The manner in which ecommerce has developed rapidly in the last few years is astonishing. India has the 3rd largest Internet population now with over 300 million users, after US and china. And, an IAMAI report suggests that there will be 500 million internet users by 2017 in India. The growth opportunity which lies in the Internet sector is being banked upon by many, particularly in the form of ecommerce stores. But starting and driving profits from an ecommerce business is an extremely hard task which requires a full-fledged business plan. Identifying the weaknesses and overcoming challenges is a skill which comes only with time. If you are an ecommerce seller looking for solutions to your unanswered queries, here are the answers:
The Problem of Less Visitors
You have launched your website and now you are eagerly waiting for people to visit your site and take notice of it. But even after a month gone by, the count is really low. Either the people cannot find your website easily or they don’t even know that such a website which can simplify their life even exists! There are four solutions to such a problem i.e. SEO, Social media, paid advertising and word of mouth.
Search Engine optimization is what which will take your website to a new height and make it more noticeable. A well SEO optimized website can help increase sales and income by large multiples in the long run, once people know about your website. Ensure that you implement the best SEO strategies to optimize your ecommerce site.
Another method to increase the visibility is by the use of powerful social media. Brands these days are more social today than ever before and the wise ones are not pushy. You don’t want to bombard the feed of the users with your business posts almost every hour. Understand the mindset of your target audience and then come out with a plan which will benefit you in the long run. Come up with quirky and fun contests to attract customers in the initial period. Make your presence count!
Paid advertising is another means for bringing people to your website. There are various paid methods to increase traffic such as ads in Google search, PPC, Bing, Facebook, Twiter, Tumblr, Reddit, Email, Youtube, Instagram and many more. Google ad words are the costliest but also the most expensive. The more popular keywords are, the more is the cost associated with them. So make a plan in accordance with your budget and then proceed.
Lastly, do not underestimate the power of word of mouth marketing. It can work like a charm. Get people talking about your business and learn how to if you don’t.
The Problem of Low Conversion Rate
A low conversion rate means sales and revenue lost! It is one metric through which you measure the profitability of your business. If a customer is coming to your website, browsing through it and still not making a purchase, you need to determine the reasons behind it. When a customer leaves unsatisfied from your store, he/she will hop on to your competitor’s store, making it all the more worse for you.
The average conversion rate for ecommerce is around 2-3%. If it’s lower than that, you need to take some remedial steps to increase it. Find out the reasons underlying those problems.
Start to consider negative reviews and learn from them. Those negative reviews will provide you with information as to what customers don’t like or what they really did like. Take every little complaint seriously. While you can’t stop every unpleasant pleasant thing from happening, what you can put a stop to is your customer’s worries. Customer care services of online stores like Amazon, Flipkart, Snapdeal and CashKaro are beyond amazing! Ensure that your customer care team takes appropriate steps in any misfortunate case and makes the customer feel there’s someone to listen to their complaint and take remedial actions to correct it.
Another frustrating thing which customers find after hours of browsing on online shopping sites for an item exactly the want is finally finding it and coming to know that it is out of stock. That one customer might just become your regular customer. So do not miss this opportunity. Make sure that you inform him/her promptly when that product is back in stock.
Ensure that the product descriptions are more about customers and less about brands. Sure you need to tell about the brand too but don’t make the description too focused on that. Write in a manner which tells your customer how that particular product will benefit him/her.
Lastly, having a chat with your customer care team by a customer who has doubts should be an easy and quick process. Make yourself easily reachable and answers to all the missing information your customer requires.
The problem of shopping cart abandonment
Shopping cart abandonment is a huge problem and kills sales! It might even make you lose a new customer forever. Imagine yourself having found your favourite products on a website which fit into your budget too. You have added the products to your cart and are now proceeding with the payment. But suddenly you notice that the shipping charges are almost half of your bill. This won’t just annoy you but would also leave you feeling cheated. Don’t do that with your customer too!
Apart from that, you need to make sure that you have a robust security payment system and that your customer also feels the same way about it. Offer a range of payment methods from credit cards to cash on delivery, net banking to EMI and debit cards to wallets.
And, always avoid the registration part wherein a customer is required to register on a website to complete the payment. It is one of the biggest turn offs and makes a customer run from your website.
The problem of trust
One of the major issues in e-commerce is building of trust in your customer. Customers today are extremely smart and without making a purchase on a new website, they will analyze it closely from various aspects and read customer reviews too. This problem is more frequent with websites that are established recently and lesser with already established websites.
Build your website in such a way that clears all the doubts of a customer before he/she can even raise. Provide accurate product descriptions, list out your return and other policies clearly, make it easy for customer to contact you and make way for a secure payment gateway system. You can also get customers to post reviews of your website on authentic and renowned review sites like Trip advisor, Google reviews and more.