5 Ways eCommerce Merchants Can Increase Authorization Success Rates

To make more sales, it is imperative for eCommerce merchants to improve authorization success rates and reduce transaction declines. The easy part in eCommerce business however is to build an eCommerce website and hosting it live. But, mastering the art of making your customers feel well-treated requires some measure of expertise. The most vital of this expertise is how best to optimize eCommerce payment solutions to enhance customer satisfaction. These here are a few key aspects of the business that any eCommerce merchant should always consider whenever they aim to improve authorization rates for their customers. 

1. Know Your Customer (KYC) 

Knowing exactly who your customer is goes way beyond just doing KYC. Granular customer profiling reduces friction and builds trust at checkout. If for instance you know the countries where people buy and the issuers behind their payment methods, you can tailor your requirements to reduce checkout friction, increase comfort, and boost stickiness. In whichever country your customers are, the customers’ issuers will be happier knowing a merchant has already taken steps to verify payment legitimacy. That way they avoid shifting any form of liability to the issuer. Doing this can reduce consumer friction and increase authorization rates. What this means is that merchants must always ensure they check with their fraud team first before payment is authorized. Merchants can also routinely review the effectiveness of performing 3-D Secure. With this validation, they can always avoid the friction 3-D Secure can create for customers, a consequence of which a huge chunk of transaction attempts are usually lost.

2. Speak to Sell

Most online shoppers always appreciate having more information when shopping. Introducing soft messages at the checkout process always helps out a great deal. Tailoring checkout responses based on your acquirer’s feedback can improve outcomes. Always be very careful about the language you use at this stage. If for instance you respond with something like “your payment has failed” without the specific reason, you miss the chance for the consumer to try again more effectively. You must always aim to help a customer complete a purchase by providing soft prompts to help them along the way. This is exactly why the information from your acquirer really matters. You may for instance tell the customer they used an incorrect CVV code, that funds are insufficient, or that a card cannot be stored because it’s a single-use virtual card. These are soft message prompts designed to help a customer through the purchase process. If you do things right by using a more specific response, it can prompt a positive customer reaction and potentially turn a decline into a sale.

3. Introduce Network Tokens

Network tokens are essentially tokenization that follows standards provided by popular global payment schemes like Visa, Mastercard and American Express. These schemes do offer network tokens that essentially replace the Primary Account Number (PAN) with a secure, dynamic token for online purchases. It has since been discovered that most online shoppers will abandon their carts if they encounter any friction at checkout. As a result, a very huge chunk of sales are annually declined due to outdated credentials. This is exactly what network tokens try to mitigate. Network token is used on future card-on-file transactions and recurring transactions instead of the actual card details, as any other token. Additionally, if a card expires or is replaced, or if the consumer data changes, the same network token remains valid without updates. This is a major advantage of network token. They significantly help customers to complete purchases online with less friction. 
 
4. Add Mobile Wallets

Most online shoppers are used to simply entering their physical credit cards numbers to make payments online. Mobile wallets are now handy. Some issuers are no longer issuing cards with printed account numbers. Mastercard for instance is now working towards total eCommerce tokenization to eliminate manual card entries. Apple and Google are actively building mobile wallets like Apple Pay or Google Pay to simplify eCommerce payments. These smart wallets significantly increase authorization rates and reduce checkout process frictions by eliminating incorrect manual input errors. 

5. Use Smart Tools to Recover Declined Transactions

Technically, not all declined transactions are unrecoverable. Some declines are retriable immediately while others are retriable after specific window of time. The number of retries for specific declines also has a maximum, and beyond that maximum amount per month, penalty fees do apply. There are categories of declines which can be taken advantage of to retry depending on the issuer. Visa and Mastercard for instance have Merchant Advice Codes (MAC) that contains additional information not originally in the decline message. This message helps in the retrial process. This vital information helps merchants to optimize their cost of processing and authorization rate thereby cutting down on decline rates. It directly results in more sales/revenue. 

6 Essential eCommerce Soft Skills Your Business Really Needs

There is hardly any eCommerce job description that does not require skills. Some of these skills may be hard technical skills while others can be classified as soft skills but both sets of skills are hugely important skills to have if you want to run a successful eCommerce business. Following are some of the most common eCommerce soft skills your business really needs:

1. Effective Leadership Skills

Leadership is a complex subject and as such difficult to easily master. It involves managing men and materials to run a business and get results. Effective leadership in eCommerce means empowering people through data-driven decision-making and clear delegation. Effective leaders don’t dictate. They skillfully create frameworks—like weekly key performance indicator (KPI) reviews or shared analytics dashboards. This allows their teams to make their own informed decisions and act autonomously within defined business goals. Effective eCommerce business leadership also involves cultivating a culture of experimentation, where innovative solutions are encouraged and celebrated. These are skills which a business owner must learn.

2. Problem Solving Skills

In eCommerce, problem-solving often requires quick thinking and structured methods to avoid losses. eCommerce marketers must always be in a position to quickly do root cause analysis (RCA) or be able to use decision flowcharts to map out solutions without delays. If for example when conversion rates drop, a good problem solver doesn’t just guess. They must be able to quickly isolate variables like load times, ad quality, or checkout errors to help make vital decisions. This is why expert eCommerce problem solvers usually apply heuristics (mental shortcuts) to identify patterns in customer behavior and test solutions iteratively until results improve.

3. Adaptability Skills

Typically, the world of eCommerce shifts constantly. A smart business owner must be able to adapt quickly to these changes to avoid losses. In eCommerce business, algorithm updates, supply chain disruptions, and new consumer trends usually emerge on a regular basis. This is irrespective of whether you’re ready for them or not. If you master adaptability skills, you can pivot your strategies quickly without losing sight of long-term goals. Doing this might require testing new sales channels, experimenting with AI resources, or adjusting pricing and fulfillment models to stay competitive. eCommerce business adaptability also involves a mindset of continuous learning and taking quick actions. This requires that you rely on feedback and data to guide innovation, and you’re always ready to deploy new skills and strategies to meet the moment as it presents.

4. Effective Communication Skills

In any business, eCommerce inclusive, good communication is key. In this case, eCommerce communication simply means translating data, strategy, and brand values into clear messaging for everyone involved in the business, managers, sales teams and customers alike. It takes a skilled communicator to easily align marketing, operations, and customer support around the same goals. Such communicator must also be able to craft the right language that connects with customers emotionally.

5. Persuasion Skills

Persuasion is a soft skill that applies to both internal and external communications. It’s the skill at the root of selling goods and services. It is directly helpful in ad copy, blog posts, email marketing campaigns, and product pages on your eCommerce website. Technically, persuasion also applies to employee management. Sometimes, team members don’t feel bought in, and leaders can gently and skillfully persuade them to align with the team. When business managers are able to skillfully connect business initiatives to the employee’s own personal values the business benefits immensely.

6. Customer Empathy Skills

In eCommerce business, customer empathy simply means deeply understanding what motivates buyers, what frustrates them, and how your products can make the customer experience better. Smart eCommerce business owners usually apply this principle by carefully mapping the customer journey, identifying pain points, and tailoring experiences that feel personal. Business empathy also fuels better user experience (UX) design and marketing copy. It also ensures consistent digital interactions that really feel human, and not just transactional.

7 Technical Skills Essential for Your Online Business

Online business skills are extremely important. They help your business to thrive in a heavily crowded marketplace. To make money online therefore, you must master these skills. Online business success isn’t just about how good your products are. It’s about how well you know how to sell them. For this reason, successful eCommerce business owners don’t just offer high-quality products in their online stores; they also know how to market those stores. This they do by way of ads, email, social media, and search engine optimization (SEO) techniques. An online business owner must fully understand how to make an eCommerce store inviting to potential customers. Therefore, if you want your online business to thrive, you need technical eCommerce skills to make it happen.

