Are you ready to grow your e-commerce store to higher depths? If you already have a solid foundation in place, meaning having a reliable website, impeccable customer service, and a quality product, you can start to think about the next step. This article will guide you through the key steps for expanding to maximize the impact of your scaling efforts.
Have a Promotion Plan
A successful business requires a great marketing plan. Without it, growth is impossible. Planning for your marketing will help you reach your desired target audience and boost sales. There is no guaranteed approach to promote your business; however, certain steps may yield successful outcomes. These could include:
Paid Ads
Paid marketing can be an effective means of acquiring new customers and providing the best data and analytics to monitor progress. These include paid ads across Facebook, Instagram, TikTok, and any other social media platforms where your target customers are present, as well, as PPC (pay-per-click) ads on Google as a way to leverage your search presence.
Search Engine Optimization
Search Engine Optimization (SEO) is a process used to increase visibility in search engines like Google for the purpose of driving traffic to a website. It includes strategies like optimizing content by adding keyphrases relevant to your services or products and building backlinks to your website.
If your website ranks high in the search engines for words connected to your company, you can expect more visitors and reap the rewards of increasing your conversions.
Retargeting Marketing
A crucial element in growing your business is attracting fresh website traffic; however, you should also focus on those visitors who visited your website but have yet to make a purchase. Many of these customers are those who abandoned their shopping carts without making the final purchase. Retargeting through various means like e-mail marketing campaigns or personalized ads on social media is a good way to draw them back in and have them convert.
Investing in Automation
Automation can increase efficiency with lighting speed but completing tedious tasks that eat up a lot of time. Automation can also increase the accuracy of many tasks.
What types of tasks can be automated?
- Pricing adjustments
- Collecting customer feedback
- Customer service
Automation can help you divert your attention to more important areas of your business and also save you money by not having to hire an extra pair of hands for those tasks.
Focus on Providing Excellent Customer Service
To keep your customers happy, give them great service. While chatbots can help, they shouldn’t replace real people. Even great products won’t bring customers back if your customer service is bad. To make sure your customers have a good experience, offer live chat or phone support for more complicated questions. Use chatbots for simpler, common questions. This way, you can make the customer service process easier while still keeping a human touch.
Outsource Order Fulfillment
When your business grows, you may find it too much work to handle each order’s packaging and shipping. Although it might be manageable initially, it will be challenging as the number of orders increases. To deal with this, it is better to use a fulfillment service that will handle the processing, packing, and shipping of your products. You should also consider outsourcing your barcode labels to make the most of your time. While it may seem expensive, it is an investment that will pay off in the long term, allowing your business to expand.
Focus on your Website
You can create your own website using a marketplace platform like Amazon or Etsy or have one professionally made. In either case, your website should be attractive and easy to use, with high-quality product images and helpful content that provides customers with all the information they need to make a purchase confidently.
Platforms like BigCommerce or WooCommerce are popular website platforms that let you build your online store. Regardless of the technology you use, the most important ingredient is to make sure your
customers can navigate your website easily and quickly find what they’re looking for without being interrupted by pop-ups or long loading times.
Optimize your MarketPlace
When you list your items on a marketplace, you will be up against numerous other sellers. Marketplaces like Amazon, eBay, and Etsy are all chock-full of individual vendors vying for customers. Have a consistent process for reviewing and measuring your prices across the competition, check your inventory levels, and stay on top of customer reviews. Along the way, refine and fill the gaps for any areas that need improvement. In the end, customers need a rational reason for why they should choose you over the competitor’s products.
Build a Solid Reputation from Customer Reviews
Unlike a store, a customer cannot examine the quality of a product before buying. For this reason, most customers read reviews before making a final purchase. Preferably, you want to aim for having customer reviews for your entire product line.
Positive reviews can be the final push that leads to a conversion and the best way to build trust with potential customers.
E-Commerce Expansion Process
Expanding your e-commerce store will obviously take a great deal of time and effort. But with a step-by-step approach, you can focus on each phase of your expansion individually before moving on to the next one. Here is a simple process for growing your store.
- Create a detailed marketing plan
- Automate where possible
- Provide excellent customer service
- Outsource your order fulfillment
- Improve your website experience
- Improve your marketplace and examine your inventory
- Use customer reviews to your advantage.
By following these steps, you can be well on your way to growing your online store and reaping all the rewards that come with it.