3 Important (And Interesting) eCommerce Business Strategies

When you run an e-commerce store, it’s easy to get caught up in all the day-to-day tasks involved with the business. However, as in any type of industry, it’s also very important to focus on working on the business to grow the venture over time. Now, it’s time to check out some interesting yet important eCommerce Business Strategies.

eCommerce Business Strategies

There are many things you can do to build a bigger and better business over the long run, including:

• Learning how to keep your current e-commerce customers.
• Using a variety of marketing strategies to get new ones.
• Putting systems in place.

Read on for the lowdown on these three strategies you can start employing today.

1. Retain Current Customers

One of the most economical ways to build your e-commerce business is to entice your current customers to come back and buy from you again and again. Once you have turned a prospect into a client, it costs less to find ways to draw them back for repeat purchases than it does to find a new customer.

To retain clients, consider providing coupon codes or other types of discounts and incentives that will motivate them to spend more money with you. Once customers join your mailing list, make sure that you stay in touch by sending them regular emails. Let them know about your latest products, services, or specials. Reward them for referring their friends to you, and make them feel special with personalized offers or communications.

Upselling is another great way to increase sales and profits via your current clientele. When people are in the checkout, encourage them to purchase additional products or services by showcasing related items, or accessories for those things that are already in their cart. If they add extras to their basket but don’t end up buying them, you can later send a follow-up email providing an exclusive offer (such as a discount, free gift with purchase, or free shipping) to entice them to complete another transaction.

2. Use A Variety Of Marketing Strategies

In addition to building your business through current clients, you also need to spend time and money on marketing to acquire new customers. There are plenty of strategies that e-commerce business owners can employ, many of which are very affordable.

For starters, in this day and age, it always pays to have social media profiles which you can use to attract potential shoppers. Sites like Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, and Instagram attract millions of users each day and can be a great place for people to learn about your products and services. You can join these networks for free and post updates about your wares, promotions, and helpful or entertaining information, and/or choose to pay for advertisements that reach targeted viewers.

Many online stores also find great success from blogging. This can be both on your own website, and through writing guest posts that are placed on other sites. Regular blogs can be a good marketing tool for multiple reasons. For example, uploading new information to your website regularly that is relevant to your target market can make a big difference to your search engine optimization. It will help your website to show up on the first page of Google and other search engines for relevant keywords. Writing for other websites can also help you build your brand name, and draw more traffic to your site as people click through for more information.

3. Put Systems in Place

One thing that often stops many business owners from growing their business as much as they’d like is lack of time. After all, there are only so many hours in the day, and that time has to be allocated across a vast number of areas, all of which are usually important. To combat this problem, you should try to put processes in place and systemize as many elements of your operation as possible so that you’re not continually “reinventing the wheel.”

Start off by looking at every process within your business. Some examples are sourcing new stock, uploading new products or services to the website, responding to customer queries, packaging, shipping and so on. Examine each area and work out what the process is (or should be, if it were more efficient); why it is done; when it is done; and who is responsible for doing it.

Complete this and you should be able to identify less time-consuming ways of completing tasks, as well as weed out any unnecessary elements. Once you have gone through all the steps and are happy with what you have in place, make sure you document the process. Write up a list of sequential steps and/or a checklist, and ensure that the person who is responsible for each process follows it. Each document can then be used to train new staff, saving even more time in future.