Foremost among these skills are:
 
1. Website Building and Maintenance

Even if you choose to code an entire website from scratch or you’re using the services of a reputable website builder, it’s hugely important to know about User Interface (UI) and User Experience (UX) design. These are the skills you really need to help make your website a welcoming shopping destination. A website that actively drives sales is what your online business needs. These skills help that process.

2. Data Analytics

Data analytics involves collecting and interpreting metrics such as conversion rates, customer lifetime value (CLV), and cart abandonment rates to make informed business decisions. Analyzing data can help you recognize behavioral patterns, like which referral channels bring in repeat buyers or what sales strategies shape real-time demand trends. What most online business owners do in matters of data analytics is to integrate data from Google Analytics, Customer Relationship Management (CRM) systems, and email platforms for a full-funnel view of customers and sales. This helps the sales process tremendously.

3. Conversion Rate Optimization 

Conversion rate optimization (CRO) means increasing the percentage of website visitors who take a desired action. This could mean making a purchase, filling out a form, or clicking a button. The most effective CRO involves quantitative and qualitative analysis using tools like heat maps, session recordings, and funnel analysis to identify why users drop off at specific points. There are also Simpler CRO methods that involve A/B testing to isolate one element at a time. With CRO data, business owners can systematically address friction points such as improving checkout flow or simplifying the value proposition on a landing page. These help to maximize sales/revenue from existing traffic.

4. Digital Advertising

Digital marketing is inevitable in any eCommerce business. It combines creative storytelling with data analytics to reach the right audience at the right moment. This includes Google Shopping campaigns, re-targeting ads, and paid posts on social media platforms that adapt dynamically to user intent. To get the best out of digital advertising, you must have an understanding of and how to use ad platforms that allow businesses to fine-tune targeting parameters, optimize cost-per-click (CPC), and scale profitable campaigns efficiently.

5. Inventory Management

eCommerce inventory management involves predicting demand fluctuations. This is with a view to avoiding overstocking and thereby minimizing cash tied up in unsold goods. Inventory management is readily one of the most important skills an eCommerce entrepreneur can have. Many eCommerce businesses often use inventory forecasting tools to balance availability and efficiency. If you are an inventory manager therefore, it is hugely important you know how to synchronize stock data across multiple channels, such as a brand’s website and third-party retail partners. This is one great skill to have. If you really do, you can effectively use software and statistical models to track stock levels, manage warehousing logistics, and accurately forecast future demand. This skill can help you to ward off costly stockouts or shelves clogged with slow-moving items.

6. Product Information Management (PIM)

PIM involves organizing, updating, and distributing product data across multiple sales channels. When using PIM, the real goal of business owners is to ensure all eCommerce product titles, product descriptions, specifications, and images are consistent, accurate, and SEO-friendly. So, a well-managed PIM system thus helps to improve operational efficiency and enables quick adjustments to pricing or availability during promotions or supply chain changes. PIM is quite an important skill if you have large, complex catalogs or if you’re selling internationally and thus need to manage multiple languages and currencies efficiently real time.

7. Search Engine Optimization (SEO)

Technically, SEO in eCommerce goes way beyond ranking for keywords. To optimize an online store, you can format product pages, category structures, and site architecture so Search Engines can easily index hundreds or even thousands of SKUs. eCommerce tech elements include site speed, schema markup, and content optimization. All these elements help Search Engines to find your store and products. They help Search engines to direct shoppers to your online shop. SEO is a must-have skill if you want to promote your products organically. Some other very useful SEO skills include keyword research and optimization, such as leveraging long-tail and transactional keywords to capture high-intent buyers who are ready to convert. If your SEO techniques are successful, they readily bring more organic traffic to your online store. This translates to more sales/revenue for your business.

10 Common eCommerce Business Mistakes to Avoid

In eCommerce business, there are a whole lot of mistakes business owners make daily that can be easily avoided. These mistakes somehow manage to set many of these businesses back. They stunt business growth and even scalability. To avoid these mistakes, here’s what to watch out for:

1. Neglecting the Right Web Design: A Carelessly designed website can cause your eCommerce business a lot of problems. Problems like slow loading times, confusing navigation, and low-resolution images can make your business seem less trustworthy. A good web design really matters because your website is one of the main ways to express your brand identity, build credibility, and interact directly with customers. It is your first point of contact with customers online and the best place to generate sales. Marketing and advertising initiatives often send consumers to the website to learn more or make a purchase. Once a user lands on your eCommerce site, their first impression and browsing experience can directly influence their opinion of your business. It directly affects their buy decisions as well. If you do not have the expertise to build a responsive website yourself, you are best advised to use pre-built templates or professional webmasters to help you build one. 
 
2. Designing a Poor Checkout Experience: Checkout problems like website glitches, limited shipping or payment options, and UX design flaws can increase your abandoned cart rates. This means loss of sales. To avoid this, do not allow a complicated checkout process on your website. If you do, it can lead to lost sales, because each extra step increases the chances of a shopper abandoning a shopping cart and leaving. You can mitigate this by removing unnecessary fields. Adding a progress bar may help keep customers on the purchasing path. Establishing credibility, minimizing steps, and offering consumer-friendly payment and delivery options help build a strong eCommerce checkout experience that encourages customers to complete their orders.

3. Skipping Technical SEO: Optimized blog posts and keyword-rich product pages are only part of the Search Engine Optimization (SEO) equation. A site that loads slowly or confuses search engines can lose good ranking in the SERPs of search engines. Be sure your website is well optimized to make it visible to search engines. That helps it ranking. If your website loads fast and is easily crawlable, it is easy for search engines to index. To enhance this, you must always quickly resolve issues like broken links, slow loading times, missing site maps, and inconsistent URL structures before they hurt your search engine ranking.
 
If you periodically run a site audit, it can help you to quickly identify and resolve these website issues. Implementing essential website maintenance tasks and optimizing your website structure with meta titles and schema help to boost your domain authority. This is good for your site SEO.

4. Creating Uninspiring Product Pages: A product page is where shoppers make their buy decisions. It must therefore be inspiring enough to get them to do so. Significantly, generic product pages with blurry photos and thin descriptions easily lose sales to competitors who show customers exactly what they’re buying. High-quality images and detailed descriptions don’t just inform—they help shoppers imagine owning your product. Uninspiring product pages therefore do not help your sales and must be avoided.
 
You can deliberately build compelling product pages by including a variety of high-resolution photos, such as clear product images that show users what to expect. You can use curated lifestyle photography that demonstrates how products fit into everyday life. Make sure to write product descriptions that capture your brand tone and highlight key use cases. Never forget to add a complete list of product specifications and features to help buyers make their buy decisions without stress.

5. Ignoring High-Quality Content: Without high-quality content on your site and social channels, you risk missing out on organic search traffic that can lead to sales. Even if creating high-quality, original content may take time and effort, it is worth it since the practice can help bolster your marketing strategy. Consistent blog posts and social media content let you connect with consumers in an authentic way. Sharing organic content on social media or in email newsletters can help drive brand engagement and build long-term customer relationships.

6. Using Overly Aggressive Marketing Tactics: Relentless discount codes and unceasing emails usually drive most consumers crazy. This can lead to an uncomfortable volume of unsubscribers.  Customers stay engaged when you provide value first—helpful content, brand stories, products that solve problems. Selling them on yours products comes next after you’ve got them engaged.

