Success selling services or products online isn’t a secret but it does take some work and in most instances, you will require some expert help. E-commerce is essential for most modern day businesses, so just how do you succeed when you’re selling online?
Choose the Right Niche
You need to keep perspective and think about what you want to offer. It’s unlikely you’re going to be the next Amazon but if you have a particular type of product, perhaps a specific beauty product or a new homemade food or drink, then you can find your space in a specialised market and attract consumers interested in your niche.
The smaller your niche, the less competition there will be, so there is a higher chance potential customers will find you. There is such a thing as ‘too niche’ and you don’t want to be launching a product for which there is no market. Balance your specialisation against the size of the market to achieve great sales.
Get Found Online
Search engine optimisation is a fundamental part of Crush’s Online Marketing service. SEO helps to obtain improved rankings in search engines, for relevant and appropriate search queries. This helps the website to work for your business by bringing customers to you when they are looking for what you provide.
Provide a User-Friendly Interface
Visitors who want to buy your product need to be able to do so. Make it easy for them because if they have issues, chances are they’ll move on and look elsewhere. Three absolute no-nos for e-commerce sites are:
- Requiring users to register before purchase
- Having a complicated and hard to navigate interface
- Having a drawn-out buying process
- Requiring too much/unnecessary information from the customer
Adding things such as the opportunity to check out as a guest or speed checkouts through using PayPal or GooglePay are more and more popular as some users want to make their purchase and move on and whilst you do want to promote repeat custom, save it for post-purchase emails so they aren’t irritated and back out before clicking pay.
Crush’s web development team have lots of e-commerce experience and can help with all your website’s e-commerce needs.
Offer Exceptional Online Customer Service
Just because you aren’t standing face-to-face with your customer doesn’t mean they don’t deserve and expect the highest levels of customer service. Customers still expect reassurance and high quality service when buying through the internet and you can assure this with guarantees such as money-back for unsatisfied customers and the promise of quickly processed refunds.
Also providing evidence that your website is secure and safe from a payment perspective is also very important, which could mean displaying your verified by third parties such as Symantec or it could be partnering up with alternative payment systems such as PayPal and GooglePay so customers can use payment methods they already know and trust. You also need to ensure you are PCI compliant if you do choose to take card payments through your site.
E-commerce websites are specialised and they do need to be treated differently to your average website. At Crush Digital we work with many e-commerce websites. We have the expertise to make the sales funnel and then fill it.
