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You may have read dozens of articles that talk about the advantages of e-commerce, and more in these times when finding new ways to sell is a priority. And it's not in vain, the figures speak for themselves: 93.5% of Internet users make online purchases today and online sales have shot up 129% as of March 15 this year.
However, we have known businesses that have invested time and resources to create their e-commerce and have made little or no profit. Is this your case? There are facts that few mention, and that is that 8 out of 10 e-commerce sites fail. And this can happen for various reasons, such as a very low investment in advertising, a weak conversion strategy or an insufficient management, customer service and delivery logistics infrastructure.
Are these reasons to rule out the idea of having an online store? No, on the contrary, they are a valuable opportunity to detect weaknesses and turn them into strengths. This is the perfect time to take action to boost your sales and increase your profits. Here are some tips you may want to consider.
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Keep it simple!
It is estimated that the number of online shopping cart abandonment is around 76%, i.e. out of every 100 users who fill their shopping cart, 76 of them do not proceed to checkout, according to OptinMonster. Imagine you walk into a sportswear store. You might just stop by to see what's in there and leave without buying for reasons such as prices being higher than you thought, you didn't like the quality of the products or you just wanted to look around.
However, there may be other store-specific factors that prevent you from making a purchase once you have selected a few things, such as a long line of people, poor service from staff or unclear information. The same can happen with your website if users have to follow many steps or it is not easy for your users to navigate. That is why it is important that you create a simple, easy to use store and above all, that the purchase process is clear and intuitive for users.
Invest in advertising
Yes and yes. Investing in advertising is a must if you want to accelerate results. Creating the virtual store at a functional and design level is simple, and is only the first step, or 20% of what is needed to achieve your sales goals. The other 80% has to do with location and advertising. You can't just pretend to open the online store and wait for people to arrive.
"Location, location, location." You may have heard this mantra when talking to a real estate agent. Simply put, it means that the rent for a commercial space varies greatly depending on its location... selling online has a similar behavior:
1-They consider that the shopping centers are now platforms like Amazon, Uber-eats, Rappi, Mercado Libre and all their homologous platforms. And why are we talking about this? Because we consider "selling online" as a whole, it is not just about opening a website that looks nice, with products and a shopping cart. Depending on where you place your products or services, the effectiveness of your sales will vary.
2-Now, you can have your online store and also sell on Amazon, be in Uber-Eats and the other platforms we already mentioned, however, if you do not invest in advertising you will not sell in any.
If you are thinking that organically it is also possible, you are right, you can generate content and SEO strategies, only this way, closing your first sale could take you from 6 months to a year. So we recommend you to implement any other strategy simultaneously, while accelerating sales with advertising.
However, don't just wait for your customers to come to you, taking action now is the key to generating sales results.
Have a solid infrastructure
If you've already decided to start your online business, you'll find plenty of platforms on which to build your e-commerce. Choosing the best option for you varies according to your objective. There are services from $1 a month to hundreds of dollars a month, and in this sense, you pay for what you get.
It is possible that if you hire a $1 service, the platform supports 1 or 2 visitors per hour, but if your goal is to manage tens or hundreds of people entering your store, these services will not be able to deploy your site at a functional speed and that will make your visitors get bored of waiting and leave. In fact, 75 % of the abandonment of an online store is due to a slow loading of the website.
In addition to having a service that can handle high volumes of visits, it is also important to incorporate a Content Delivery Networks (CDN) service so that your customers can download your content from the server closest to your location, which will improve download speed and have an exceptional shopping experience.
Practical guide to increase your conversion rate
and close more business.
Focus on turning
The figures for visits and conversions in an online store often vary from those in physical stores. In fact, the standard conversion in e-commerce is 2.86%. That is, for every 100 visitors your site has, they may only buy between 2 and 3 of them. That is why it is important that your investment brings a high volume of visitors.
Strategies such as retargeting can get 26% of your visitors to return to your website to complete their purchase process, according to Wishpond. Of course, as long as the message is correctly designed for each particular user and their specific interests (if they are interested in cosmetics, keep showing them cosmetics and other beauty products).
Monitor every step
No digital strategy can be successful without constantly measuring performance. That's why it's important to define KPI's, and to be analyzing them periodically.
You can evaluate basic aspects such as visitor demographics, gender, location, bounce rate and loading time of your store, conversion margin, among others, for which Google Analytics is the ideal tool.
However, there are other key metrics that you cannot ignore such as the interests of your visitors and their behavior on your website, for example, most clicked buttons or links and specific topics that they visit most and for that you need more advanced tools and expert advice to know what actions to take from that information.
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In addition, you can take advantage of session recording tools, heatmaps, click & scroll reports and others that will allow you to optimize your site and make it increasingly attractive to your users.
How many of these aspects are you already putting into practice? The set of all, will define the success of your e-commerce sales, so it is essential to have a marketing team to accompany you throughout this process, from advising on the use of the ideal platform for you, the implementation and design of the online store, the best location options, to advertising campaigns to attract your ideal buyers and turn them into customers and lovers of your brand.
If you want to start boosting your online sales right away, request a free 30-minute consultation with one of our consultants.