Emotional marketing engages with your target audience on a deeper level by creating materials and campaigns that evoke emotions and build meaningful relationships between customers and your brand. By humanizing your brand and your customer’s experience, you can forge relationships that go deeper than a discount code or shopping cart reminder emails ever can.
 
7. Ignoring Audience Insights: Without audience insights, businesses often end up prioritizing corporate goals over consumer needs. This usually leads to generic, unappealing results.  Diligent market research can reveal consumer interests, desires, and motivations. This vital insight can be used to develop products and marketing strategies that connect on a personal and emotional level. It is advisable to start with customer needs research and define your target audience through customer surveys, competitor analyses, and third-party industry reports. After establishing a general sense of the market, you can then build buyer personas to enhance your marketing strategy.

8. Choosing Inappropriate Marketing Tools: Selecting the wrong eCommerce platform or CMS can create huge marketing problems for your eCommerce business. The business may suffer duplicate customer records, orders that don’t sync, and inventory counts that don’t match your stock. One mismatched tool can mean hours of manual data entry each week. Wasted time you can ill afford.

To mitigate this, you can work with multiple software tools, such as a content management system (CMS), a customer relationship management (CRM) system, an eCommerce platform, and a point-of-sale (POS) system. If however, you are unable to integrate properly, you can face a lot of headaches in tracking orders and customer engagement. Therefore, finding the right eCommerce integration solutions can save you time and improve your return on investment (ROI).
 
9. Lacking Good Customer Service: Customer service interactions are important in shaping brand relationships. Negative support experiences can damage a brand’s reputation and contribute to churn. On the flip side, handling customer concerns efficiently and kindly can help build trust. Providing the right resources can set your customer service team up for success. For instance, using a customer service management or customer relationship management (CRM) platform to organize and keep track of incoming tickets reduces the risk of missed communications. Additionally, establishing clear guidelines and providing a clear script for your customer support can help ensure customers have consistent, positive interactions. This can help your sales a great deal.

10. Ignoring Mobile Users: Presently, mobile commerce is taking a huge chunk of worldwide retail eCommerce. Meaning, no serious eCommerce business can afford to ignore mobile commerce. Your eCommerce website must be optimized for mobile devices if you want to take advantage of this huge chunk of business. So, if your eCommerce site doesn’t display properly on mobile devices, you risk missing out on a significant number of potential customers.

Using responsive web design can greatly improve the mobile customer experience. To ensure a high-quality experience, always endeavor to preview website updates on both mobile and desktop devices before publishing. Other mobile optimization tactics include simplifying filtering and sorting in your product search, including video and zoom views. Also, you must try to avoid pop-ups that cover too much of the screen on mobile devices.  

7 Smart Things Small eCommerce Businesses Can Do to Survive AI Shopping

eCommerce business environment is hugely competitive as everyone is already aware. To survive in such environment, it is not enough to make customers aware of your products and services; you must also reach to AI agents themselves. Here is why. You need AI tools to help insulate your consumers from ads, irrelevant products, counterfeit listings, and to actively review spam. These agents automatically optimize loyalty programs, track return policies, and perform real-time. You’ll receive from the tools constantly updated analysis on behalf of harried shoppers. These services are hugely important to the survival and growth of your eCommerce business. Here are survival tips that can help your eCommerce business growth.

1. Always Follow Data Format Rules: eCommerce thrives on credible data and analytics insights. So, of for instance a popular eCommerce platform you are trading from wants data in a certain format, or wants a certain form filled in, it's absolutely in your best interest to do it. Without full compliance, AI tools may not be able to help shoppers in your site.

2. Don’t Allow Bad Data to Hurt AI Trust: Always ensure the data you provide is accurate and up to date. If for instance you indicate something is in stock when it isn't, and an AI places an order that does not succeed, the AI agent will de-weight your offerings to reduce the chance of it happening again. This could be hugely challenging for your sales as there may be no way to appeal such an action. It is left to the AIs themselves to decide when to purge their old ratings and refresh and this is usually based on your extant data.

3. Beware, AIs Will Judge Your Business Reliability: As a small business owner, it is always imperative to keep up with your existing channels. Beware because your digital messaging will be read, interpreted and acted upon by AI agents whose mission is mainly to shop for consistent and reliable data. How they judge your business depends on the data you provide.

4. Always Provide Complete Product Metadata: How your products are recommended to shoppers is hugely dependent on these data. You must make sure you use proper GTIN/UPC codes, assign unique SKUs to all your products, and provide vivid metadata. Such metadata must include unique product titles, descriptions, prices, dimensions, variants, shipping availability, brand, stock status, and more.

5. Routinely Use APIs for Real-Time Updates: Always carefully search for APIs required by or provided by your distribution channels. This is because you'll need to be able to update pricing, availability, shipping timelines, and return policies in real time. In doing this, be sure to keep in mind that AIs will constantly rate your data for quality and reliability.
 
6. Don’t Ignore AI SEO: As a result of the peculiarities of online marketing, it's certainly reasonable to provide different offerings to different marketing outlets. On this score, the most important thing you can do is present your information to reliable AIs in a way that makes your business appear reliable. This technically sounds like the new normal as SEO for AI.

7. Ensure Your Information is Consistent across Multiple Channels: Beyond all of the APIs and listing forms, make sure the rest of your information is consistent across your various social media feeds. Also take into account your various store and marketplace listings, the various third-party aggregators and marketplaces that carry or list your products. Don’t forget the manufacturer databases that catalog your items, and even in downloadable documents that mention your offerings. If your information is consistent across these various channels, it becomes easier for AIs to be of help to your eCommerce business growth.

10 Ways to Effectively Use AI in Small eCommerce Businesses

Technically, not using AI at all is way better than using AI wrongly. Presently, there’s a lot of hype surrounding the use of AI in eCommerce business. With these here practical tips, you can cut through the hype to get real measurable results in your eCommerce business. Using AI wisely is actually the key.
 
1. First Experiment with Free AI Chatbots 

Experts recommend that using free AI in your business is really helpful. Until you find at least one direct benefit of using advanced AI in your business, it is best to stick with free AI tools. Versatile AI Chabots like ChatGPT, Copilot, and Gemini do render tremendous service to business owners. Even though these Chatbots are not perfect, they do get the job done, even at experimental stages.
 
2. Widely Brainstorm with AI

Business owners can engage AI as brainstorming partners. It can be effectively used to brainstorm product names, YouTube headlines, character names, character backstories, social media tags, and much more. You must be careful though because AIs aren’t quite perfect at drawing engineering diagrams from text-based prompts. They can make things that are pretty or seem real, but they're not really too good at diagramming concepts.
 
3. Start Small but Scale Gradually
 
Sometimes even common sense dictates this. You can always start small and scale gradually using AI tools. You can deploy AI effectively for setting up cloud services, building out IT infrastructure, and lots more. Make adding AI a carefully managed process. You must know it well including its strengths and weaknesses, before you do much with it. Get to know what works for you and what doesn't. Look out for those things that take too much of your time and use AI effectively to reduce the time and even costs.

4. Value Time as Your Key AI Metric
 
Just as we measure ROI as a key metric to make business investments, we can also measure time return as a key metric in the deployment of AI. You can for instance be assured using time metric, how much time is freed up when AI is deployed. You’ll know exactly how much time your AI project saves for you when taking management decisions. You can from there be able to guesstimate how much value AI provides to your business to justify its cost of deployment.
 
5. Carefully Pair Your Expertise with AI 

AI is no replacement for your own expertise. Use AI to complement it effectively. No need looking to use AI for headcount reduction, especially if you're a small business. Granted AIs can do a lot for a business, but they're also classic management challenges. It helps to value them as very bright but annoyingly troublesome helpers. To succeed with them, they require constant guidance and course correction because they’re tools after all. Chatbots should for instance have a very low degree of autonomy because from one prompt to the next, they could get confused along the way.

