Just a couple of decades ago, the concept of having your own E-commerce store was considered fanciful, even a dream. How would it work? What would such a store provide? How will the store handle all of the sales, the purchases, and even the logistics of the goods? It was a pipe dream for some, and many at the time believed it to be just impossible. However, with the progression in technology and innovation, this has no longer been the case.

With so many E-Commerce stores sprouting up, brick-and-mortars would be left behind in the dust. However, it begs the question; if I were to open my E-commerce store, what would I need to do to ensure that potential customers are willing to go through my store? How do I set them apart from the rest?

Here are some ways which would certainly boost your rankings and give your competition a run for their money:

1. DYOR – Do your Research and Sell the Latest Products

By following the herd and offering the same products to the same class of customers, you will not be able to differentiate between yourself and the others. 

You have to find out what the customer wants! 

Do your research, find out what kinds of products have a higher selling potential, where you would be able to outsource them from, distinguish your products from theirs by offering the latest variants, and ensure that you are ahead of the curve by upgrading your industry research and discovering the latest trends. 

Do not forget to add as many product details as possible so that the users have a clear idea of what they will get.

One of our best strategies to capture and keep our audience’s attention is to highlight our newest products. For example, in our online store, we highlight new arrivals at the top, above the rest of the store. –  Matt Weidle, Business Development Manager at Buyer’s Guide; a website that helps people make smarter buying decisions

Doing this in an e-commerce store creates a sense of urgency in being the first thing a customer sees. Additionally, returning customers seeing any new product will see our continued momentum and may be excited to see what else we have to offer.

2. Breakout of the Traditional Mindset

It takes hardly a second nowadays for a potential customer to decide whether they should approach the website or move ahead to another one.

E-commerce stores nowadays need to be sharp, bright, and interactive, and there should always be something that sparks the interest of the consumer. If you are dealing with a B2B model, then the traditional model may work, but when you are targeting individual customers, every impression matters. 

Suggestions? Keep it quirky, keep it interesting, but do not stray too far from the current trends.

Like in any other situation, beauty attracts the eye, so to gain a customer, you must first start with basic principles of graphics and layout. As a founder, to increase traffic to our website, we used texture, movement, continuity, and consistency in the design, such as the texture, space, and styles. – Tanner Arnold, President & CEO at Revelation Machinery

Because of this, the design is uniform and much easier to read. The contrast provides an object or design with visible weight. 

To minimize cluttered design, you must examine and limit the use of many aspects such as color, style, and font so that it is readable and it is connected to your main theme. 

Another aspect is the unity and harmony of the elements when they are combined. The design’s elements must collaborate and agree on its meaning, topic, feeling, or atmosphere.

3. Advertisement Placement is Crucial

So, you find a product that you like. Great! 

But, when you click on the link, you are transported to, you guessed it, yet another advert offering products you do not need.

What is the point? Are you interested in earning just from the ad revenue or from the actual products you are offering?

Make sure your e-commerce store is set up so that customers can buy without being bombarded with advertisements.

Secondly, try to obtain ads that are relevant to you and your customers! What is the point in offering the customer a pair of shoes when they are looking for the best restaurants to eat at?

4. Improve the Site Navigation

Keeping the previous point in mind, always pay attention to how easy it is for you i.e., your customers, to navigate throughout the site. 

It is extremely easy to run checks, and the easier it is for your customer to move through from point A to point B, the greater their customer satisfaction. 

Customer satisfaction is king, and this is one metric that would determine your long-term profitability. In short, do not let the customer scroll through the entire website for the information they need; let the information and its access come directly to them.

Whether it is through a search bar that runs algorithms to predict what the customer needs, or logging in with previous information using cookies to recover past purchases to suggest newer ones, it helps them navigate the site with ease.

Audiences stay longer when the landing pages are crisp and provide easy navigation. Make sure that your landing page describes what you offer.

