5 Ways To Boost Your E-commerce: Creating New Retail Opportunities

Ever since 2020, as the rest of the world came to a halt, online businesses have managed to do anything but. With everyone stuck inside, e-commerce skyrocketed into success and experienced major growth as more and more people had to rely on Google shopping. With so many new opportunities at our fingertips, seizing the chance for growth can feel exciting but also daunting. We’re here to offer advice, helping you to feel less intimidated by the many paths that have suddenly become available to you. Here are 5 ways you can create new retail opportunities and boost your e-commerce without feeling overwhelmed.

Tip Number 1: Rank Higher With Google

The most surefire way to generate traffic, create new retail opportunities, and boost your e-commerce is by recruiting Google to help you out. If you want to get noticed on Google Shopping, the most effective way to do this is by using their shopping ads. You can get your name placed right among the top results that pop up when people search for businesses like yours, and you’ll see more interest in your business because of it. These shopping ads are simple to set up, cost-effective, and are an effective way to link customers directly to your products.

Not only is the quantity of your traffic bound to increase, but the quality of traffic will improve too. When it comes to using and understanding Google’s algorithm to generate results, who better to ask for help than Google itself? When you partner up with them and utilise their shopping ads, you’re giving yourself an advantage by letting them do some of the work for you. They’ll determine what search results best match up to your product, they’ll display more information than what’s available in regular ads, and they’ll make the whole process easier for shoppers. In doing so, they’re setting you up to succeed. However, it’s important to see this as a team operation. Once your Google Shopping Ads have gathered all the quality traffic they can, the rest is up to you.

Tip Number 2: Build Brand Awareness

The next step in boosting your e-commerce is to let people know that you’re out there! Let people know who you are and what you do by making sure your business is memorable. The most successful businesses are the ones that have had a solid brand identity for decades. So once you’ve established your brand, stick to it! Make sure that your business’ name, logo, colour palette and overall branding is consistent across every single platform it’s on. Deviating from it will only cause confusion, deterring people from engaging with your online presence. If you can create a recognisable logo, an easy to remember brand name, and a product or service that stands out as uniquely yours, then you’re well on your way to building your brand awareness. 

Once you have your logo and name, the next step is to sell yourself. Get your brand out there, make it visible, and promote your business. If you have a great, stand out logo, why not build your brand awareness and increase your advertising by slapping that logo onto a bunch of different stuff? Print it onto a t-shirt, put it on a tote bag, or turn it into a car sticker so you can advertise your business everywhere you go. If your brand name is catchy and your logo piques curiosity, you never know how many customers you could attract. 

However, it’s also important to give these customers somewhere good to go when they do Google your business. You can create all the brand merchandise you like, and you can dish it out for free to your customers, but if new potential leads have nowhere good to go once they search up your business, your advertising campaign quickly becomes pointless. So, how do you make the most of your sparkling new brand identity? The answer is simple, and brings us perfectly into our next point…

Tip Number 3: Improve Your Customers’ Online Experience

How many people are finding your site Google Shopping, only to discover you haven’t created a clear, simple customer experience? Confusing websites, messy social media grids, slow speeds, and a lack of mobile-friendliness can make you rank lower and leave people exiting your webpage as quickly as they clicked onto it. Luckily, you can easily improve these things to show people that your business is worth their time. 

Take a look at your website. Does it load quickly? Is it mobile friendly? Is the site user friendly and easy to navigate? Slow, hard to find, confusing, and mobile incompatible websites can leave your site out of favour with Google. These factors can also drive away any traffic that reaches you. Your website should be easy to find and should resemble your brand and the exceptional products/services you offer. Optimise your website for Google Shopping by creating a positive online experience for customers. When you create a high-ranking, fast website that captures your branding and is user friendly on any device, you’ll allow your business to thrive. 

One of the biggest ways people are interacting with online businesses is through social media. That’s why it’s so important to ensure your social media presence online is top-notch. According to the Digital 2021 Report from Weare.social and Hootsuite, about 80.5% of Australians are active on social media, averaging about 1 hour 46 minutes a day on their platforms. According to the same report, social media is the second most popular way to research brands (the first being the beloved search engine), with over 1 in 3 users turning to social media to gather their information.