6. Avoid AI Coding Unless you Know Coding Yourself 

AI coding can be astonishing, game-changing, and have an ROI almost beyond comprehension but there’s still a snag. AI coding tools can also be incredibly stupid, thickheaded, stubborn, and do at times take exactly the wrong approach to any problem. In such scenario, AI can confuse you and compound matters if you don’t know anything about coding yourself. If you know coding, you can actually act anytime you run into a snag or need to fix something AI is not doing right. 

7. Use AI for Quick Analytics Reports 

Feeding data into AI can always give you quick analysis. You can for instance use QuickBooks' reporting tools to generate a report showing the yearly P&L for the last five years. When you export it as a PDF into the free tier of ChatGPT, you can input questions and get quick answers about your business overview. Depending on the business questions you feed into the process, you can get some visual analysis in form of charts/graphs showing income, expenses, and net income trends by years.

8. Don't Spend on AI Just Because It's Hot 

It is not advisable to invest in AI because everyone is hyping it as really hot new thing around. Invest in AI only if you can see how it will benefit your business. Exact same way you wouldn't spend on any piece of equipment just because it's cool. You only buy equipment because it opens a new business opportunity for you. If it also helps you improve productivity, or helps you reduce costs, it’s ok to have. AI should be treated exactly the same way. So, if you don't know how AI will help your business, it is best not to spend on it. Simple! You don't have to spend on anything AI until you do know how it will help out.
 
9. Make AI Spend Monthly, not Yearly
 
This is more of a money tip and less of operational tip. Significantly, AI costs directly impact the resources of a business. Therefore, scheduling and budgeting for the cost of AI is good for the cash flow of the business. For this reason, until you're completely sure you want to integrate a given AI service into your business long-term, it is best not to sign up for a yearly commitment. Granted some AI services may require yearly payment commitment, but you must carefully weigh this commitment against your cash flow if you must use such AI tools. If you make monthly commitment, you may pay a bit more but the costs blend more easily into your cash flow. 

10. Clearly Define What You Consider a Win

Time is the most important metric in AI use. AI tools are good if they can help you make some tangible time savings. If you have few hands as employees, AI tools can be really handy to take care of routine and repeated business chores. Any AI tools that help to reduce time on a project directly impacts costs as well. Getting a job done faster increases productivity and saves costs on time. That's how you look at AI by having your eyes on such tangible wins.  

5 Effective Tips for Boosting eCommerce Sales

If your eCommerce business is currently not making good sales, chances are high that you are doing many vital things wrong. As online shopping is increasing in popularity, so should online sales. If your business is missing out on this train, come closer, pay attention here! Irrespective of whether you’re running a side hustle from your garage or managing a full-blown e-commerce empire, getting your online sales strategy right can make or break your business. This is one vital fact many eCommerce business owners presently worry about. Significantly, too many great products fail not because of the quality of the products but because their owners don’t seem to understand what today’s online shoppers really want. These here are five effective strategies that are really essential to boost eCommerce sales.

1. Make Your Website User-Friendly

The design and deployment of your eCommerce website are very important to its usefulness for online sales. Your website is your digital storefront where online shoppers first make contact with your business. You must ensure it is well optimized to make it user-friendly. This means it must load fast and easy to navigate. Its aesthetic appeal must be such as to easily arrest the attention of online shoppers who are notoriously always in a hurry. If your website is confusing, cumbersome and slow, its bounce rate will be embarrassingly high. Real attention must always be paid to this as well as its checkout and payment process. On your eCommerce website, here is the trick that really works. The easier you make it for people to give you money, the more money people will give you. Never forget that.

2. Effective Customer Service 

In eCommerce business, poor customer service is a business killer any day. Just one unsatisfied and frustrated customer can leave reviews capable of scaring away hundreds of potential buyers. You can take deliberate steps to safeguard against this. Since you know that most customers always want quick responses to their inquiries, easy returns without guilt trips, and real humans, not just chatbots, prioritizing customer satisfaction can help boost sales significantly. If your customer service people are well trained and responsive, they can easily turn angry customers into raving fans just by handling complaints well. That’s powerful stuff for boosting sales.

3. Optimize Your Website for Mobile Devices

Presently, over 70% of shoppers are doing so via mobile devices particularly smart phones. So, if your website is not optimized to work perfectly on phones, chances are, you’re quite literally throwing money away on lost sales. Optimizing your website to work perfectly on phones can literally double your conversion rate within a short while. Once in a while, always test the accessibility of your website on your own phone. If by doing so you encounter serious challenges, it is a pointer to what your customers go through. Arrange to fix the problem as quickly as possible then watch out for your conversion rates percentages.

4. Get Your Business on Social Media 

Many popular social media platforms are equipped with in-house marketing tools you can always take advantage of. Hugely popular social media platforms like Instagram and Facebook are now legitimate sales channels, and smart eCommerce businesses are cashing in big time. The trick to marketing on social media is to always create content consistently that doesn’t appear like advertising. The aim is to get meaningful engagement on your content and draw more users to it. The key is quality content appearing consistently and really authentic. This is what attracts users to your content and to engage with it.

5. Use Analytics Data to Drive Sales

You cannot be right all the time if you rely on your gut feelings to market online. Your best bet then is to rely on analytics data. Google Analytics is free and tells you everything you need to know about your website visitors. Which pages do they love? Where do they bail out? What products do they actually buy versus what you think they should buy? If you market on social media, the in-house analytics tools on each platform are also very helpful. It is advisable to start with simple metrics. You can easily track your most popular pages and products. Discover exactly where people drop off in your sales funnel. You can test different headlines, images, and prices, and pay attention to seasonal trends. Above all, don’t just collect data—you must actually rely on and use the data to make important business decisions.

Final Words

Boosting eCommerce sales isn’t exactly very difficult if you know what you are doing. Once you have in place a website that works, user-friendly, mobile optimized, and functions well, you are good to go. Having the business on social media that engages real people is also important. Next is to habitually make data-driven decisions and have in place an effective customer service that makes people want to come back to your business. This is what significantly drives conversions and sales over a prolonged period of time. 

7 Strategic Ways to Build Customer Loyalty in eCommerce

Acquiring and retaining customers is inevitable for any successful eCommerce business. Even though acquiring a new customer significantly costs more than keeping an existing one, many eCommerce business owners still like to throw good money into ads particularly on social media. Many while doing so completely ignore the customers already in their database. This is not a good strategy for many reasons. Marketers have learned that customer loyalty isn't built through discount codes or points programs alone even though they don't hurt. Fact is, lasting customer loyalty comes from deliberately creating experiences that make people feel understood, valued, and genuinely excited to be part of a brand's story. Because of this, eCommerce businesses that manage to build good customer loyalty aren't necessarily the ones that spend biggest on ads. They're the ones who've managed to figure out how to turn every customer interaction into an opportunity to strengthen a mutually beneficial relationship. Building customer loyalty trumps all the strategies. Here are some 7 tips on how it can be done:

1. Make Everything Feel Seamless

When things are really seamless in your eCommerce website, your customers shouldn't have to think about how to interact with your brand. Irrespective of whether your customers are shopping on mobile, calling customer service, or engaging on social media, their experiences should feel consistent and effortless. Your website should be so optimized as to make the customer experience feel cohesive and smooth. For instance, if someone emails your support team about an order they placed on your website, that rep should have their full purchase history and preferences at their fingertips if your services are fully integrated. You can render faster and better services to your customers because of this. On this core, integration matters much more than innovation.

