Industry-wide, average cart abandonment rates are as high as 68%. As a new eCommerce store in the market, you will need to employ various strategies to reduce this rate as much as possible.
You want to acquire new customers to your small business’s retail website and inspire them to actually spend on your products. High abandoned cart rates are, mind you, only one indicator of a new e-commerce shop in need of optimization.
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Here are a few tips that will come in handy as you launch your store and target to win more conversations.
1. Don’t Skimp On Your Research
Do not start off by immediately buying a domain and building your site straight away. Before any of that, you need to do plenty of research. You need to know the market deeply before venturing into it. This part is often the most challenging. However, with the right approach, you can nail it.
The best way to start your eCommerce store in 2022 is to make sure you are set up for success before even launching it. Start by evaluating your idea. Take your time to do market research and ensure that your product has enough demand as it stands today.
You can find out if it will sell by conducting a competitive analysis. Exploring the current market will help you build confidence and mitigate risk in your idea before the launch. You can also use keyword tools to determine how often people search for the product you want to sell to ease the research part.
Do not be discouraged by competitors who have been in your product line for years. The fact that they still exist shows that the market is good enough to sustain their profits. You can even explore their weaknesses to beat them.
2. Get An Optimized Website
The next thing you’d want to do after conducting market research is to build your e-commerce site. Ensure that you optimize for the best user experience and SEO purposes.
The folks at Think with Google estimate that a negative user experience reduces the odds of a customer sourcing from your store again by 60%. On top of that, a slow website will also hurt your SERP rankings.
Before selecting an e-commerce website builder for your small business, make sure to compare the top features and pricing of each. BigCommerce has listed the pros and cons of the top eCommerce site builders to make it easier for you to select an e-commerce platform, depending on your business goals and your budget.
Site speed is affected by many factors, such as unoptimized images, scripts, too many server requests, slow hosting, buggy code, and so on. To avoid these, if you aren’t using a cloud-based platform, hire a competent developer with years of experience. Make sure your site is fast and has a good user experience. You can use tools such as Google Page Speed Insights to investigate your site performance.
Often, small business e-commerce projects prefer to go with cheap shared hosting for their store. This choice is fine. However, upgrading to a dedicated or VPS server as your store can handle more traffic. You can even subscribe to managed hosting for the best experience.
3. Offer A Loyalty Program
Incorporate a loyalty program into your e-commerce website. The program will increase your conversions and help you keep any customers you acquire in your new store.
You can create one that will reward your clients on their second purchase or after they spend a specified amount on your store. You can even create an affiliate program if need be.
Reward your loyal customers for referring clients to you through commissions, free deliveries, discounts, and so forth.
4. Invest Intelligently In Paid Ads
You should never promote your eCommerce website via paid ads too early. Remember that you are new in the market. Grow organically with the help of SEO for the first few months. Once you have steady and predictable traffic, you can focus on improving your conversions, building an email list, and running ads.
The odds are that you have probably heard about the power of Facebook ads. Please do not use them or any other social media platforms to obtain traffic in the first few months, either.
Instead, run Google search ads on relevant keywords. You will get more conversations through the search engine than through social media because, with search ads, you can target people by the intent of their searches.
5. Improve The Shopping Experience In Your Store
Continuously improving the shopping experience is also another way to boost your new eCommerce store sales. It would be best to make purchasing anything on your site easy and exciting to attract repeat purchases.
Reduce the steps new users have to go through before their purchase is successful. Make sure you only ask for relevant details on the signup page. The fewer steps your new clients have to go through, the more likely they will purchase the product.
Don’t forget to offer coupons and extreme discount offers to your new customers via email as part of post-purchase nurture flows. This act will also inspire people to buy from you again and become loyal customers.
Conclusion
Starting an eCommerce website is as challenging as it is exciting for small businesses. You will learn tons of things, such as choosing the best product to sell, figuring out its viability, and so forth. The process may feel like you are solving rocket science problems; however, it is rewarding when done correctly.
From improving your customers’ shopping experience to optimizing your website, there are several ways you can increase the odds of your new eCommerce picking up. Keep the above expert tips in mind as you venture into the e-commerce world.