People don’t solely use computers, because there are so many different gadgets to stay in the loop 24/7. To increase the number of customers of the specific platform, adaptive design should be considered. That’s how one will manage to make a site available to a wider audience. – Veronica Miller, Digital Marketing & Growth Director at VPNoverview

5. Establish a Brand Unique to You

Your online presence is extremely important in gaining traffic.

What is online presence, you ask?

Your message and the values that you portray to the rest of the customers and all those who visit the site. There can be many ways through which a brand can be built; including engaging graphic designs, smart advertisements, building a strong following on social media, and quality customer service, even though building a logo reflects a critical part of the identity.

Most importantly, it is the consistency through which the customer will remain engaged and, over time, will remember the name and the brand’s message whenever they think of a particular product or service. Create a positive space within their hearts, and they will remember you for a long time.

If you want to offer your customers an enhanced experience while they visit your eCommerce store, ensure your online store is designed with an attractive template. Adding enriching color schemes can grab the visitors’ attention and compel them to opt for buying products. – Jay Ehrenfeld, Chief Marketing Officer at EZContacts 

6. Associate your Band with Philanthropy

Many customers find the products they like, fill up their e-shopping carts, and leave them as they are for a later purchase.

At times they even forget they had even filled them up in the first place, and this can lead to a potential sale that was lost. So why not add a philanthropic angle into the mix? There are many e-commerce sites and stores that are connected with welfare organizations and NGOs, but they do not portray this on their sites. 

Well, they should! By doing so and encouraging the customer to purchase the product so that it can be connected to their philanthropic action of the day, customers will always be more likely to purchase from you than from another organization with a similar product.

7. Automation is your Best Friend

There is a lot of software that can be integrated with your E-Commerce platform to connect with the customer even when they are not active on your platform.

Some of the automation software are as follows:

• Customer Relationship Management tools such as HubSpot power your customer support, sales, and marketing with easy-to-use features like live chat, meeting scheduling, and email tracking.
• Automation Tools to trigger the workflows, which will help with communication with the customers.
• Use email marketing automation tools to trigger emails to your customers.
• There are plenty of invoicing and accounting tools available as well, for managing the store’s numbers and sales.
• Tracking and rewarding your customers will increase their retention rates by offering them points based on their level of activity on your portal and store. Adding a gift and or even free delivery can help to engage the customer for the future even further.

To help them decide better, we make the whole shopping experience easier. We provide them with the specifications of every product and color availability, so they can picture out which product will suit them and not be disappointed with their orders. – Ellie Shippey, Digital Marketing Specialist at Lumina, an e-commerce store and leading innovative equipment, cosmetics storage, and lighting seller

8. Feedback, Feedback, and Feedback

There are multiple points throughout the entire process where the customer can be prompted to give some sort of feedback to you. 

From the time the goods are in the cart, to the actual point where the customer purchases the goods, to when they can receive them, and after the delivery, the post-usage experience.

Engaging the customer at various points, allows the store to generate data throughout this time. For example, to encourage reviews, you can set up the automated mail flows after a certain period, where honest feedback and links can help guide them to where they would be able to post their reviews.

The importance of client reviews cannot be overemphasized.

Consider that almost 88% of buyers use reviews to make purchasing decisions and will not purchase a product if it lacks positive ratings. Potential clients want the same excellent outcomes that past satisfied customers have had.

9. Target with Product Recommendations

The product recommendations are an extremely useful addition to any e-commerce store. 

If you are going to be a first-time visitor to a website, the use of cookies would start collecting data from your movements throughout the pages and screens. 

Initially, it would use the data from other customers and provide “Best Sellers” from the store to gauge what kind of interest you show.

By creating an account, the homepage would start building personalized advice based on previous visits. This can be extremely useful in finding out what the current trends are and what kinds of products are coming into and moving out of fashion. 

By optimizing the marketing strategies, the right kinds of products will always be recommended to recurring customers.