2. Build a Responsive Community

You can deliberately build a responsive community and not just a customer base. This will enable your best customers feel like they're part of something bigger than a transaction. By creating real opportunities for them to connect with each other and with your brand beyond merely buying things, it helps with customer loyalty. Such opportunities can be as simple as a Facebook group where customers share tips, or as elaborate as exclusive special events and workshops if you are so inclined. The key is to create the ideal spaces where your brand can effectively facilitate beneficial connections rather than merely selling products/services.

3. Use Analytics Data to Show You Care

You can effectively use analytics data to render personalized services to customers through segmentation. Personalization on this score isn't about stuffing someone's first name into an email subject line. It's about demonstrating that you've been paying attention to how they interact with your brand.  You can build customer loyalty faster this way because customers will feel seen and cared about instead of just being marketed to. For good results, you can for instance segment your audience by purchase behavior, engagement level, or product preferences. After this, you can then carefully craft marketing messages that acknowledge exactly where your customers are in their relationship with your brand.

4. Turn Your Brand into a Great Story
 
You can by deliberate efforts turn your brand into a great story worth being part of. Technically, most people don't just buy products. Many always buy into identities and stories. So, most brands that really inspire fierce loyalty are almost always those brands that have figured out how to make their customers the heroes of their brand story. You can try to figure out exactly what story does being your customer tell about anyone. Exactly what identity does it reinforce? With such vital info, you can then weave this narrative through every piece of marketing communication you put out in your business. It helps build customer loyalty.

5. Give Your Team Ample Room to Act

Customer service is one hugely important service business rely on to build customer loyalty. Significantly, it is exactly where most businesses make very costly mistakes. Instead of training their customer service people to operate with human touch, they tie their hands with scripts and policies that make it virtually impossible for them to actually solve problems and create an amazing customer experience. Well trained, polite and freely operating customer service teams are really helpful to build customer loyalty.

6. Be Proactive About Customer Concerns

A brand that is proactive about customer concerns can build customer loyalty faster. Such brands don't just respond to issues, they anticipate them. They rely on real time analytics data to predict customer behavior. If for instance you notice customers typically have questions about sizing after ordering, you can send a proactive email with fit guides. If on the other hand your shipping typically takes longer during peak season, you can communicate this expectation upfront and offer updates along the way. Such proactive customer concerns help a great deal to build customer loyalty.

7. Carefully Map Every Single Touchpoint
 
You must carefully identify the right touchpoints in the customer journey. That’s where your focus should be since loyalty lives mostly in the mundane moments that happen after a sale is made. If you miss these points, your business will continue to hemorrhage customers nonstop. Never fail to maintain contact with your customers immediately after purchase trying to find out how the touchpoints you’ve identified can help the customer journey better. Endeavor to map everything—from the thank you page to the packaging experience to the support ticket process. This is really important because every touchpoint is either building customer loyalty, or significantly eroding it. 

Top 5 Online Business Ideas Easy to Launch

Working online is still growing in popularity as internet technology continues to advance. The digital economy continues to grow in tandem. This scenario presents a wealth of opportunities for entrepreneurs to launch online businesses as they wish. Significantly, advances in AI, automation, and cloud-based tools have made it easier than ever to start ventures with low overhead while reaching global audiences just with the tap of a computer or mobile phone button. These days, anyone who chooses can launch an online business in a matter of minutes. The following business ideas are top on the ladder of such businesses easy to launch at the moment.
 
1. AI-Driven Content Creation

With the abundance of AI tools online, it is now possible to create content faster, from text writing to video production. Entrepreneurs can leverage this to provide marketing, social media, or brand storytelling services. If you are keen, you can easily start an agency that produces AI-generated blogs, social media posts, and videos for small businesses. But, you must first learn and be very conversant with how AI content creation platforms like Jasper or Runway function. If you do, you can then build sample portfolios to showcase your capabilities. Next is to offer subscription packages on popular social media platforms and cold email campaigns to acquire clients/customers. With low upfront costs, global reach, and tools that streamline operations, you can easily launch your own online AI-driven content creation business.

2. AI-Powered Consulting Services

Presently, most businesses are increasingly relying on AI for marketing, customer service, and operational efficiency. Because of this, entrepreneurs with expertise in specific industries can offer AI-driven consulting services or create AI tools tailored to small businesses. As a marketing consultant in that line of business, you can use AI analytics tools to provide personalized ad campaign strategies for e-commerce brands. If you are familiar with and can effectively use AI tools like ChatGPT or AI-powered analytics platforms, you can easily create your own website and showcase case studies or trial services. Next is to market your services via popular social media platforms, industry forums, or by way of targeted ads.

3. Remote Service Agencies

You can for instance launch a virtual assistant agency specializing in AI integration for small businesses. This is because many businesses now increasingly outsource tasks like virtual assistance, social media management, and customer support. If you build a remote agency, it allows you to scale without physical offices. You can identify in-demand services, such as AI-enhanced customer support then hire freelancers or build a small team remotely. Next is to create a professional website and portfolio where you can offer services on platforms like Upwork or directly to businesses that need such services.

4. Digital Content and Education Platforms

If for instance you are a sports enthusiast or a fitness professional, you can create an AI-personalized workout subscription platform to earn money. Online learning and digital content is really thriving at the moment. As an entrepreneur, you can monetize your expertise through courses, eBooks, or paid newsletters. You can start this business by clearly defining your area of expertise and target audience. Next is to develop content in video, eBook, or interactive formats and use popular platforms like Teachable or Substack for content distribution. This you can vigorously promote via popular social media platforms, through partnerships, and email campaigns to market your content.

5. Niche E-commerce Stores

Even with the increasing dominance of large e-commerce platforms, the business is far from saturated. There’s still ample room for small players. Presently, niche e-commerce businesses targeting specific audiences remain highly profitable. Right now, subscription boxes, eco-friendly products, and AI-curated merchandise are trending. As an entrepreneur, you can for instance launch your own subscription service for AI-generated artwork prints or a sustainable pet products store or in any other niche market. To start, be sure to conduct a diligent market research with a view to identifying a niche with high demand. Then source products via dropshipping, local suppliers, or create your own products if you can. You can next build a store using Shopify or WooCommerce then use popular social media platforms and influencer marketing to reach your target audience. When orders start coming in, you start making money. 

Key Characteristics of Ecommerce Sporting Kits Retail

As most people are increasingly obsessed with fitness, sports and recreation are becoming an integral part of everyday living. Sporting kits market booms as a result. From improving personal health to community fandom, sporting kits drive a consistently strong and growing market because today’s athletes and fitness enthusiasts now shop differently. People now demand seamless digital experiences, community-based interactions, and expertise. This is what drives growth. It is fueled by rising global health and fitness awareness and increased inclusivity, as participation rates among women and children continue to climb.

Consequently and in reaction to the market, the online sporting kits industry has evolved a set of key traits to meet these expectations, prominent among which are these here seven characteristics:

1. Seasonality and Regional Spikes: Peak periods engender seasonal spikes in sales. This must be well planned for in advance.  Sporting kits sales always spike in suchlike seasons as back-to-school for kids and local sporting events. To take advantage, it is best to plan for web assortments and promotions, months or even a full year in advance. 

2. Customization and Personalization: Customization and personalization characterize retail marketing as well. Such characterization manifests in name/number printing, string tension, grip size, or bike fit services. These activities usually help to increase sell-through rates and loyalty.

3. Community and Creator Influence: These activities involve people who are visible and influential in sporting kits usage. In this quest, coaches, local clubs, and athlete creators can always be relied upon to drive product discovery and brand trust. 

4. Team/league Workflows: In sporting kits retail side, characteristics like quotes, purchase orders, tiered pricing, roster ordering, and compliance with governing body requirements are inevitable. These are common tasks B2B retailers usually undertake. 

