E-Commerce industry has been experiencing steady growth over the years and is expected to keep growing. It has even been predicted by many that global retail e-commerce revenue will amount to over $4.6 trillion by 2021.
Do your products have no real online presence? If the answer is no, now is the time to hop on that train! Here are a few trends you should be following to boost sales on your site.
Personalization
Have you ever opened up Amazon only to realize that the first page and all the recommended items for sale seem to fall directly in line with all your past interests and purchases? Well, you are not alone, websites such as Amazon and others use personal data such as previous search entries and purchase histories to develop a specific profile for each costumer. In turn, this allows Amazon to better tend to their consumers’ needs by creating a personalized experience. This type of customization is not only being used on Amazon but by other smaller sites as well. This trend will continue as personalization tech becomes easier to integrate into online shopping platforms.
Another way you will see personalization popping up in e-commerce sites are subscription boxes. Sites like Stitch Fix offer to send you clothes each month based on a style quiz you take when you make an account. These are personalized boxes that are specific to the customer and their needs. Even big brands like Nordstrom have taken up on this trend. They are not just for clothes! You can get a subscription box for just about anything ranging from food, makeup, video games, even one for your dog.
AI Chatbots
You will see Chatbots all over online stores these days. These bots are designed to enhance your consumers shopping experience by allowing them a chance to get answers in real time. This feature allows your company to address your consumers concerns in real time while also gaining valuable feedback on your consumers shopping experience, interests, etc.
AI assistants are capable of handling a handful of duties that normally tasked to a human. These tasks include, but are not limited to, overseeing inventory, managing the bookkeeping process, and fulfilling customer service needs. These assistants are wonderful employees for due to the fact that their skill set is ever-growing and by being so capable these AI chatbots can take on a lot of time consuming tasks while not being as expensive as hiring a new employee. This allows you to ignore tedious tasks so that you can focus on running your business. While you scheme and strategize on how to better your business your AI chatbot will continue to evolve and learn from past experiences and consumer interactions. This means that your AI chatbot is always learning so that the consumers personalized shopping experience is as optimized and streamlined as possible. The good news is that they are not hard to set up! Many tools like HubSpot’s Chatbot Builder allow you to create your own bot for free.
Interactive Images
A good product image is vital for your e-commerce site. Consumers need to see the product when they are buying online, this means that they want multiple images with the option to zoom in and see the product in detail. Pictures are not just 2-Dimensional on websites anymore, there are a number of sites who have switched to using three dimensional (3D) pictures to showcase their products. This allows consumers to click, drag, and see the product from every imaginable angle while they rotate the product on the screen. This 3D picture technology is advancing rapidly so we can expect to see much more of this in the future. This is the wave of the future, but in the mean time a good substitute to 3D picture display is to accompany your pictures with a few quick videos on the site.
Facebook Ads
Facebook is one of the most powerful advertising platforms in existence. Facebook allows you to target people with a level of specificity that is hard to recreate. They have accrued so much data on their users that they can target the most unique and specific target markets allowing companies to advertise with ease.
First you will want to find a specific product you want to showcase on your ad. This product, whatever it may be, fulfills a need or a purpose, this need is unique to a certain group of consumers and that is who we are going after. It is best to run a few ads simultaneously while you are figuring out what works best for the audience you are targeting. After a couple weeks of testing you should be able to tell what is working best and what isn’t. The ads that aren’t working can be taken down while effective ads can be left in place. Remember to keep updating them though! People will lose interest if they keep seeing the same ads.
Instagram Marketing
Instagram is a very powerful tool for growing your brands popularity and sales. 65% of people on Instagram are looking for online shopping inspiration or for new brands to use. So if your brand doesn’t have a stellar Instagram presence then you are missing out on a lot of sales.
Instagram allows you to market your products as you want, bolster your brand’s presence and image, and connect to your customers. If you want to read more about creating an effective instagram post click here.
Email Marketing
Email marketing is one of the most popular marketing strategies because many people check their email everyday. Email marketing allows you to send promotional ads to people on your email list. Just today, I’ve received a promotional email from Dominos Pizza offering me 50% off all menu pizzas. Additionally, I also received one from backcountry.com offering free shipping and highlighting some of their new products. These emails are meant to catch my attention and make me start shopping. Sending the occasional email with the announcement of a sale or telling customers about new products helps get people to your site.
How do you start an email list? Well, you need a good offer for them to be willing to give up their email address. For example offer a 10% discount on a product or service that will be sent via email. Or offer a free e-book or informational pamphlet. These are just a few ideas but the options are really endless and every email you gain is a victory because it is one more consumer you can target for as long as you have their email.
Content Marketing
Creating content for your site gets your site more recognition from search engines like Google. This consists of all the data on your website including blogs, videos, and any other information or images you have up there.
Many companies have found that writing blogs about their niche community really brought traffic to their website. In those blogs you can highlight a service or product you sell promoting sales. This also works with youtube videos.
However make sure you are making content for subjects that have search demand to ensure you aren’t just adding useless and uninteresting content.