We recommend experimenting with different product recommendation tactics on various pages to find which ones are the most engaging for your target audience. You might find that sharing your best-selling things on the homepage isn’t getting you the conversions you want, and that recommending recently seen items or a personalized selection of products based on past browsing habits gets you more conversions. – Luke Lee, Founder of PalaLeather 

10. Multiple Payment Methods

With so many payment alternatives available today, keeping track of all the ways customers can meet their payment responsibilities to online businesses can be tough. 

Some of the most popular (and up-and-coming) options for shoppers to pay for goods and services online include:

• Most common methods of payment, including debit and credit cards (like Visa, MasterCard, and Discover)
• Buy Now, Pay Later Options (like Instalments and PayPal Credit)
• Cryptocurrencies (like Bitcoin, Litecoin, Ethereum, and Solana)
• Digital Wallets (like Venmo, PayPal, and Apple Pay)

Many online business owners believe that selecting a single payment gateway or payment provider is all they need to do to get their e-commerce store up and running. 

E-commerce success, in my opinion, requires a variety of payment choices. For starters, it helps to broaden geographical reach, which leads to a better client experience. Customers would not be left out if one of their payment options failed. It enables the buyer to explore many options and select the easiest payment option. Multiple payment methods, in my opinion, provide for a more pleasant experience and boost online sales. – Kenny Kline, President & Financial Lead at BarBend

Summary

This list is by no means exhaustive. 

There are more ways than you can imagine through which a new or existing e-commerce store would be able to build and grow beyond its comfort zone and move ahead of the curve in gaining and retaining new and old customers. 

The time to create your own space in the e-commerce industry is now. 

With constantly evolving strategies and techniques, these points will be extremely crucial in taking your store to the next level.

So, what are you waiting for? 

Time waits for no one, and neither should you! 

Go ahead and build your new empire by following these techniques for growing your e-commerce stores and taking them to greater heights!

This is a guest post by Kruti Shah 

Kruti Shah is a content writer and marketer at The Marketing Drama. She loves to write about insights into current trends in Technology, Business, and Marketing. In her free time, she loves baking and watching Netflix. You can connect with her on LinkedIn.

The post 10 Eye-catching Ways to Gain Attention to Your E-commerce Store appeared first on Lateshipment.com Blog.

How The Pandemic Affected Retail & Delivery

In the present circumstances (due to the pandemic, of course) trends around the retail and delivery landscape has gone through massive changes across the globe.

Physical stores have shut down, there have been disruptions throughout the supply chain, and businesses are left to deal with this mess.

On the other hand, the pandemic has also brought a paradigm shift in the way of eCommerce around the world.

eCommerce retail sales have increased in the 1st quarter of 2021 following last year and don’t seem to be slowing down anytime soon. 

These trends have turned out to be so effective even in a restored normal version of the planet (if there ever was such a thing). Therefore, business owners can expect them to be followed in a post-pandemic world as well.

Retail & Delivery Trends That Are Here to Stay

The how and where of retail shopping is changing at breakneck speed. 

Shopping behavior has changed so rapidly that a huge number of companies are caught unaware. 

Trends that have been in their forecast materialized throughout the decade have accelerated beyond recognition. 

Let’s look at such trends that are here to stay in detail.

Online Shopping

Online sales are not an alternative, but a need for brick-and-mortar businesses. 

While people have been buying from online stores for a long time – on the customer side, the pandemic is responsible for a massive spike in the need for eCommerce, which is here to stay for decades to come. 

Several brand new platforms gained importance in emerging markets by developing business models and also assisting the general landscape to be much more competitive by nature. 

And also the pandemic may open possibilities for second-generation “niche” eCommerce sites that work in certain industry segments which are usually excluded from large eCommerce platforms. 

For instance, baskets of various vegetables and fruits are now in demand as customers look for businesses that can deliver fresh produce to their doorstep. 

Livestream Selling

Using video to boost sales is a tried and evaluated technique for brands and retailers.

The application of footage to push sales started with TV shopping channels like HSN and QVC, which showed items in a live broadcast. This method also invited audience participants to gain the product and put an order.

