E-commerce has seen considerable growth in the last few years. The demand has grown even more in 2020 with the COVID-19 pandemic. The rise in the popularity of e-commerce and its practices has been buoyed by the changes in the customer’s buying patterns. Consumers are now looking for convenience when looking for a product to buy.
E-commerce increased from 9.7% this 2022 and is projected to be 10.4% next year. Due to the explosion in digital commerce, more brick and mortar businesses are going online to increase their customer base. The online shopping space is competitive, and you need to stand out to attract potential customers.
Keeping up with the competition may seem like a daunting task in the face of giants like Amazon and eBay. So how do you beat the game? There are best practices in e-commerce that you can implement on your website to help you stay competitive.
Make your website mobile-friendly
A mobile-friendly website is one factor that can help boost your sales. Nowadays, people use their mobile phones when searching for brands. In the third quarter of 2021, 89% of Americans use the internet through a mobile device. People will go online to check for products from their phones, so you should consider this.
Everyone dreads a slow website and most of the time, your visitor will leave because of loading time issues. Speed is vital in retaining customers. Surely, you don’t want to experience that yourself since 80% of people want an easy and mobile-friendly website.
You may have a well-designed website, but it means nothing if it isn’t converting and engaging. A responsive site can help deliver a positive mobile experience. Optimizing your website will help you win customers and make it rank on Google search engine results. Here is a guide on how you can make your website mobile-friendly:
- Decrease loading time. According to studies, 64% of smartphone users expect web pages to load in less than 4 seconds. 74% of mobile users will abandon websites that don’t load within 5 seconds.
- Make it easy to navigate. On a smartphone, finding information can be a challenge. If they can’t zoom in for details on your website on their mobile devices, the more frustrated your customers will become. 94% of respondents said that websites should allow them to find the content they are looking for much easier.
- Easy call-to-action. With a mobile-friendly website, it will be much easier to implement your call to action. Whether it’s to contact you, buy a product, or other tasks, make it easy for your customers. Keep the number of steps in completing a form or transaction to the minimum.
- Never use Flash. Flash results in slower page response and longer loading time. It can also hurt the SEO quality. Furthermore, both Android and iOS do not support Flash.
- Improve site appearance. While it is the content that will generate traffic, it is your site’s appearance that will make them stay longer than 15 seconds. Use large buttons and font sizes and redesign pop-ups and make them mobile-friendly.
Focus on the entire customer experience
Your website shouldn’t be merely focusing on generating sales. It should provide your customers with an opportunity to make them feel special. A PWC study revealed that 86% of buyers are willing to pay more for a better customer experience.
One way of providing an excellent customer experience is to offer loyalty programs. Giving discounts or rewards for loyalty or shopping for a minimum amount can make customers feel special.
As Amazon CEO Jeff Bezos puts it, “Focusing on customers makes a company more resilient.” When customers have an issue, they expect you to reach out and help them. The customer journey does not always happen during office hours. Make sure that there are other channels available to accommodate customer concerns.
Be proactive
Completing an online purchase can be challenging for customers, and 83% of them will most likely need help. Also, 70% of sales will depend on how they felt they were treated during the transaction.
One thing is clear, though. Customers wouldn’t do business with you again if they experienced unsatisfactory service. You can prevent this from happening by delivering proactive customer support. Here are some tips on how to deliver proactive customer service:
- Inform them of any problems in advance before they find out for themselves.
- Follow up on customers. Send them an email asking if they are satisfied with their purchase, or thanking them for buying your product.
- Keep track of what customers are saying on social media. They like to voice their feedback or opinions about their experience with your brand on their preferred platform.
- Fix the most frequently reported concern to reduce the number of support tickets. It will result in enhanced customer satisfaction.
Capture customers from all channels
In today’s e-commerce industry, just one or two communication channels won’t suffice. It would be best to build an online presence such as websites, social media, email, phone, and others.
Why is this important? Because 73% of customers use several channels throughout their journey. When creating an omnichannel strategy, your objective is to ensure a seamless experience for your customers. Your omnichannel strategy should cover the following:
- Identification of customer’s preferred touchpoints.
- Understanding of the customer journey and engaging them across touchpoints.
- Ensuring consistent experience throughout their customer journey.
Personalize your homepage
Adding a personal touch is an excellent way of making your website stand out. Studies show that 85 percent of customers are likely to buy when a site’s homepage is personalized.
9 out of 10 marketers rank homepage personalization as a major factor in a successful and profitable business. Homepage customization used to be a challenge. Now, there are many tools that can help you personalize your webpages. Tools like Hyperise, Google Optimize, Optimizely will come in handy for creating a personalized homepage.
Add product reviews
Product review is one of the best strategies for making your e-commerce website stand out. These days, people tend to buy online. When customers purchase something on a website, they check out reviews about that product first. The Digital data reveals that 88% of online customers look at product reviews before buying an item, while 39% says that having at least 100 reviews makes it reliable.
Getting customer reviews can be tricky. They may not have time to go to your website to leave one to two sentence product reviews. These tips will help you get customer reviews easily and quickly.
- Make it easy. Make your review process as simple as possible. Keep the number of clicks to the minimum.
- Find out where your customers are. Customers have their favorite platforms, so send the review invitation there. They wouldn’t create an account on a platform they are not familiar with just for review purposes.
- Timing is everything. When is the right moment to leave a review? It will depend on the product or service you are offering. For example, ride-hailing apps like Lyft or Grab will usually ask for a review after using the service.
- Give something in return. Giving incentives for leaving a review is one of the most effective tactics you can use. They will be encouraged to leave a review if you give incentives such as discount codes, gift cards, or reimbursement of the shipping cost.
Once customers leave a review, make sure that you respond. It is not necessary, but it can contribute to a positive customer experience.
Invest on Live Chat
According to a report by Econsultancy, 79% of customers who prefer to use live chat said they did so because it provides immediate solutions to their problems. With live chat, customers don’t have to wait longer for customer service to respond to their questions.
The American Marketing Association reveals that using live chat can increase conversion by at least 20%. Adding this software to your website, compared to other channels, offers the following benefits:
- Real-time connection. With live chat, your customers can easily and quickly get connected to the concerned agent. At first contact, you can quickly identify the problem and find a resolution for it.
- Multitasking. Multitasking is a benefit for both the agent and the customer. For agents, it allows them to perform multiple tasks while handling customer concerns. It helps improve their efficiency by taking various transactions at the same time. Meanwhile, 51% of customers prefer to use live chat for multitasking. They can get immediate answers while shopping and doing other tasks.
- Most preferred channel. Customers find comfort in communicating with agents through messaging. Customers may not be available during office hours. With messaging, they can send product inquiries at any time. If there is no agent available at the time of sending, the query can be answered later.
An Effective E-Commerce Practice is the Key to Success
The e-commerce industry is a highly competitive one. As the popularity of online shopping continues to grow, you need to step up with your e-commerce call center services to beat the competition. These best practices are vital to winning customers to your side.
One CoreDev IT (CORE) is an employer of record company and has been backed by BPO experience in the industry. We take pride in providing 24/7 customer service for the satisfaction of our customers. Get in touch with us for assistance in finding the right solution for your business needs.
