Selling online: the major challenge for e-commerce websites

E-commerce website: why you need a good strategy 

Obviously, whether you sell products or services on your e-commerce site, the turnover remains your first indicator of success.

You are probably looking to increase your online sales - and you should. The reasons are simple:

• You need to reach your break-even point, otherwise your project would not be viable
• You want to invest more to maximize your sales and revenue

So how do you know if your website is working well and if it is profitable for you?

First of all, you have to calculate all your operating costs:

• the creation of the sales site, the updates to be planned, the maintenance, the graphic design, the hosting, etc
• your products: their purchasing, their storage, the transport costs
• the salaries to be paid to run your store: customer service, editor, stock management
• all the tools necessary for the proper functioning of the business: payment and inventory management tools, marketing investments...
  

A profitable store is one that allows you to cover all the costs related to the activity, including your time spent on the project.

The difficulties of e-commerce sites

Today, it is quite possible to make a living from your online sales alone.

But you will have to find a way to deal with a harsh truth: you are not alone on the market ! Every day, new e-commerce sites appear on the internet trying to sell to your prospects and customers.

It can therefore be difficult to stand out from the crowd of ever-increasing competition.

Moreover, it is not enough to open a website and wait for sales... There are many things you need to do to make your store successful.

You can follow our advice below: from sales techniques to optimizing your store... These are our best tips to increase your online sales!

How to increase online sales in the long term: some tips

Create an ergonomic e-commerce site

Our first tip to boost your sales may seem banal and not necessarily relevant. Yet, you cannot do without it!

Your online store must be clear, ergonomic and functional. Today, faced with strong competition and a lot of high quality websites, it is no longer possible to have a website that looks amateur or is too slow to load.

In addition, the product pages must be very neat and show the most important information when searching for a product. It should answer these questions:

• How much are the shipping costs?
• When will I receive my order?
• Is the product available in my size?
  

Remember to optimize your site for use on cell phones because nowadays more than 50% of purchases are made on a mobile device.

Finally, think of classifying your products in categories that are meaningful and logical. The user should not have to guess where a certain item could be found in your online store.

💡  To make sure you create a site that meets all these requirements, you can use e-commerce website creation platforms. This is what Qart offers you with a simple and clean design for a successful user experience.

Take professional pictures of your products

On the Internet, visuals are the only clues we have to get experience a product. They must therefore be in good resolution and not blurred. They must show your products in their best light and from all angles if possible.

To do this, there is nothing better than to use the services of a photographer. The result will be much more professional. You can then use your visuals on social networks.

Also, try to take photos that are consistent with your graphic design, like logo and company colors, in order to create a real brand universe of your own.

In order not to weigh down your site, ask your photographer to compress your photos so that they are not too heavy. This is indeed a criterion that can slow down the loading speed of your website.

Take care of the text of your website!

In the same way that the images of the site are here to help your customers to picture themselves with the product, the description of the product must also be very detailed to make the shopping experience as transparent as possible!

Write your product descriptions with the intention of making your customers want to buy them. You can be creative: give concrete ideas for using your products, use humor and be very precise. 

Product descriptions also play a major role in selling your products because they allow you to include valuable keywords that your prospects are likely to type on the web. Thus, you can write your product sheets thinking about your natural referencing.

Similarly, you can complete a description with a product demonstration video! You can then integrate your style into the video: a little humor, enthusiasm, fun ... Do not hesitate to show your products in all positions with a quality video!

Offer complementary products at the time of purchase

When you buy a product in a store, this is often very well done... You want to buy some paint brushes and right next to them, of course, you find a nice collection of paintings.

On the Internet, there are ways to recreate this experience.

You just have to propose similar or complementary products on your product page. You know, suggestions that would go perfectly with the product you are buying!

An example on Amazon:

This technique of proposing an additional product also works quite well at checkout. When the user clicks on "Add to cart" or "Checkout", a window opens to propose other complementary products.

You can thus propose complementary products or accessories (example: a watering can for a store that sells plants). 

This will increase the price of your customers' average basket and boost your sales.

Collect quality customer reviews

When you are looking to buy a product on the web, you will certainly like to know the opinion of those who have already bought it.

It is therefore interesting to collect customer reviews to reassure your prospects at each step of their purchasing journey on the site: on the product pages, on the shopping cart page or even when searching on search engines.

To encourage your customers to leave reviews, you can send an incentive email after receiving the product. It is possible to offer a promotional code to people who leave a review.

Revive abandoned carts and do retargeting

Another trick to increase your online sales is to practice what is called retargeting in marketing.

