In order to achieve the success in the eCommerce business, it is important to stay up to date with the latest trends in the industry. Staying abreast with the current technological advancements and market trends can keep you ahead of the competitors. One of the best ways to achieve your business goals is to steps into the shoes of the well-established businesses and get inspirations from them. The ideal workflow of the eCommerce business should attract the shoppers to the website, filer the prospective customers from the website traffic and then convert them into the paying customers. This can be done by improved customer experience, customer retention strategy and ultimately winning the customer loyalty.
It won’t be wrong to state that even the digital era word-of-mouth plays a vital role. If you offer better services and improved customer experience at your store, then, you will certainly win back old customers and attract new ones. Social media also provides a platform to the online sellers to reach out to the new customers. In this post, we will discuss the most popular strategies which will help you to achieve your business goals in the year 2018.
Strategy#1 Attracting New Customers and Retaining old ones:
Effective lead generation strategy is the secret of the success in the e-commerce. Most of the time, when you visit established e-commerce sites, you may come across the welcome popup offering enticing discounts on the first purchase. In order to avail of this special discount, the visitors need to provide their email-ids. All the top e-commerce giants leave no chances to capture the email-id of the customers. The email address is the best way to establish a new and long-lasting relationship with the customers.
Getting the email addresses of the visitors is not an easy task. In order to get the email id of the visitors, you need to offer special deals to the new visitors. You can offer free shipping or enticing discount on the first purchase. Most of the top brands use this strategy to reach out to the more customers.
How can you use this strategy for your online business?
Gamified Welcome Popup-
Gamification of the site is the best way to retain the customers. Spin and Win popup is a gamified popup which allows the visitors to win the enticing discounts by spinning the wheel just like the roulette-game. The Spin and Win popup is one of the best ways to display an interactive popup to gather the customer information. Customers need to enter their email ids to play the game. The gamified interface develops the interest of the customers and they happily provide their email-ids to play the game.
Spin and Win gamified popup is available for the Magento1, Magento2, Prestashop, OpenCart and Shopify platforms.
Exit Intent Popup
Exit Intent Popup monitors the mouse movement and as soon as the visitor intends to exit, it displays an awesome popup with the discount offer. Special encourages the customers to complete their purchase and helps you to grow your email list.
Exit Intent Popup is available for the Magento1, Magento2, PrestaShop and OpenCart platforms.
Strategy#2 Offer Free Shipping
The latest trend in the eCommerce world is to offer free shipping. Customers prefer to buy with the free shipping option. Most of the sellers on the top marketplace like Amazon, Etsy, Walmart, eBay offers the free shipping.
Why is Free Shipping a must?
1) Shoppers Love Free Shipping option – According to the studies, the online shoppers prefer placing the order of the products if the shipping is free.
2) Competition – The marketplaces like Amazon, eBay, Walmart, Etsy and many more are expanding their presence and offering great benefits to the customers including the free shipping services. So, it is a must for the online business to offer free shipping to retain their existing customers.
3) Free shipping reduces shopping cart abandonment – Most of the time customer leave the cart abandoned because of the additional costs (shipping and taxes).
4) Free Shipping Increases Average Order Value – Shoppers buy more products to qualify for the free shipping.
Tactics to offer free shipping
1) One of the methods to offer free shipping is to include the shipping cost in the product price itself. This approach will work if you offer unique products to your niche market and there are not so many competitors.
2) You can create special promotional to offer free shipping on the products that have a higher margin.
3) You can offer free shipping only for a particular cart value. Orders with the cart value higher than the set limit will be eligible for the free shipping.
4) You can offer free shipping on special sale occasions or during the holiday season.
eCommerce extensions to offer better shipping services:
a) Free Shipping Manager
The Free Shipping Manager extension is available for the Prestashop platform. This addon allows the store admin to create the rules, terms and conditions for shipping charges. The merchants can fix the cart limit beyond which free shipping will be offered. This module can help you to increase revenue and conversion rate of the site. Click here for the details.
b) Shipping Cost by ZipCode:
Sometimes you need to offer shipping charges based on the location of the user. The Shiping Cost by ZipCode extension is the best way to offer shipping charges based on the location of the user. The Shipping Cost by ZipCode module is available for the Prestashop. Similar extension Product Availability check by ZipCode is available for the Magento 1 platform.
Strategy#3 Improve Customer Experience
Better customer experience at your store encourages the customer to browse more products which helps to increase the chances of the purchase. As per the latest trends in the industry, you should try to offer the best experience to the visitors to convert them into a customer.
