Electronic commerce has been a profit-boosting strategy for many keen entrepreneurs. Internet technology has allowed billions of people to do more things online. The pervasiveness of the World Wide Web provided them with numerous platforms to do so.
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Today, e-commerce is pretty much embedded into the general shopping culture. But competition is fiercer than ever. Add the fact that the world is still dealing with a pandemic. These factors make it harder to generate more sales for your online store.
More People Are Shopping Online
The global crisis brought about by COVID-19 has had businesses reeling from the financial blow. But if there’s a silver lining for e-commerce entrepreneurs, it’s the fact that more people are shopping online than ever.
The United Nations Conference on Trade and Development (UNCTAD) conducted a survey on the Coronavirus’s impact on web-based enterprises. The results revealed that the pandemic has sped up the shift toward a more digital world.
Specifically, it has triggered changes in online shopping behaviors that are likely to have lasting consequences.
The survey called COVID-19 and E-Commerce covers ten countries—Brazil, China, Germany, Italy, the Republic of Korea, Russian Federation, South Africa, Switzerland, and Turkey.
More than half of the respondents say they now shop online more frequently. They now also rely on the internet more for health-related information, news, and digital entertainment. Consumers coming from emerging economies are making the greatest shift toward making purchases online.
UNCTAD Secretary-General Mukhisa Kituyi said that how the pandemic has hastened the shift toward online shopping globally shows how important it is for all countries to have access to opportunities offered by digitalization. It’s especially timely now that the world is transitioning from pandemic response to recovery.
“The changes we make now will have lasting effects as the world economy begins to recover,” Kituyi adds.
What Businesses Can Do
Right now, all the craziness from Black Friday and Cyber Monday is starting to wind down. Both big retailers and small online shop owners are gearing up for all that shopping that usually takes place during the Christmas holiday.
It’s a busy time for sure, but it should also be when businesses start planning and coming up with a digital marketing strategy for the coming year.
So, while it’s all hands on deck for online sellers and dropshippers, some of those hands should be busy calculating, writing, and designing ways to boost online sales for 2022.
Photo by Mark König on Unsplash
The Gains from a Solid Digital Marketing Strategy
Any company, particularly one that sells online, needs a digital marketing strategy to guide them in achieving marketing goals. These could range from increasing brand awareness to helping customers find directions to the storefront to an overall increase in sales.
The absence of a clear strategy will make you susceptible to underestimating the demand for the digital services or physical commodities you’re offering. Not only that, it’s likely that you won’t fully understand the dynamics of the online marketplace. You won’t have the necessary data to study and infer from customer behaviors, competitors, and customer profiles.
Different Ways to Boost Sales
A digital marketing strategy with the primary goal of boosting sales can involve various tactics for it to be effective. Below are three that you can incorporate into your online store.
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Streamline the Shopping Process
A robust user experience is essential if you want to get more sales. You could have a top-notch product that’s truly world-class but still not do well because your site is difficult to navigate.
There are a couple of ways to streamline your audience’s shopping experience. One is working on your site speed. You want to make sure your website loads quickly because 47 percent of shoppers expect a website to load in two seconds or less.
Another example is to rethink how your shopping cart and checkout page works. Reduce cart abandonment by ensuring that shoppers can always see their cart and navigate to the payment page with one click.
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Build Trust with Social Proof
Social proof is a tactic wherein you show new visitors that other shoppers and well-known brands trust you. Reviews and testimonials are the best forms of social proof you can add to your business.
Encourage existing customers to leave reviews by sending out reminders to people a week or two after their purchase. People who are genuinely happy with any product or service will want to let the business or company know, and they want others to know too. You can sweeten the deal further by giving visitors an exclusive discount for leaving their honest feedback on your site.
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Add Customer Support Options
Visitors or shoppers on your site would come in and raise concerns about your products or services. In cases like these, a sour encounter could turn into a positive experience if you have a well-trained customer service team.
Make it easy for customers to reach out to you by adding more customer support options. Consider using a mix of chatbots and live chat to assist visitors on the website with the usual inquiries.
A chatbot is an online messaging technology you can use to answer common questions in real-time. It is an excellent way to provide quick resources to customers.
Implementing chatbots into your strategy will save your team time, boost customer satisfaction, and help users with unique or complicated issues.
Finally, use social media as a customer support channel. About 2.74 billion people use Facebook every month. With such a figure, it’s safe to assume that many of your followers on the platform would want to know more about your products or need help with an order. A dedicated social media team will help these people, which can then translate into more sales.
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