This means targeting people who have visited your site with ads on social networks or websites. 

On the social networks Facebook and Instagram, you can very easily target people who have already added one of your products in the cart without going to the payment.

Simply install the Facebook pixel on your site and select the "Add to cart" event. Your prospect will then be able to see the advertisement for your store while browsing on the social network.

If you have the email address of your visitors, it is also possible to send an email that indicates that the shopping cart is still available. 

You can complete this e-mail with additional elements that build up trust in your store: information about your delivery times, your customer service number or the warranty of your products.

Improve your natural referencing 

Your website traffic is a key metric to monitor, if you to grow your online business!

Without traffic, no visits: no customers!

You must therefore work on your natural referencing to improve the positioning of your website in the search engine results.

Different actions will allow you to improve the natural referencing (or SEO). For example: create relevant content that answers your users' queries with shopping guides or dedicated blog posts.

💡  Also read: Develop your business thanks to the internet: our tips

Use social networks

Though social networks are not necessarily going to bring you new sales conversions, they are nevertheless worth integrating into your digital strategy.

Indeed, your prospects and customers are certainly present on social networks! Instagram, Tik Tok, Facebook, Pinterest... It's up to you to integrate these tools into your strategy to make your products and services visible on the internet.

Thanks to social networks, you can highlight your products and communicate the essence of your brand: your values, the way you work, your ambition. 

It is also possible to make your brand stand out online by collaborating with influencers in your sector of activity. You can offer a promotional code that they can share with their community to attract new customers and increase your sales.

Regularly review your competitors' strategies

To stay competitive and to continue to stand out, don't hesitate to regularly monitor what your competitors are doing.

This will allow you to keep an eye on the products they are releasing and how they are promoted.

The idea is not to copy, no! But of course to compare with what you are doing today: what are your advantages? What makes your products unique (prices, materials, origin of the products, delivery times, etc.)

Finally, don't hesitate to put forward your assets and your uniqueness in your digital communication!

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Increase sales by building customer loyalty from the start

If the products you offer are of good quality and offer satisfaction to your customers, then they might want to order from your store again. Or simply recommend you to their friends and family!

Building customer loyalty is a good way to increase sales. To do this, you can consider setting up a newsletter that informs your customers about new products and promotions.

Similarly, it is possible to create a loyalty account to reward your best customers.

Finally, you can offer gifts or promotional codes to your regular customers at key moments of the year: Father's Day, Mother's Day, birthdays, black friday.

Have an efficient customer service

On the Internet, the only contact your customers will have with you is your contact page!

So make sure your contact information is available: on the product pages, on your home page and contact page... Your number or your e-mail must be easily identifiable.

This is already a good start to make your prospects feel secure on your website. They know they can contact you easily. If they are unsure about a product, your customer service can be a useful to answer any questions and guide the prospects to buy the product.

Moreover, if there is a problem with an order, your customer service must participate in creating a relationship of trust with your customers.

Keep an eye on the statistics

To increase the online sales of your store, don't forget to analyze the available data.

Thanks to the web, you actually have a lot of useful metrics at your disposal! 

Here are some data points to keep an eye on:

• Which products are purchased the most?
• Which category of the site has the best conversion rate?
• At what point do your prospects abandon the buying process?
• Which sales pages are the most visited? Or on the contrary the least?
  

These are all questions that allow you to draw conclusions about your website and the buying process. You can then adapt your layout or create promotions to highlight the products that work best. 

Also, if you can engage a group of brand ambassadors, it would be useful to get their feedback on potential future products!

Make promotional offers on shipping or promotional deals

If you need to increase the average shopping cart of your customers, one solution is to make special offers!

They can take many forms:

• Make shipping free when the basket price exceeds a certain amount: this encourages customers to order enough to get free shipping
• A temporary promotion on a product or a product category
  

The trick is to find the right mix so that your customers get a good deal and you don't sell at a loss!

When you launch a promotion of this kind, you can post it on social networks, on your website or via a newsletter. 

Display your terms and conditions of sale

The last point of this list is a legal obligation that some online merchants do not respect. Don't make this mistake!

The terms and conditions of sale must be easily accessible: at the bottom of the page, like the legal notices.

You must indicate important details about delivery, how to return a product or refund conditions.

Note that many Internet users hesitate to buy a product online because they are afraid of not being able to return it in case of a problem. Therefore, think about communicating your return conditions on the product page! Especially if you have set up a free return policy with no conditions.

Do you want to get started or learn more? Contact our team!