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5 Tips for Jumpstarting Sales of Your New Online Store

If you’ve decided to go into the ecommerce business, you’ve chosen the right path. With 20% of all retail sales set to be made online by 2021, there’s plenty of business in the online world.

While the growing popularity and use of ecommerce is great news for you, that also means there’s going to be plenty of competition for customer attention. How do you attract people to your website to start making sales?

First, you have to make it easy on them. You want an easy to remember domain name that people can recall and share easily. No complicating numbers, words, or symbols. Sometimes simple is better.

But a great domain name isn’t going to jumpstart your sales, you need to take action in other areas. Below are five crucial tips to help you stand out from the competition and bring in the sales.

Social Media

It’s time to get social! Social media is an inexpensive, effective way to advertise and track customer progress. Creating a page is free, which immediately gives you a way to post content, share updates, interact with consumers, partner with influencers, and more. You’ll need to think about which platform you’ll be putting more effort into.

This largely depends on your target audience. The boomer generation is more likely to be on Facebook while 18-34 year old women are more likely to be on Pinterest. Teens and twenty-somethings are more likely to be on Snapchat.

If you want to turn to paid advertisements, don’t worry about breaking the bank as social media advertising tends to be much cheaper than traditional routes.

Proper Branding

When most people hear the word “brand”, their mind instantly goes to the logo and slogan. They’re not wrong, per se, a logo and slogan are effective parts of a brand. When you think of McDonald’s, the golden arches and phrase “I’m lovin’ it” immediately come to mind.

But a brand is much more than a logo and slogan, it’s about how you present yourself as a company. Proper branding starts at home, adhering to the classic “practice what you preach” cliche. From there, it stems out to everything: signage, on and offline advertising, content publication, and customer service.

The most important idea of a brand is that it’s consistent. Consumers like consistency and want to know what they’re getting from a business. Don’t fret about not coming up with a proper brand in a Tuesday staff meeting, proper branding takes months to hammer out. Just have a goal and be consistent with your efforts.

Look Professional

Even if you have the greatest products or the best services in the world, no one is going to stay on your homepage long if it looks sloppy. In the ecommerce world, you can’t show up looking sharp and dazzle customers with the perfect smile and crisp handshake.

You should have professional looking photos, an organized layout, easy navigation, quick loading times and more. Remember your target audience, and make a website that will appeal to them.

If you’re receiving feedback, remember to implement it into your website. Customers like their opinions to be heard and taken into consideration.

Promotions

Everyone loves discounted items or receiving something for free, right? Give that experience to your customers as well through early discounts and promotions. Of course saving a few dollars on an order is a reason to buy, but it also gives customers satisfaction that they’re saving money or getting something for free.

The easiest step to take is to offer free shipping. There was an old joke awhile back that looked like this:

Price: $34+$6 shipping

$6 shipping? No way! That’s too expensive.

Price: $40+ free shipping.

Free shipping? Sign me up!

The word “free” elicits a positive response from just about anyone, meaning it’s a way to draw your customers in early.

It should be said that you shouldn’t rely exclusively on promos. Promos are always temporary, and constantly offering promos is a way to make your business look like a temporary fix instead of a long-term solution.

Great Customer Service

While customer service is connected to your branding, you should be sure to put plenty of effort into providing top-notch service. With e-commerce, this mean investing in push notifications, chatbots, and a customer service team.

Don’t feel like you have to have a warehouse full of people with headsets, waiting to resolve any problems. More and more millennials prefer to speak with chatbots, which could save you time, money, and resources.

Providing great customer service all comes down to being responsive. Even though an issue may not be resolved instantly, many customers just want to feel like they’re being listened to and their opinion matters. Be sure to follow up with personal emails after they receive the email confirmation receipt.

Great customer service is going to help your reviews and testimonials, bringing in more customers from around the web.

Written by Social Buddy

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