How to Boost Your eCommerce Sales

Hopefully, like many online retailers, your business has been thriving throughout this strange period of pandemic and lockdown. With online retail equating to around USD 4.2 trillion (GBP 3 trillion) it’s been a time of growth for ecommerce, but with the end still a little out of sight and the way that people shop forever changed, there is still time to boost your ecommerce sales. In this article, we’ll be looking at six ways that you can improve your online sales.

1. Target your existing customers

Brand loyalty has been a big focus for many retailers, especially throughout 2020 when uncertainty reigned and shoppers had a lot more time on their hands to browse competitors and compare products. 

A study by the ecommerce platform provider, Yotpo, showed that 26.4% of those surveyed are more brand loyal than they were in 2019, up from 24% and continuing to rise. They also showed that 67.6% will join a loyalty or VIP program, and 56% will happily spend more with a trusted brand even if there are cheaper options elsewhere - so you’re missing out if you’re not targeting your valuable, loyal customers with personalised messaging and exclusive or early offers. 

2. Increase the basket value at checkout

Amazon is the sovereign of this tactic, and with a market value of around USD 1.5 trillion, it’s safe to say that they’ve seen a lot of success with ecommerce. There are several ways to increase the basket value, such as offering items or services which support those they’ve chosen. You’ll have seen this used by Amazon to great success in the “customers who bought these also purchased X” displays under product description pages. Also, consider offering a deal for purchasing these additional items at the same time to incentivise customers into a purchase.

You could also look at turning their one-time purchase into a subscription purchase. If they’re purchasing something which is a regular item, such as pet food for example, you could offer a 5kg bag for £10, but the same product for £8 if they take a monthly subscription with a minimum three-month term. This will give them a 20% saving across that time but has the potential to give you 140% more revenue that could have gone to a competitor.

If you’re providing a service or subscription, another way to increase basket value is to offer reduced costs for extended service terms. A hefty reduction on the second year of subscription could be enough to convince your customers to take it and stay with you for longer. 

3. Consider Using Paid Search Ads

Don’t be afraid to try something like Google Ads to boost traffic to your site. In the highly competitive arena of Google searching, having adverts which appear above organic traffic can be the difference between a customer coming to your site or a competitor’s.  

With improvements to algorithms constantly evolving, you can even use a series of automated bidding tools to support you - leaving the hard work to machine learning and giving you more time to focus on your messaging and product placement.

It may seem a little daunting at first, but there’s plenty of help out there, like our article on automated bidding or this one on determining ROI in your PPC. We’re always here to support you if you need it - so it’s worth your time to at least trial it with a small budget at first. 

4. Have great delivery and return policies

In a world where shoppers are less able to try on products, or even see them in the flesh before they purchase, it makes sense that there will be a higher number of returns as customers want to fix their purchase errors. Research by Global Web Index shows that three in five customers surveyed had returned something they purchased online in the past 12 months, with an average of 71% of shoppers aged 25-44 having done so.

With almost 80% of shoppers stating that they check a retailer’s return policy before shopping, it’s going to be of value for you to have a great return policy in place. 

This goes for any delivery policies that you have in place too, whether you’re offering free delivery as standard, or delivery offers. It could be the difference between you making a sale or not. Make sure that you’re prominently displaying any delivery and return offers across your site, as if customers can’t find it on your site then you’re losing out. 

5. Minimise Cart Abandonment

In March 2020, 88% of all online shopping orders were abandoned! Cart abandonment can happen for a series of reasons; it could be site issues such as navigation and UX, it could be unexpected charges when they get to the checkout, or simply too much information required from customers when they need to purchase. 

However, there are ways to mitigate all of the above that aren’t just a case of fixing the things which might be broken - you may be doing everything right on your site and customers are still shopping around. 

Implementing automated email marketing to follow up on cart abandons will help you to hook those customers back. A simple automatically triggered email which reminds the shopper that the product is still in their basket is a good place to start. That email can be as simple as that, or could include product reviews, special offers on that item or even timed exclusive offer codes which incentivise a quick purchase.

You can read more about what makes customers abandon their carts in our blog piece. 

6. Testimonials and Customer Reviews

People are far more likely to part with their money when spending online when they’re able to see genuine reviews from other shoppers. In a time where a large number of purchases are made without seeing a physical product, it’s important to instil trust in your potential customers. Nine out of ten shoppers say that positive reviews have influenced their purchase decision and Spiegel research shows that products with five reviews or more have a 270% increase in purchase likelihood. 

Chances are if your products are great quality (which they are or you wouldn’t be selling them, right?) then you’ll have plenty of opportunities for customers to offer reviews. If you’re in a position to get reviews directly from customers by using your teams to speak to them, then you can often get richer, more valuable reviews. However, there are platforms such as Feefo which you can easily integrate with your website and allow customers to easily leave reviews. Displaying these reviews, quotes or testimonials on your product or service pages will help to increase your sales. 

Don’t Do It All Yourself

There are plenty of ways in which you can boost your ecommerce sales. Some of them are small, quick wins and some will take you a little longer to implement, but in a digital world where we’re comfortable predicting that online shopping is only going to increase, you must make some changes to get ahead.

If you’re interested in working with us to help you improve your ecommerce sales, then contact us here and we’d love to support you in growing your business.