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It’s easy to get started with eCommerce. However, it’s challenging to survive, sustain, and grow. Sites like Shopify, PrestaShop, Wordpress or SquareSpace have given a big boost to eCommerce enthusiasts. A number of eCommerce merchants have taken their stores to Shopify given that the platform reported a 75% revenue growth within a year. Once you’ve successfully set up your store, the next logical step for you is to start aiming for sales.
To start a successful e-commerce business, here's 4-step guide for beginners. To begin with, you need to know who your target audience is, which channels can you best utilize to interact with the right audience at the right time, how your shoppers behave on-site, etc. But these are just the basics. The numbers that start reflecting in your analytics come from how you ensure a great shopping experience for the different types of consumers reaching your store.
Discover new-age strategies to improve conversions and sales:
#1 Implement AI-based search solutions
The way consumers search for products is changing. Thanks to technology and rapidly evolving AI-based solutions, people no longer need to type in long search queries for their browser to display a list of options. They can simply turn to voice-based Alexa or Siri for that. Similarly, AI-powered image search has taken the whole shopping experience to another level.
Now instead of typing ‘wide knitted headband,’ you can simply upload an image of the product that you looked up on Pinterest and let AI search engines do the finding for you. Lately,. Target has been partnering with Pinterest to improve its ‘search’ using images… and, shoppers are absolutely loving it!
Syte.ai, for example, allows shoppers to upload pictures of certain products that interest them. Using this ‘inspiration’ as an example, Syte.ai looks for visually similar options within a retailer’s inventory. This way, the results displayed to the shopper are more appropriate and closer to his or her ‘interest’. Clearly, the chances of a purchase/sale for the retailer is higher with these results!
Take for instance the fashion blogger’s Instagram post you just saved. You’re not sure where to find the products they are using, so you save the image for later. Now you could just upload the image on Syte.ai and it will look for products closes to those in the image, on the store you’re visiting.
Simpler the product search, higher are the conversions and sales you make!
#2 Leverage Messenger marketing
It might not come as a surprise— but it is something to take note of— that Facebook as of now has more than 2.3 billion monthly active shoppers worldwide. So, it would only be smart to be where most people are and become a part of their daily interactions. Messenger marketing has emerged as one of the easiest and smartest ways of keeping in touch with existing customers and potential buyers.
Chatbot-based messenger marketing is increasingly being adopted by eCommerce players who want to reduce their customer acquisition and retention cost, while also decreasing the manual workload that goes into interacting with customers online. Since chatbots are intelligent enough to ape human conversations and can make interactions seem extremely personal as well as contextual, they make a good interactive channel.
Implementing a Facebook Chatbot is one of the top tips to increase your sales with eCommerce content personalization. A number of eCommerce players are turning to AI-based messenger marketing solutions to reduce cart abandonment, announce product launches, and increase conversions. Running intelligent re-engagement and promotional campaigns using messenger marketing with tools like Flashchat and Octane AI bring in much better results as compared to traditional channels of marketing.
#3 Use web push notifications
The modern shopper is always on the go. Even if you’re present on all the social platforms, there is still a high chance that they miss out on your store’s promotion. You need a channel that reaches them at the right time with the right message and at a place where it is hard to miss - the screen of the device that the shopper is using.
Web push notifications are hard to miss because of their format and nature. The best thing about notifications is that you don’t need a mobile app to be able to send notifications to your shoppers. Web push notifications are one of those surefire ways to improve your e-commerce growth and customer retention rate.
You can set up automated web push notification campaigns for cart recovery, product launches, discount promotions, back in stock and even price drop alerts. The messages get delivered right in time, keeping the customers engaged with your store. What makes it better are the ready-to-use campaign templates!
The higher the engagement that you are able to drive with these campaigns, the larger are the number of sales.
For example, a shopper adds items worth $1500 to his cart but leaves it before checking out. You can send push notifications to him offering a discount or inform him that an extra $250 worth of purchase makes him eligible for free shipping. This will help you increase your average order value as well as help in cart recovery. In this case, email wouldn’t have been the best channel to improve conversions and sales because the user probably wouldn’t access his inbox instantly.
Or for that matter, when you’re running a sale for a limited time period.
The only trick to nail here is the message and the creative you use for your web push notification. It needs to not just convey your campaign message in a matter of minutes, but also grab the recipient’s attention enough for them to click through it. We love how creating a sense of urgency works always! If you didn't test web push notifications on your store yet, try it today: this will encourage repeat customers to your eCommerce.
#4 Weed out the infiltrators from your store
Do you know that your website might not appear just as you want it to on your shoppers’ screens? It is quite possible that extensions that your shoppers install lead to browser-injected ads being shown on your website. Right from competitor ads, affiliate promotions, spammy pop-ups, video ads, to even adult content. These ads are not targeted at stealing your data. They aim at luring shoppers away from your store.
So while you believe that a visitor acquired through SEM is seeing a store or a product page on your website, in reality, he is viewing an unauthorized competitor ad on ‘your’ website. The worst part about browser-injected ads is that https or CSP protection doesn’t stop such fraud, and they blend in so well with your store’s design that shoppers can’t tell the difference. And as we all know, once the shopper leaves the store, there are fewer chances of them coming back to make a purchase.
Weeding out such infiltrations and ensuring that the money you spend on customer acquisition and engagement isn’t lost to competition because such ads require world-class solutions like Brandlock’s Shield.
The platform leverages the power of machine learning to monitor over 12,000+ adware strains every day. It then identifies the extensions and apps injecting this adware onto your store and the distractions they may result in. Using this data, Shield starts to remove these ads in real-time, even before they show up on your store.
With no distracting competitor deals and content, your shopper is now more likely to convert on the product page. And additionally, you keep your brand safe from being tarnished by unauthorized content like adult content.
#5 Personalize recommendations to the T!
Shoppers love anything that makes their job of searching and browsing easier. If you are able to lay out options just for them that they’ll definitely be interested in, the chances of your store scoring a large order or a resale are very likely to shoot up.
A number of eCommerce stores now present ‘recommendations’ to repeat visitors based on their past buying behavior. Take, for instance, Amazon. The eCommerce leader knows the importance of product recommendations and makes it a point to pull in its top related products for a repeat visitor on its home page itself.
Statistics point out that that 45% of online shoppers will buy from websites that personalized product recommendations. A Salesforce study establishes that shoppers who are shown relevant product recommendations generate 26% of revenue for eCommerce stores.
Final thoughts about increasing your eCommerce store conversions
From AI-based voice and visual search to adware protection to chatbot-based messenger marketing - the list of newer ways in which eCommerce stores can increase conversions is getting longer each passing day. But in the end it is all about making a consumer’s shopping experience seamless and easier than before.
eCommerce stores on Shopify or other CMS can make use of some of the best features of the platform and choose from an array of Shopify apps, including some that we’ve mentioned in this post, to improve their conversion and sales. But there’s no one-size-fits-all approach when it comes to a growth strategy. So remember to continue trying to understand who your shoppers are, how they like interacting with you and how you can get them to make a purchase faster.
Keeping up-to-date with innovative solutions and tools that you now have access to will help you survive in the long and competitive race within eCommerce. But more importantly, set you apart as an innovative eCommerce leader in the industry.
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