6 Ways to Increase Online Sales
This year's Black Friday and Thanksgiving Sales - traditionally some of the biggest retail sales weekends out of the entire year - have been upended. Brands like Amazon, Walmart, Target, and Best Buy have been running significant sales on and off since the beginning of October. Brands have had to adjust their traditional Q4 sales plan's to compete with bigger companies that are offering more e-commerce deals than ever. We put together a short list below of 6 ways to increase your brand sales during the holiday season. Check-out our tips below:
Improve the quality of your products. Sell what your product description says. This indicates that you are honest with your customers.
Keep customers engaged on your social media pages. You can conduct webinars, shoot live videos of your warehouse/office, and initiate sweepstakes. All these activities help you engage your customers.
Share user-generated content on your blogs, social media pages, website. These can be testimonials of your products or tweets of your users who had a wonderful experience shopping from your web store.
Ask users to provide an honest review of your service on review & rating websites.
2. Set Your Prices Right
Learn about the cost other stores are charging for the same product. Maybe you can leverage cost as your unique selling point.
Change your wholesaler if he/she is selling the product for a higher cost. You may have to search the market for this but it will be worth in the long-term
Consider decreasing shipping prices or providing free shipping if people spend more than a particular amount on your store, let's say $100.
3. Create a Unique Selling Proposition (USP)
Ask yourself the following questions:
What makes you stand out from the rest of the online stores?
What is your product's cost?
What is the product quality like?
What type of customer service do you offer?
Now capitalize on these points.
Sometimes you don't even realize what your USP is. If that is the case, visit the review websites and see what your customers are writing about you and what keywords they are using. These are the keywords that describe your service to your audience. Use them in your marketing material as they are the WORDS of your CUSTOMERS.
4. Optimize & Split Test Website
You only have 15 seconds to grab the attention of the user. If you can't, you lose them. This is called the 15-second rule of website usability.
The second most important rule of conversion rate optimization (CRO) is the 3-click rule. It says that a site user should require only three clicks to reach the checkout page. Make sure that you optimize your website according to your needs.
5. Offer Exceptional Customer Service
People are more likely to buy from those companies that resolve user complaints efficiently. That is why your store must offer consistent customer service to your customers. If you don't already have a customer service plan set up - you have got some work to do:
Add Live Chat option to your e-commerce store.
Allow chatbots to answer most of the questions people ask. This will decrease the number of chats you have to answer manually and increase the number of orders you get.
Send personalized email messages to your customers and reply to them immediately in case of complaints.
Use 24/7 phone support as it can increase the trust factor for your store.
6. Decrease Shipping Times
In e-commerce, shipping times play an essential role in your store's ratings. You must ensure that you dispatch orders quickly. You can reduce the number of late deliveries by:
Provide free shipping. Your customers should have the option to choose the type of shipping they want. If they want faster shipping, they should pay more for it. Otherwise, they can always opt for the free shipping option.
Utilizing these tips can significantly increase sales regardless of the time of year. Now, when consumers have more e-commerce options than ever, having a seamless shopping experience is crucial! Have any questions? Feel free to email us at hi@ansleymediaco.com or comment below!