Top Seven E-Commerce Strategies
Stephanie Walden from Mashable explains that as customers increasingly turn to the internet and smartphones for purchasing decisions, economies are seeing brick and mortar evolve into “click and order,” and e-commerce becoming intertwined with m-commerce.
Here are her seven best practices for your e-commerce strategy:
- Create a user-oriented experience
Our sites must be easy to navigate, beautiful and describe our products and services with content, images, and even video in a way that enlightens and inspires our visitors to make the purchase. We need to see our site from their eyes. - Design a service that you’d want to use yourself
CEO of Trust Guard Dave Brandley created the renowned Rhino Support (live chat and customer support services) because of his frustrations with other providers. We’d all do well to create products and services that we would want to use. - Customer feedback is crucial
Getting feedback from our customers, say from a quality rating and review software like Shopper Approved, is important. But heeding our customers’ advice and listening to their needs is even more important. They’ll tell us want they want. It’s our job to pay attention. - Utilize – but don’t rely on – social media exclusively
Most people don’t go to their neighbors’ homes anymore or call them on the phone when they get a great deal or find a superior service. They talk about it through social channels. But we shouldn’t tweet something or write Facebook posts if we’re not willing to read the comments and reply to current and potential customers. Today’s marketing requires two-way communication, not a one-way bombardment of information. - Invest in mobile
Phones and digital devices like iPads and tablets are here to stay. Our websites need to be responsive, sure. But that’s only the first step. - Incentivize customers
To launch their product, a company called Everlane asked their friends and family to invite 50 people each and promised them free shipping for life. Not only did 600 people take them up on their offer, but others invited some and some invited more for a total of more than 600,000 sign-ups during the first five days of the launch. These are the type of activities we must be willing to do at launch and after. - Be ever-evolving
We need to meet on a weekly basis with our team to look at the analytics of the last week. We need to run A/B tests to find out what price, color, size, marketing ploy works best. We need to get out where the public is and talk with them about how they feel about what we’re trying to accomplish. And when we reach a desired plateau, let’s celebrate for a moment. Then let’s get back at it and set an even higher goal.
Running a business is hard enough – without all the online and mobile intricacies. My hope is that Stephanie’s seven strategies will help make it a little easier for you to focus on what really matters.
Read Stephanie’s full article here: http://mashable.com/2013/12/20/ecommerce-tips/#tD.xUrb.oEqZ
