mobile devices, you already lose valuable sales. Nearly 59% of e-commerce traffic comes from mobile devices such as smartphones and tablets.
So, instead of reiterating the obvious need to be mobile, let's talk about how you should go about it. Although mobile device users make up the majority of ecommerce traffic, they have surprisingly low conversion rates.
In 2016, mobile browsers accounted for only 38% of global ecommerce revenues, indicating that users are apprehensive when shopping on mobile devices. Even if they discover your product via their phones or tablets, they are likely to switch to a desktop computer to make a purchase.
This propensity to switch to a workstation is even higher in the case of items of great value and can be attributed to security and privacy issues when using a computer. mobile devices. Therefore, when you make your mobile site compatible, make sure you invest in a winning UX so that your buyers do not hesitate to place orders via mobile devices.
Make intelligent use of technology:
When it comes to the availability of resources, there has never been a better time to do e-commerce. The market is teeming with freebies as well as paid tools that can easily automate repetitive tasks, leaving you free to focus on the most important things. However, instead of rushing to choose a freebie high-class option, take the time to assess whether they will resonate with your branding strategy.
For example, for an ecommerce start-up offering valuable products, the use of a free email marketing service like the one provided by MailChimp would greatly help to reduce costs. The reason is that they post their logos on customers' websites, which undermines the financial strength of a company.
But what if you want to sell your expertise and knowledge? The Kajabi online course development platform allows people and start-ups to monetize their staff and create authority by creating and marketing digital products such as tutorials and white papers.
As for MailChimp, Kajabi offers a suite of "all in one" digital marketing tools, such as email marketing, landing pages and many others, designed to help entrepreneurs enter in the world of e-commerce. not a physical object.
Secure your customers:
A breach of security is extremely detrimental when it comes to e-commerce businesses. It is therefore absolutely imperative that you take the necessary steps to counter cybercriminals. These steps include regularly updating software and security systems on your workstations to ensure that your data remains protected against new vulnerabilities.
Make sure you update any third-party code to WordPress plugins. You will also need to define multiple layers of security, such as firewalls, contact form security features, user passwords, and search queries.
Another thing to improve security is to purge critical customer information such as CVV2 numbers, credit card information, and expiration dates. You can choose to store only a small portion of this information in a separate location to facilitate the processing of refunds.
Securing your online platform is only part of the overall picture, you must communicate the same to your customers, in order to see tangible results.
Therefore, boldly post your security certifications on your website and post testimonials from satisfied customers on landing pages to reinforce your authenticity and credibility.
All greet the reign of content:
Yes, the content will continue to rule as king. Get a content strategy as soon as possible, as it will allow you to drive traffic to your website, increase brand awareness and credibility, drive sales, and add value to your business. your online community.
Whatever you do as part of your content strategy, make sure to merge the SEO techniques into it. 80% of all clicks on Google's search results are near the top 3 organic ads. This means that if you want your content to have any impact, you need to find ways to reach the top of the natural search results.
In addition, increase your sales and value your brand as an influence in your industry by using user-generated content. According to statistics, about 70% of consumers trust product reviews more than professionally designed marketing content.
Explodes with Social Media:
The e-commerce industry owes much of its success to social media like Facebook, Instagram, Snapchat, LinkedIn, Twitter and Pinterest. These platforms enable e-commerce businesses to overcome the concerns that arise from a lack of physical presence by establishing a faithful online follow-up.
These platforms not only help drive traffic, but also increase product awareness and marketing hype. Catapult your social media by placing social media sharing buttons on every page of your website, including product pages and blog posts.
Instead of focusing only your financial capital on high quality images, try to incorporate as many GIFs, video tutorials, product demo videos, and promotional messages as you can on your website. Placing a video on landing pages results in an 80% increase in conversion rates and this number is expected to increase in 2017.
Join the Robots Revolution
One of the most exciting trends expected in 2017 is the use of discussion robots for real-time customer support. These discussion robots will use predictive technology to anticipate the needs of the buyer and provide advice at critical times in the buying process.
Embellish your offering:
In order to attract the attention of your customers, it is important to differentiate yourself from others. Although you may not always be able to offer a product or service that is completely different from your competitors, you can present your product in a very unique way.
Offer exciting deals, organize contests and offer discounts, but whatever you do, keep it in time, to increase the perceived value of your products / services. This is due to the innate human psychology that drives people to be more reluctant to lose an opportunity or to miss out on a product rather than just acquiring it.
Focus on abandoned carts:
Abandoned carts are a huge concern for ecommerce startups, so it's essential that you focus on them. The abandoned carts represent people who were willing to buy your products but somewhere during the buyer's trip, they left. This you need to focus on. Statistics indicate that high shipping costs and unplanned charges are two of the main reasons for abandoning carts, which account for nearly 44% of abandoned carts. Therefore, use the data to try to identify exactly why your customers are out of service because that may be why your future clients may leave halfway.
Assemble a winning customer service team:
Customer service standards can make or break your online business. Customers are fickle, and they will probably never come back, even if you bend once. According to a survey, 4.8% of customers exclude that they constantly need customer service when making an online purchase.
Of this number, 31% say they need immediate help and 40% say they need help within five minutes. Therefore, devote time and energy to developing a winning customer service team that not only supports and enlightens your customers, but is able to develop lasting relationships with them.
Leading more CRO tests:
In order to gain customer loyalty, e-commerce companies must perform regular Conversion Rate Optimization (CRO) tests. This will help them find ways to convert more visitors into customers. Some useful CRO tests include:
- Product page test copy A / B
- A / B Title Test
- Personalization vs. General Home Page Test
- Simplified verification against the standard payment test
- Button color test A / B
2017 promises to be an exciting year for e-commerce companies. Start-ups will have to buckle up and be ready to embrace not only these trends, but also the countless others that may emerge in the coming year. Continuous improvement is the name of the game, so no matter what you do, avoid falling into your comfort zone.