The pandemic and social distancing norms have now given customers a new way to discover and purchase goods from the comfort of their own homes without risking their safety. 

Last November, reality star Kim Kardashian appeared on a live marketing stream and sold 15,000 bottles of perfume within minutes.

While major social media platforms such as Instagram, Twitter, and Facebook rolled out live marketing opportunities in May 2020, YouTube is preparing to come out with very similar features.

One particular thing is clear, lots of businesses are gearing up for the development of live selling.

Subscription-based Services

Instead of a one-time purchase of an item, a buyer subscribes to access a product or service over a length of time. This may be a subscription to services like Amazon and Netflix or a subscription to makeup brands.

The upside for the buyer may be the comfort of automatic payments and regular delivery, and also personalization. To the company, it implies a much better prediction of revenues, reliable customer data, and much better customer engagement.

The subscription-based model is theoretically meant to be great for the world, as we change from an ownership design to a sharing-based one, maximizing reducing waste and also resource efficiency.

Virtual Experiences

With the pandemic, any outside house tasks are temporarily closed, which leads to people searching for secure ways to continue their hobbies. Thus rose the popularity of virtual experiences through conferencing companies. 

One business that exploded during the pandemic was Zoom where it held online classes, company meetings, yoga, and cooking classes. 

And as people got creative, virtual experiences included live concerts, museum trips, and theme park visits. 

Brands can tie up with these events or influencers and promote their product in relevant spaces. 

For example, as a sports company, you can can sponsor a yoga retreat and market their goods to the attendants. There is a good chance that attendants who are trying something new will be intrigued and try out your products.

Same-day Delivery

The pandemic disrupted our way of accessing goods and with government-mandated lockdowns, the usual shopping patterns stopped abruptly with a sudden halt. 

Many businesses have switched to altered activities as consumers looked to home delivery as a solution. 

As the lockdowns extend further, consumers are now shopping more and more online, leading to further competition among major online retailers. This has further led to the popularity of same-day delivery services becoming a rising trend. 

Customers too, looking for convenience in their order delivery, would decide to opt for brands that offer same-day delivery.

Curbside Pickup

Unlike us, who mostly work at home and feel safe, individuals who work in delivery services remain open and at risk. In the case of constant deliveries at multiple locations, there’s a chance of them getting infected. 

Fortunately, curbside pickup enables the safety of both customers and employees. Curbside 

Pickup lets consumers shop online and choose an available time slot where they can pick up their order with no face-to-face interaction with other individuals. 

While this may look like an ideal way of shopping without risking safety, it can be a challenge for small retailers and even bigger businesses who never considered curbside pickup. 

What complicates this is having a designated pickup area followed by the requirement to confirm which customer is picking up the order and ensuring the payment process is legitimate. 

In the coming days, and maybe even after that, contactless and safe queuing is the deciding factor in client retention.

The Post Pandemic Retail & Delivery Landscape

With the current situation, we’ll see a continuous rise of electronic payments and the use of digital wallets allowing consumers to make safe and instant transactions. 

The uncertainty of financial solutions such as secured electronic payments can be a vital risk for businesses, especially eCommerce platforms. With the segment evolving rapidly, it’s essential to have a coherent framework to use. 

With the aforementioned trends likely to remain for a while until we all feel comfortable to step out, businesses can likely follow them to not get FOMO. 

Even if you feel you are an SMB who cannot implement it all at once, you can look to test out some of the trends by implementing them one by one.

This is a guest post by Anna Carter

The post Retail & Delivery Trends That Are Likely to Remain Post-pandemic appeared first on Lateshipment.com Blog.

To stay afloat, you need to give consumers strong reasons to visit your online store and shop. Enhancements are in order. And we suggest you start with a steady focus on enhancing shopper experience with experiential retail.

Hello, shopper! How may I help you?

The most important part of making a sale is not really hearing the cling-clang in your till. It is about forging a good relationship with the customer for a long time. Acquiring a customer takes time, effort and money.