5. Performance and Fit Purchases: Another characteristic of sporting kits retail market is that buyers always require detailed specifications and sizing/widths for fit guidance. Retailers handle this through the Product description pages on their websites. These pages present comparison content, AR/VR capabilities, reviews from athletes, how-to videos, and more. These activities are all designed to increase shopper confidence.

6. Variant-heavy Catalogs: Variant heavy catalogs are other characteristics of sporting kits marketing. This is because many sporting kits always differ by size, width, colors, handedness, and sport-specific standards (e.g., youth vs. adult). Simplifying these characteristics is quite helpful in complex inventories which pose the first operational hurdle for sporting kits retailers.

7. Omnichannel Fulfillment: With omnichannel fulfillment characteristics, the emphasis is on seamless and fast delivery. It comprehensively entails, fast delivery, buy online, pick up in-store and easy store returns. These are usually make-or-break factors in choosing where to buy.

Final Words

Sporting kits shopping retail ecommerce is a very huge market characterized by seasonal spikes. It is a market characterized by careful planning and taking advantage of whatsoever is feasible to maximize sales at all times. This is what drives business growth. 

5 Ways E-Commerce Businesses Can Drive Sales Using Influencers

As competition bites harder in e-commerce business, marketers tend to think more of viable ways to stand up to competition and make more sales. Working with influencers is one of such viable ways. Influencers help marketers to bring their products in front of their large audiences. That’s where they become quite relevant in e-commerce marketing. Working with influencers is a scenario of people working with people for mutual benefits. It can be a very highly rewarding experience for marketers if they learn to work with influencers as people. Learning to do very simple things other marketers do but in different ways while working with influencers can at times make the real difference in enhancing sales. The following five ways are such tested and viable ways.

1. Make Things Simple: When working with influencers, it is best to adopt simplicity over complexity in everything you do. Buyers usually don’t have much time on their hands. Getting a simple message out to them through influencers can make things really easy for influencers as well as the buyers. So, if for instance you are trying to launching a marketing campaign using influencers, it helps if you can put yourself in the buyer's shoes. That way, you can discover how quickly and comfortably you can make it for them to purchase the products you are marketing. Making available to influencers the right affiliate links helps to make things really simple for them to push your products in front of their followers. This and any other simple things that can shorten the path to a purchase are desirable.

2. Focus More on Result:  Yes, most influencers always have a very large reach but that shouldn’t be the main focus. Even though desirable, results from the reach are by far more important for e-commerce marketers than the size of the reach. It is advisable therefore to always focus more on result than reach. Reach still matters no doubt, but in the fiercely competitive e-commerce industry, there's nothing more important than sales, sustainable sales. It is best therefore to carefully choose influencers who deliver results in terms of sales. Such partners must be results-oriented particularly in terms of sales and not just views.

3. Give Preference to Full-Fledged Partner: Partnering with an influencer tends to yield better dividends than using them for just a one-time ad channel. This makes it better to share with influencers not just a product description and goals, but results as well. If you partner with an influencer that shares your long-term vision for brand development, they help you to make more sales. You can share with them analytics and any insights that can help them better understand your processes. That way, they can easily buy into and help you build a sales strategy based on the data generated. This yields better sales results over the long term.

4. Encourage Freedom: To get the best out of an influencer, try to encourage their freedom to operate. Avoid any attempt to control what they do and how they do it. Always remember that they’re influencers and independent business persons in their own rights. That they’re partnering with you does not in any way mean they’re ceding their independence to you. Influencers as content creators know their audiences and their needs more than anyone else. As e-commerce business owner partnering with influencers, it serves your interest best to just give influencers direction and leave the rest to them. Just make sure the direction you give aligns with your goals. It is then left to the influencers to freely create content that's organic to their audience in alignment with your goals.

5. Always Think Long Term: When partnering with influencers, it is always better to think long-term instead of short-term. Most people never do things without taking their time to think things through. Making a buy decision takes a similar pattern. Long-term partnerships with influencer content creators help to build the much needed audience trust. That gives them ample time to get sufficiently interested in the products they’re promoting to earn real credibility in doing so. Their involvement therefore means the products are worth buying. This stems from long term trust building.

Bottom Line

E-commerce businesses that partner with influencers benefit in many significant ways. They mostly benefit from the large reach of influencers. This large reach helps with conversions and the opportunity to create long-term business value for the audience. This is why the content creator influencer economy isn't just about increasing visibility for a business. It involves tangible and measurable results too, particularly in terms of sales. It is hugely important therefore, not to see influencer content as just another element of commerce, but to effectively use it as one of the main pillars of traffic, conversion and sales.

E-Commerce Business Strategy: Effective Tips for Opt-in Email Campaigns

E-mail marketing remains one of the most cost-effective marketing strategies in e-commerce business. It is extremely easy to use too.  Opt-in email marketing is one great way to ensure that the subscribers on your email list actually want to be there. It is one of the most effective best practices you can deploy to help you build a responsive email list. Technically, opt-in email marketing is when customers or potential customers voluntarily subscribe to your email list. It is a marketing strategy that really looks like asking permission before you enter someone’s home. With opt-in email, users are much better off as welcomed guests and not like inviting yourself inside when you weren’t asked to come over. 

Opt-in email is a marketing strategy that focuses on content. This way, it quickly helps the business to build trust. Here is how it works. When users voluntarily subscribe to your email through opt-in, they’re directly signaling genuine interest in your business. This way, they’re more likely to open, read, and engage with your email messages. Opt-in email is a permission-based etiquette hence highly effective. Such permission-based approach helps the business owner to cultivate a stronger, more loyal audience while improving deliverability and long-term results. The real reason opt-in email is a very effective marketing strategy.

How Does Opt-in Email Marketing Work?

Through opt-in email marketing strategy, customers are required to voluntarily provide their email addresses. This they usually do through a sign-up form, landing page, or subscription box. They do this in exchange for updates, offers, or other content the business uses to entice them. Most marketers like to refer to opt-in email as permission marketing, since it relies on getting explicit consent before sending messages. Opt-in email sign-up forms provide a way for you to gain traction, clicks, and conversions from a more deeply engaged email list. This is very much unlike cold emails or email lists that you purchase and are more prone to sending unsolicited messages to spam folders of recipients. But, opt-in email marketing ensures everyone who subscribes wants to see your content. This greatly reduces the likelihood of recipients marking your emails as spam. This in turn helps to enhance your business and email sender reputation.

How to Make Your Opt-in Emails More Effective

Consistently A/B test your CTAs and Offers

You can rely on consistent A/B testing: A/B testing is when you compare two methodologies to see which one is more successful and can make a big difference in conversion rates. The results delivered by any methodology used matter the most not just because you like the method and it is easy to use. This is why you should always consider testing different offers, copy, design, opt-in process, and location by using the following approaches:

Make the Design Simple: Try making your CTA stand out with font size, contrast in colors, and placement. Avoid putting it at the very bottom of the page, since users may not scroll long enough to see it. Endeavor to keep your layout simple and mobile-friendly. Carefully test sign-up forms to see how effective they are. Try to find out how much information people are willing to share in the opt-in process. Reason being that many people are usually not willing to give away too much of their personal info online. Some customers may feel more comfortable giving you an email instead of a name, email, and phone number.

Carefully Use Catch Phrases: Always make sure the Call-To-Action; CTA inspires users to sign up by motivating them with an offer. That’s why it is termed CTA. Carefully craft sign-up forms with clear CTAs like “Get Your Free Gift,” or “Get Your Discount Here.” A/B testing phrases like “Join Our Mailing List” or “Join Our Community” can show you what resonates best with your potential opt-in subscribers.