There are following extensions which can be helpful to you to achieve the same.
a) Infinite Scroll
In the recent years, the growth of mobile devices brings a revolution in the eCommerce world. Now, most of the users prefer to browse the internet by using their handheld devices like mobiles and iPad. Infinite scrolling allows the users to browse more products with ease and improves the user experience for the touch devices. Moreover, the infinite scrolling option works efficiently while mobile browsing as well. Infinite Scroll extension developed by Knowband is available for the Magento 1, Magento 2 and Prestashop platforms.
b) Size Chart
If you sell Footwear or Clothing, then, a size chart on the product page is a must. The Size Chart helps the users to select the correct fit and also reduces the chances of the return. Size Chart extension developed by Knowband is available for the Magento 1, Magento 2, and Prestashop platforms.
c) Product Video
Instead of going through the long text, the users prefer to watch the video for the better understanding of the product. Product videos are more engaging than the text. Knowband offers the Product video extension which allows you to display the videos on the product pages from the video channels like YouTube, Vimeo. Product Video extension is available for the Prestashop, Magento 1 and OpenCart platforms.
d) Wishlist
With the dynamic growth of the marketplaces in the last few years, a new trend emerged in the eCommerce industry. Now shoppers prefer to search for the products on Google or marketplaces like Amazon, Etsy, Walmart, eBay, Cdiscount etc to get a better comparative price and offers before making their purchase decisions. Wishlist feature allows the shoppers to shortlist the products of their choice, so that, they can later place their order for the products. After adding the products to the Wishlist a shopper can access his/her wishlist any time. This saves the time of the shoppers as they can easily add the wishlist products to the cart to place their final order. The Wishlist extension is available for the Prestashop, Magento 1, Magento 2 and OpenCart platforms.
e) Express Checkout
The easy checkout process is the key factor to get the higher sales. Most of the online businesses provide the one step checkout to make the shopping experience of the shoppers hassle-free. One step checkout allows the user to enter the all the details at a single page and reduces the cart abandonment. The one step checkout allows the shoppers to create the account, place order as a guest or login to the account at the checkout page. Knowband offers the One Page Checkout module for the Magento 1, Magento 2, Prestashop and OpenCart platforms.
Strategy#4 Customer Retention Techniques
a) Helpdesk
If you have observed most of the online businesses offers the 24*7 chat support. Recently Chat Boats have also provided an effective tool to improve the customer engagements. By assisting the customers and visitors to make their purchase decisions and after sale inquires you can develop a bond between your brand and the customers. This long-lasting relationship might convert the customers into loyal customers. The Helpdesk extension is available for the Prestashop and Magento 1 platforms.
b) Loyalty Points
Offering loyalty points for each purchase of the customers helps you to retain the customers for a long time. As for each order, customers get the store credit which they can use towards their further purchases encourages the customer to return back to the store to use the store credit available in the account. The Loyalty Points module is available for the Prestashop platform.
c) Return Management
Efficient return policies are one of the most important aspects to retain the customers. The return and refund policy of the online store also encourages the customers to place their orders. In order to offer the hassle free return management online stores can use the Return Manager Extension. Knowband offers the Return Manager Extension for the Prestashop, Magento 1 and Magento 2 platforms.
d) Birthday Surprise
Everyone loves surprises because it shows how much the businesses value the customers. In order to win the trust of the customers, businesses need to go beyond the normal services and offers. You can offer an additional discount to the customers on their birthday. Knowband offers Birthday Coupon module for the Prestashop platform.
Strategy #5 Multi-channel selling
With the evolving technology and changing shopping habits of the customers, it is must for all the sellers to sell their products through multiple channels. All the top marketplaces like Amazon, eBay, Walmart, Etsy etc provides a platform to the sellers to sell their products through the marketplace.
Selling through the multiple channels is the best way to increase the brand reorganization.
In order to sell on multiple channels, the biggest challenge for the sellers is the management of the inventory and shipping. Knowband has developed the Marketplace Integration extensions for the top marketplaces like eBay, Walmart and Etsy. The marketplace integration module automates the product listing process and allows the sellers to manage the inventory and shipping for the marketplace from their existing online store.
eBay Marketplace Integration: eBay Marketplace integration extension is available for the Prestashop, Magento 1 and OpenCart platform.
Etsy Marketplace Integration: Etsy Marketplace integration extension is available for the Prestashop, Magento 1, Magento 2 and OpenCart platform.
Walmart Marketplace Integration: Walmart Marketplace integration extension is available for the Prestashop, Magento 1 and OpenCart platform.
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