If you observe closely, a brick and mortar store that’s been doing well for years together does one thing that you need to incorporate in your online business model. And that’s assigning an associate from being a sales person to being a consultant, expert, or friend. And when it’s online, it’s easier. All you do is create personas and invest in chat bots. When a customer is looking for a product, say a smart TV and he has questions about it, he would be delighted to find a chat bot appear on the site, ready and equipped to answer questions like, ‘what is the difference between an OLED and an LED’? or ‘should I opt for a chrome cast/fire stick than a smart TV?’

With a chat bot, you need a lot less training and you can intervene when questions need human answers than auto generated answers. The data that customers generate via chat conversations can also help you study their behavior better.

Present merchandise enticingly

Online presentation is a different ball game altogether. While there is no headache of making use of available retail store space, there is the worry of presenting all the wares your site offers in an interesting manner.

First things, first: work on getting classifications and site layout right. If a customer is looking for a smart OLED 55 inch TV in red, available for delivery in 2 days, you need to have the right set of filters that will display the product with minimal searching.

Next, photographs are passé. Customers decide on their buys with videos now. If you sell a container for the kitchen, add a video that demonstrates its use. Or go a step further and create a Virtual Reality app which would show customers how that product will look on their counter top!

Another way to go about this would be to go the extra mile. Just like Canada Goose did recently. The retailer set up ice rooms inside a few of its stores where people could try out Canada Goose jackets in the temperatures they were created to withstand. Yep, there were temperatures fixed till Arctic level freezing. Not only did this create great excitement, even people who had no inclination of buying the expensive jackets visited the store to experience the cold room.

Needless to say, several people who just came in for the experience ended up buying a jacket as well. The idea worked really well for the brand both with creating a brand image and a brand differentiator (not that you can mix up the brand with others anyway).

Synchronize physical and digital stores

If you have an online store in tandem with your physical store, work on synchronizing them. Modern consumers are aware of multiple channels, platforms and devices. What you offer in one format needs to match with the other. Let’s say you are a 30 year old brand who’s now going digital, along with your physical store/s. A customer who’s been loyal to your brand for a while now wants to shift to the online model for his convenience. And he is going to be unhappy if his preferred customization is unavailable in the online format. It could be as simple as offering extra sprinkles on an unusual coupling of ice cream flavors. Don’t end up losing a customer over this!

Enable click-and-collect options

The customer chooses a product online, pays for it and wants to collect it at the store. Make this service seamless. He is actually helping you out by offering to collect it himself, eliminating your shipping cost and effort. Moreover, you get the online customer visit the physical store. And who knows, he might buy more there as well. So, help him out. It is a shame if the customer pays for a product beforehand, comes to the store and finds a huge queue. It’s worst ever customer experience if he arrives only to find that the product is unavailable at that outlet and there’s been an inventory mismatch.

Source: uniqlo.com

Have a centralized retail solution portal that lets you manage inventory orders, sales, and customers from a single system. There is no room for error here. If you follow separate systems for your physical and online stores, work on integrating them.

Many stores face the problem of catering to both traditional and click and collect customers at the same time in physical stores. Ensure that the items a customer wishes to pick up are in stock and available at their preferred store. Using an efficient inventory management system can help with this.

For information on the best inventory management tools available, you can read here.

Moreover, let shoppers browse your online shop in your physical store. This works like a charm if you have multiple stores and not all stores offer everything. For example, supermarket chains have express stores in convenient locations where you can step in to buy that carton of milk. And then, there are bigger stores where you get everything, from table salt to life insurance.  Letting people browse your ecommerce site in-store lets them see products or variants that you don’t have in store. And if they like something online, you don’t lose the order as they can place it then and there.

Build a community

The basic fabric of society is much needed even in online stores. Physical stores where were people met, relationships were forged and conversations happened. For example, someone holding a book by a certain author in a book store probably found his intellectual companion and they struck conversation over that book, then and there.