Segment Your Audience for Personalization: Personalizing email messages to resonate with certain audiences can improve the odds of more engaged opt-ins. Email segmenting allows you to offer value to your customers by giving them personalized content they actually want.

Consistently Experiment with Location and Timing: Do not neglect to test communications beyond emails, like pop-up timing and placements, to see if they improve engagement. By testing these potential points of friction, it is possible for you to get a better understanding of your customers and what they want. This type of information allows you to effectively iterate and improve your overall marketing strategy.

What Makes a Good Email Opt-in Form?

Here is what to look out for. A good email sign-up form must set clear expectations about the types of future emails subscribers can expect to receive, how often, and why they’re valuable. It must directly relate to the products you are marketing. It must be concisely detailed and enticing enough to attract a click. A savvy opt-in email sign-up form must promise to reward subscribers with benefits that make them feel special. So, the form can for instance include welcome emails, newsletters, promotions, event offers, and even discounts. These serve as effective CTAs.

How to Differentiate Single Opt-in and Double Opt-in Forms

Marketers use both in varied degrees. When a user enters their email into your opt-in form, there are two main ways for them to gain access to your email subscription. In a single opt-in approach, users provide their emails, and you add them to your list. This frictionless sign-up approach helps your list grow faster. Providing an email does not however mean that the user is really interested in what you are offering. This means you’ll have a higher risk of unengaged subscribers and unwanted spam complaints down the road. This makes the double opt-in option necessary.

In a double opt-in approach, you add one additional step to the process. So, after the subscriber shares their email address, you send them a follow-up email to double-check that they want to be on your list. The double opt-in process helps eliminate bots and invalid email addresses, and it also confirms subscriber interest. In addition, it opens warmly and maintains a friendly tone throughout, which shows customers they’re immensely valued. That you are checking for consent also communicates to the subscribers that they won’t get spammed. This can deepen trust as well. 

Effective Practices for Opt-in Email Campaigns

Most email users routinely check their inboxes at least once a day. They prioritize checking their email boxes over news and social media. This habit is quite significant for digital marketing purposes. Crafting engaging emails is one of the main reasons people habitually and routinely check their emails daily. Following are some of the best opt-in email practices that can help you create an engaged and responsive list of email subscribers.

Avoid Spamming

Most email subscribers dislike spam messages. This is why you must always make sure your customers understand they’ve signed up for your emails and why. It is therefore hugely important to get their explicit consent by way of opt-in consent. Always make sure your emails comply with the General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR). This helps to protect against spamming. Spam mails are always a turn off for most customers. Higher spam complains can have a negative impact on your business, the reason spamming must be avoided at all costs. If you send emails only to people who’ve consented to them, you’re not only reaching the audience you want, you are building trust significantly.

Keep Your Emails Short, Concise and Captivating

For effectiveness, make sure your email sign-up form is simple. The info you really need is, a name, email address, and checkbox. The more simple and basic the form, the easier it’ll be to amass opt-ins. This also makes the form easy to design for multiple screen sizes, like a desktop/laptop, tablet, and mobile devices.

Offer Very Clear Value Upfront

At a glance, subscribers must be able to know exactly what they’ll receive and you must endeavor to deliver on that value consistently. If well crafted, any tangible offer can become an instant lead magnet. This can be some sort of perk or incentive that encourages users to willingly share their personal information. Such perks can be in form of discount code, weekly tips, or exclusive content. You can even follow through with more offers each week. This way, you can easily build trust by signaling to your customers that your business is real and capable of offering them consistent value.  

10 Effective Ways to Improve Customer Experience on Your E-Commerce Website

To make good sales on your e-commerce website, you must have in place effective ways to get visitors to the website. That is where customer experience becomes hugely important in the business. Aside getting visitors to your website, getting them to enjoy the shopping process and actually making a purchase is of paramount importance. That’s exactly where customer experience factors into the mix. If for instance your website loads slowly, confuses shoppers or lacks trust signals, not many shoppers are going to stick around such website long enough to make a buy decision. When shoppers bounce rate is high, you lose sales significantly. Here are tested and effective ways you can deploy to make customer journey smoother and shopping a sweet and memorable experience on your e-commerce website. 

1. Diligently Work on Your UX 

Technically, user experience UX is how people feel when they use your website. For a good user experience, you must endeavor to keep things clear, simple and easy to use on the site. Make important stuff prominent on the website. Such stuff as the search bar or filters for instance. In addition, you must ensure the checkout process is fast and not burdened with too many different steps. This way, the website can always enable users to easily locate what they want without too many hassles.

2. Optimize for Mobile Devices

Google reports now indicate that a vast majority of internet users now access the internet by way of mobile devices particularly mobile phones. What this means is that many more people now shop online via their mobile phones. So, even if your website works perfectly on desktops but is clunky on mobile phones, it means you’ll be losing out on a significant chunk of sales. You must therefore optimize your website for mobile devices and test it well to see how your online business appears on mobile devices. Make sure you are satisfied with how it looks on smaller screens. Make sure the buttons aren’t too tiny and the checkout process works fast and smoothly to enhance user experience.

3. Simplify Your Navigation 

To keep users on your website a bit longer, ensure its navigation is very simple. Complicated menus engender high user bounce rates. So, effective menus shouldn’t look like a map. Your website categories need to be very clear making sure not to hide your best sellers or new arrivals. It is smart marketing to always put important stuff upfront. Always bear in mind that if a customer is unable to locate a product within ten seconds duration, they’ll very likely leave your website. That increases bounce rates and loss of sales.
 
4. Carefully Use Real Product Images

Always make sure your stock photos not just look pretty, they must always show the real thing. It is helpful to use photos that show products in different angles. The sizes must be visible and comparable because shoppers always have more trust in what they can see. Better product pictures often mean better conversions and more sales.

5. Pay Attention to User-Interface, UI
 
On your business website, user interface is what everything on the website looks like. For effectiveness, the buttons must be visible and easy to click. Website aesthetics and colors need to feel okay on the eyes. Website fonts must be easily readable and not too tiny. Avoid weird website layouts making sure to keep the site clean, familiar and attractive.

6. Improve Your Website Speed

If your website takes more than 2-5 seconds to load, most users usually leave. That increases the bounce rate that can significantly affect your sales. You must therefore optimize your website to make it load faster. It helps to use smaller images. Carefully remove stuff you don’t need, and check how fast your site loads on mobile phones as well. This is because every second matters a lot for most people trying to shop online.

7. Use Only Helpful Plugins 

The only plugins best to use on your website are plugins that are really helpful not plugins that just sit there or slow stuff down. Use only plugins that let you send shoppers to a specific page after they log in. These are important pages like the dashboard, a deals page, or the location of whatever you’re keen on promoting. These plugins really work well when you have returning customers or members who need quick access. Helpful plugins usually make the whole login process feel more directed instead of just dropping them on the homepage to confuse customers.

8. Create Room for Customer Reviews

Customer reviews and feedback are hugely important in any e-commerce business. This is because most people never buy anything online without first checking reviews. If your store has no reviews, it makes most people think your business is new or worse still not legit. It helps therefore to add a plugin for reviews or you can directly ask previous buyers to leave a comment/feedback. If the reviews are more detailed and in-depth, they will be as helpful to your customers as well as your business.

9. Have Cart-Saving Options

Not every website visitor buys something right away. It helps sales if you can give shoppers an option to save their carts for later or wishlist it. That way, they can come back and finish their shopping when they’re ready. Reminder emails are very useful to help bring such shoppers back. You can even automate such emails if you so choose. 