Knowing this, it’s pretty clear why it’s important for brands to have a good social media presence. Improve your customer’s online experience by engaging with them on social media. If they post photos with your products, thank them and repost them! Make sure your grid is pleasing to look at and interesting to scroll through. Offer promotions that encourage your customers to advertise and interact with your business. When you do this, you’ll be creating loyal customers who want to see you succeed. 

Tip Number 4: Get to Know Your Audience

It can be hard to know what people are looking for from your business without doing your market research. It’s important to genuinely believe in the products your e-commerce business has to offer, but it’s also important to research if other people are actually looking to buy your products. While conducting your research, consider the following:

• Who is your target audience?
• Is there a need for the products you’re selling?
• Is there a gap in the market you could easily fill?
• What sets your business apart from the other results consumers are going to see?

Once you’ve done your research, if you discover that your product is highly sought after but the market is oversaturated with options, don’t despair! There are a number of ways your business can stand out in a vast collection of sought after items. You could personalise your products by working directly with your customers to create something bespoke just for them. You could make sure your products are of the best quality, leading to excellent customer relations and five-star reviews. This would help you to maintain a trustworthy image, making your business people’s first choice when spending their money. 

Tip Number 5: Streamline Your Sales And Build Brand Loyalty

When it comes to online shopping, people love everything to be as straightforward as possible. They love clear, high-resolution photos, detailed yet succinct product descriptions, and easy website navigation. When building a clear and easy to use website, you’ll want to make sure that your customers can’t end up going down ten different rabbit holes and getting lost or distracted when they’re navigating your site. 

You can put endless effort into building your brand awareness, improving the customer experience, and getting to know your audience. However, if the stepping stones aren’t perfectly laid out, it won’t matter how much work you’ve done prior. If it doesn’t feel natural for potential customers to hop from A to B to C, all the way to the checkout page, then chances are they just won’t buy from you. So make everything as straightforward as possible, and turn that traffic into genuine leads and sales. To avoid losing sales, ask yourself the following:

• Are all of the web pages on your site necessary?
• Is everything set out in a clear way that makes products easy to find?
• Do you have links on your site that are diverting traffic away from your business?
• Do you have links in your product descriptions taking customers to other parts of your site and interrupting potential sales?
• Does the layout make sense, or is it so busy that you get a headache if you look at it for too long?
• Do customers have to trawl through unnecessary steps in order to buy from you?

Once your website is perfectly laid out and you’re making sales, it’s time to focus on customer retention. There are a couple of different methods to improve your brand loyalty. Firstly, you’ll want to make sure their initial buying experience is extremely positive. You can do this a few different ways, including:

• Keeping your communication open with thank you emails and shipping confirmation emails
• Ship products out as quickly as possible
• Make sure products are packed neatly and securely so nothing breaks or looks unprofessional upon arrival
• Use stand out, branded packaging to ship your products in
• Leave your customers impressed by making sure your products are of a noticeably high quality
• Include a thank you note or a free gift as an extra way of saying thank you

On top of positive buying experiences, there are other methods you can use to encourage customers back. There are “Remember Me” features on websites, welcome back discounts, rewards programs, email marketing, and social media competitions, to name a few. 

• “Remember Me” features: Add further ease to the buying process the second time around. Utilise technology to fill in a customer’s name, shipping, billing, and payment information, so next time your customers can buy with one click. 
• Welcome Back discounts and rewards programs: People love to feel like they are saving money, even as they’re spending it. Offer discounts for the second time a customer shops with you, and rewards such as “Spend More, Save More”. Customers are not only more likely to return, but they are also more likely to buy more from you. 
• Email marketing: Once you have obtained their email from their first sale with you, keep them in the loop by emailing them about offers, sales, and new products, tailoring their emails towards products you think they’d be interested in checking out. 
• Social media competitions: Get customers involved on your socials by encouraging them to post photos of their products. Then, pick a few participating customers to send discount codes to. This can double up as a great way to increase brand awareness and a great way to retain your customers. 

Make The Most Out Of Your Online Business With The Experts At SponsoredLinX

Now that you’ve got five tips to make you a wizard of e-commerce, why not stick around for more tips? Keep an eye on our blog or get in touch with a marketing expert today and help your business reach new heights. The team at SponsoredLinX is can help your business thrive with innovative Google Shopping strategies. Contact the SponsoredLinX team today to discover even more ways to make your business boom!

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