6 Ways to Gain Customer Loyalty in your E-Commerce Store

Expert marketers like to advise that it is by far cheaper to retain customers than to get new ones. If you run your own e-commerce store, once shoppers make a purchase, they become customers. Anyone who so makes a purchase therefore becomes a customer gained. It is at this time the business owner can now shift focus to providing direct value and establishing a mutually beneficial relationship with the customer. This is the time to use all customer retention techniques to have this customer coming over and over again to make purchases from your store. This is the stage when customer loyalty comes into the mix. This is the time the business owner must take deliberate steps to know the customer well enough together with his buying habits then deliver his own unique personalized value to communicate with and engage the customer. This is with a view to getting the customer to return for repeat purchases.

Following are effective strategies any smart business owner can use to position his e-commerce store well enough to gain customer loyalty.
 
1. Leverage Affiliate Marketing

Affiliate marketing is all about rewards and commissions earning. Affiliates help business owners to promote products and earn commissions on the sales they generate. Smart business owners always explore many viable options to reward their affiliates as well as customers. Some choose to incentivize and motivate their affiliates well enough to help sell more products. The activities of these affiliates directly help to grow brand awareness for the business, get customers for the business and help the business to sell more products all in return for commissions. New customers can even become affiliates by referring their friends, family and associates to the business to make purchases. If you reward them with monetary compensation in form of commissions of about 10% or more of the price of each purchase, that helps immensely to build customer loyalty for your business.

2. Promote What Makes You Unique

It is products that are great and unique to you that can help grow customer loyalty for your e-commerce store. These products can be unique in terms of quality, method of delivery and even prices. When your products stand out from the crowd, they inevitably attract repeat customers to your business. They help to build up the loyalty of these customers over time. If you take deliberate steps to ensure you promote only products that distinctly set your business apart from others, it can help encourage customers to buy directly from your business over and over again.

3. Offer Your Customers Repeat Purchase Options

If you want to build and elongate a good relationship with your customers, always offer them enticing repeat purchase options. Such enticement can include but not limited to bulk purchase discount, free and automatic shipping and so on. Once they get a unique value from your business that they do not normally get if they shop elsewhere, they’ll keep returning to your business for more purchases.

4. Extend Your Loyalty Program to Customers

If you don’t have a loyalty program for your customers, have one as a matter of priority if you want to cultivate customer loyalty. I guess you’ve heard about buy two and get one free? Come back for a repeat purchase and get 10% discount? These are some form of loyalty programs that help to get customers back to your business. You can also use reward points or a discount after customers spend a set amount of money directly in your store.

5. Deliberately Build Relationships from the Outset

Good business is all about building good relationships. Once a customer makes the first purchase from your store that is when you start to build a one-on-one relationship with the new customer. Encourage each customer who purchases a product for you to give you a feedback about his purchase experience and even the use of the product. Do not forget to first show appreciation though for the purchase that has been made from your store. Always thank customers profusely and demand to know from them how you can serve them better. Let them know the type of incentives they can benefit from when they return to make more purchases. Release discount codes to them for such purposes if you are using discount codes of your loyalty programs. If they are entitled to commissions when they introduce other parties to make purchases from your store, let them know. All these help immensely to build customer loyalty.

6. Always Encourage Your Customers to Help Share Your Brand Story

There is no business without a story behind it. If the story is unique to the business, that is much better. When your customers help to tell your unique story, it is not only credible, it spreads faster. Make your bragging rights known to your customers, how far your business has come, what it went through and how many obstacles it had to overcome to still be in business. These are the kind of stories people want to hear to relate them to their own stories. Your customers can directly share these stories with their family, friends, associates and even their social media audiences. If convenient, you can offer a token but valuable gift with a purchase or a discount off their next purchase directly from your store for widely sharing your story. Such offers can help bring customers back to your store to claim the gifts. That’s customer loyalty.

7. Highlight Values That Are Intrinsic To Your Business

Well, I have heard it said that everyone brags with something of unique value that is attributable to them. It holds true too even in business. So, if you have an in-house policy of using a given percentage of your sales to support noble causes around the world, let your customers know. You can specifically mention the causes you support with charitable and not-for-profit organizations like the Red Cross, Rotary International, World Wildlife Foundation, Amnesty International and so on to make our world a better place to live in. Consumers who care about these same causes may be influenced to buy from your store and to keep buying from the store in support of these causes.