Most companies are enhancing their brick-and-mortar business with an online audience and setting up their e-commerce store in this digital landscape. New businesses understand the power of the web and often run their operations online without needing a physical storefront.
It is fairly easy to set up a shop. You just need the following:
- Products and services to sell
- An e-commerce website
- Order fulfillment channels
There is much more to it, but anyone can go through the process to get up and run. The bigger hurdle, however, is to be profitable and increase your market share over time. This takes a path for developing your business and lots of hard and smart work. Fortunately, you can use ecommerce fulfillment services to streamline the tasks.
Here are some strategies for how to grow an e-commerce business.
1. Target Audience Identification
While you may be making some sales on your site, you probably miss the bigger fish who want to swim in your pond. Every business has a target audience; if you aren’t attracting them, you won’t grow as fast or large as you want.
Unless you are a behemoth like Amazon, you don’t need many products to suit everyone. Most successful businesses focus on a niche area with some great products and market to those that want it. This is your target audience; you must research if you don’t know who it is. Identify the types of people who buy your items and go after them.
Bring in more offerings that complement that product line so your customers have more things to buy within their interest and keep fine-tuning according to your sales. Set up your business from a marketing perspective rather than a product perspective to sell to your preferred target audience.
2. Expand Your Sales Channels
You have established a sales path to selling your wares to customers, and this could be through:
- Wholesale
- Website
- Mobile apps
- Retail
Now that you have an e-commerce site that works well, it’s time to expand your reach into other sales channels you may not have yet tapped.
Here are a few to leverage:
Ebay
Ebay has a large base of active users and a global reach. They are focused on mobile shopping; you can tap into this pool of over 185 million people.
Amazon
Becoming a seller on Amazon is easy and a great way to increase your exposure and market to a dedicated audience. You can leverage Amazon’s reputation, integrate within its platform, and utilize its delivery network.
Google Merchant Centre
To effectively compete with the big brands, Google’s platform levels the playing field by helping you reach new markets.
Social Media
Platforms like Instagram and TikTok allow you to add buy buttons and payment links to your videos. If you are growing your brand on these social media sites, use them to your advantage for directing sales back to your e-commerce site.
3. Grow Your Email List
Part of increasing your business and growing your e-commerce site is establishing a loyal base of interested customers and repeat clients. This is most effectively done through an email list.
Email marketing is powerful because some people need to see a product several times before pulling the trigger and buying, so using gentle reminders and sales promotion through email keeps you in passive contact with your customer base.
First-party data collection is the best way to build your list because people must sign up instead of having their information sold through third-party sources. Use incentives online to get contact information like:
- Personalized popups
- Forms
- Gamification techniques
- Discount codes
- Win a reward offers
Once you have a list, don’t spam people or push for hard sales. Give relevant information, tips, and other interesting content that fits your brand, then market it to them.
4. Optimize for Mobile
Having an e-commerce store on the web doesn’t mean it works seamlessly with a mobile device. With most people shopping with their smartphones, you need an optimized web version they can use. Some people may start shopping at home on a laptop and place items in their shopping carts. Then later in the day, they want to go over that from their phone and make the purchase. You need to make sure this is seamless.
Other strategies include:
- Using AI to personalize customer experience
- Running flash sales
- Partnering with influencers
- Enhancing customer service
Just operating an e-commerce site means entering the digital frontier of commerce. Keep blazing that trail by using these strategies and increase your brand awareness and commercial success.