If you retail camping gear, you can look at offering camping ideas that integrate the camping community. Or, if you sell books, you can probably have book talks and reviews where people assemble and talk about the book. This can happen in a physical place or in a virtual chat room or video commune. People will find extra motivation to associate themselves with your brand. The idea is to integrate your shoppers in a community and be associated with them for a long, long time.

Take the Museum of Ice cream for instance. The concept has been created in such a manner that visitors are immersed in a wholesome retail experience from the moment they set foot onto the premises. The fact that all the stores are different also works in the retailer’s favor, as visitors look forward to the new additions or modifications every new location has to offer.

The founders of the Museum have focused more on using tech to support what their physical store has to offer instead of hinging solely on technology to create an experiential retail environment like several other high end stores have been doing. Be it AR, AI or mini robots moving around, they only complement the work of the staff in store.

Oh yeah, that’s a pool. But a sprinkle pool! With candy floats!

Things like this have ensured that a community of followers has been created for the retailer – a community of people who share their experiences on social media, through word of mouth, et al. The more people who are talking of your brand, the better! 

The real challenge in offering an experiential retail environment is to create an ambience that not only stays with the customer long after he/she leaves the store, but to create one that pushes them to share the experience with others!

The post 5 Ways To Enhance Shopper Experience With Experiential Retail appeared first on Lateshipment.com Blog.

Although a considerable number of retailers have adopted an omnichannel strategy to combine the best of both worlds, there are still those who rely solely on their brick and mortar stores.

The question is, who will win this retail war?

It is essential to consider the pros of both options before settling on an answer. Online shopping does hold an edge over in-store experiences in terms of drop dead discounts, ease of access, customized/personalized suggestions and the sheer number of options available.

What brick and mortar stores hold to their advantage is that tangible connection with the product, a sense of discovery on finding the perfect purchase, and the euphoria that arises from having obtained instant gratification. But, ecommerce sales today have soared putting several physical stores out of business because of the variety and ease they bring to the table; no long queues at checkout, no hunting for jeans your size from a huge rack, more within the budget because of the discounts involved. Studies by statista show that worldwide retail ecommerce sales is set to scale around 4.88 trillion USD!

Despite their edge over brick and mortar stores, online retailers have not yet risen to their full potential owing to one serious drawback- that slight discernible lag between ordering a product and receiving it. Make no mistake, that is being ruthlessly overcome by industry giants like Amazon with the introduction of one day and two-day shipping for free. Thousands of retailers are yet to catch up, thereby suffering crippling losses due to increasing shipping costs.

This can be easily overcome by increasing the last mile delivery efficiency and optimizing your shipping strategy. Making the shipping process fully transparent to customers is another factor that will aid in increased customer retention and loyalty. Negotiating the best deals with your shipping carrier will also enable your business to offer better shipping options to customers based on their needs.

The ongoing competition between Walmart and Amazon goes to prove how both online and offline presence is necessary for the overall growth of a business.

Walmart has expanded its online business and increased sales over 60%, while Amazon has steadily entered the brick and mortar game by acquiring Whole Foods and establishing Amazon books (which is unlike any other bookstore).

Considering the essence of online and offline retail, the best idea to succeed in this highly competitive industry would be to adopt an omnichannel strategy that uses both to the best of their advantage.

An interesting example of an effective omnichannel strategy is Nike’s new idea to create customized shoes in store in less than 90 minutes. Though they do offer customizations online as well, the product would take a month to reach the customer that way. This new strategy would not only bring in more customers to their physical stores but also enable customers to connect with other new launches they might want to try.

Imagine an experience where customers get the tangible feeling of shopping in store, combined with the ease and affordability of shopping online. If done right, that is exactly what an omnichannel approach can bring your business.

To win the retail war, or rather battle, your business needs the combined powers of traditional and online retail strategies. Here’s to the anticipated winner, omnichannel!

Related:

5 must have website features to run a successful ecommerce store

Why should your retail business automate shipping invoice audit process?

5 strategies to help ecommerce stores engage with customers post purchase

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