10. Provide a Good FAQs Section

Technically, a good FAQ section usually saves you and your customers some considerable time. Many people always have questions about shipping, returns, warranties, and more. If they don’t find answers fast enough, they bounce. That means lost sales. It helps therefore to put the most common FAQs on the product page or near checkout to ease final doubts in the minds of shoppers.  

10 Reasons Customer Experience Comes Tops in E-commerce Business Strategy

Technically, opening an online store is to make sales and not just about displaying goods online for the fun of it. To make sales, you must attract customers to your store who are willing to make purchases. Your website must therefore be conducive for seamless transactions. If your website isn’t easy and conducive for customers to shop on, many may hit the site but simply wander off without buying anything. The user experience on your e-commerce website is largely responsible for what customers do on the site.

User experience is technically how customers feel when they use your e-commerce store. Right from when they land on your homepage to checking out the cart, every little detail adds up to make this experience. While customers are at it, if anything slows them down or confuses them even for a second, they may simply wander off. That simply means you may be losing sales. Exactly why fixing the experience matters more than most things in e-commerce business. How to fix it therefore remains a topline strategy in the business.

One other reason user experience is a top strategy is because it saves you money long term. Here’s how. Instead of spending extra on abandoned cart emails or support staff to help shoppers who may get lost, you can fix the problems even before they occur. If customer experience is good, it simply means fewer customer complaints, fewer drop-offs, and fewer returns. Trust building helps that process a great deal. A good UX helps build trust. When your website feels smooth to use and makes sense, customers never fail to remember it. The main reason they’ll keep coming back. They’ll not only be coming back, they’ll tell others too. That helps to attract more customers to the store at minimal efforts. It means you get more customers even without spending more on ads or promotions. This is because word spreads fast when a store feels good to use and more people want to go have a feel of it.

Aside selling good products, what really keeps people coming back and telling others about your store is how they felt using your website. That’s customer experience. It is why customer experience should always come tops in all your marketing strategy considerations. Following are 10 of the most important reasons why customer experience really matters more than what most e-commerce business owners think it to be.

1.  It Encourages Higher Customer Spending: Consumers usually spend more when and if they feel comfortable. This happens if your product pages are clear, prices are upfront, and the cart clearly shows them what they’re getting. That way, they can easily toss into the cart a few extra items without over considering it. That means more sales.

2. You Can Sell More Even without Promos: Many e-commerce stores usually move products with sales only. But, stores that are able to provide their customers with a convenient shopping experience get to sell more. Reason is, a good shopping experience helps to motivate customers to purchase some products even at full price. Once customers feel good on your website particularly about what they are getting and how they are getting it, they tend to shop more.

3. Helps Build Customer Trust in Your Store: Trust building with your customers requires that you provide them with a great website that has an organized and simple layout. The website must be easy to navigate through and user-friendly enough to allow trading even via mobile devices. Shoppers must be able to easily find what they are looking for on the site without wasting too much time. This way, there is usually a tendency for them to shop more on the site.

4. Helps Promote Your Store: A great customer experience motives people to talk about their experiences on your website. Most people like to talk about their treatment on a website and how they felt. No amount of ads beats words of mouth on that score. So, even if you spend good money on ads, it still cannot beat word of mouth. And, word of mouth is free and extremely powerful. If shoppers have a good experience on your website, they’ll probably tell relatives, colleagues and friends or even write a nice review about it. If however they had a bad experience, they’ll also talk about it and it’ll rob off negatively against your business.

5. Lowers Cart Abandonment: If the customer journey on your website is cumbersome, you tend to lose sales. This is because when the process is clunky or takes too long, people bounce and sales are lost. If for instance, the cart doesn’t update right or the checkout process takes too long, most shoppers simply leave. But, if you make things feel quick and easy, it helps to keeps shoppers on track to buy. That engenders lower cart abandonment and more sales.

6. Builds Customer Loyalty over Time: If a nice first visit is really good, most shoppers never fail to remember. If every time they come back, things still feel good as they expect, it builds loyalty. You can garner an army of regular shoppers if they remember how fast they found what they needed on your website and how smooth returns were. That’s how regular and repeat shoppers are made over time.

7. Professionalizes Your Store: In e-commerce business, even small stuff can really add up significantly over time. For instance, a working menu cart, a good search bar, and easy checkout can all go a long way to tell your customers how professional your store is. Getting things to work perfectly help to professionalize your website. It never fails to give out the impression to customers that someone’s running a real business out there on the site.

8. Meets Customer Expectations: Most online shoppers these days always have the advantage of having been to and seen many other websites. Most have past experiences they refer to. This is why they always expect fast, clear, and easy shopping on any website. If you don’t give it to them, they’ll quickly find someone else who will. That becomes a great loss to your business.

9. Distinguishes Your Store: A great customer experience can easily set your business apart from others. Out there on the internet, there may be hundreds of other stores selling same products you are. What can really set your business apart is how it feels to use it. A better experience is what makes people to pick your store instead of some other store selling the same products. That can make the real difference between good sales or poor sales.

10. Makes Customer Support Work Easier and more Effective: If you have systems in place that enable your customers to easily find answers or get help fast, your customers are burdened less. This can be great for your customer support team as well as your customers. Onsite tools to handle live chats, simple return pages, or clear FAQs usually do wonders and can be really great to help your e-commerce business make more sales.

3 Key Strategies for Making Money in Your E-Commerce Business

Building a business online is not as easy as it sounds. It is not for the faint hearted. This is because the rate of online business failures is very high. When you get involved in online business, the bottom line is always to make money. If this is not achieved fast enough, discouragement usually sets in and business failure looms. This is one real headache for most entrepreneurs who venture into e-commerce business.
 
Getting an e-commerce business going usually takes a lot of hard work and with significant time and energy investment. That is if you already have some skillset and willing to take considerable risks. Even with these, success is not guaranteed. You risk failure if the business does not make money for you as expected. Survival requires some strategic key steps you can take to ensure your business makes money online. These here three key steps can help make the difference in most cases.

1. Selling High-Quality Products

What you must always look out for is to sell only products that solve problems for consumers and are affordable. You cannot succeed in e-commerce, if you don’t have high-quality products to sell. These are the kinds of products consumers go for and your business makes money as a result. Consider selling products preferably consumables that consumers need to buy over and over again. That is where the money is. These are products that must not only be of high-quality, they must work as expected and help consumers to solve problems. These are the kinds of products consumers repeated search for online.

2. Selling Products Sourced Domestically 

If products are sourced domestically, availability is certain and price fluctuations are minimal. They are not subject to international trade wars and tariffs. This helps to minimize the risk of selling such products and in a steady market. It is tough already starting an online business but tougher still if you have to continuously contend with tariffs and freight changes that go up and down like a yo-yo. If you sell locally sourced products, you can insulate your business from international trade wars usually triggered by warped politics around the world. This helps you to make reliable projections in terms of sales and profits even in the long term. 
 
3. Selling Patentable Products

In e-commerce business, one potent way to avoid the competition outright is to sell patented products that nobody can copy. Read that again. It does not mean that when people try to, they cannot really copy such products but with patents in place, they are prohibited from doing so. That is the catch. It is one great way to guarantee unlimited sales and sustained profits. Thanks to effective patents you can deploy to protect your products from fakes. If you have patents in place, you can sell your products directly and be more price-competitive.

Aside a direct patent, you can have some kind of IP protection in place as well. You can’t be too careful in trying to protect your products from fakes unless you want to be run out of business in no time at all. Product faking is one of the commonest ways your e-commerce business can be quickly driven underground. With such danger lurking around your business all the time, protecting the business by patents is one sure way to remain in the business and to make profits in the long term.