With businesses back to normal operations and customers returning to stores, many small online retailers are working hard to retain the customers they’ve acquired during the pandemic. And while competition is fierce, there are some steps eCommerce businesses can take to improve customer loyalty, increase online profits, and stay ahead of the game. To help you level up your approach, check out the following strategies from Readersfact.
Enhance the Mobile Shopping Experience
Your eCommerce store should be mobile-friendly, fast-loading, and hassle-free—or you may risk losing customers. Here are some things to keep in mind as you optimize your eCommerce store for mobile devices:
- Pages should load within three seconds or less. If they don’t, customers may abandon their carts and move on to a competitor. Google’s Mobile-Friendly Test can help you to check the mobile-friendliness of your eCommerce store and determine whether any changes should be made to your website’s design.
- All calls to action (CTA) should stand out. Keep them short, bold, and straightforward to reduce distractions and increase conversions.
- Simplify the checkout process. Accept multiple payment methods (like Apple Pay and PayPal), and avoid unnecessary steps at checkout (such as requiring customers to create an account).
Standing out in a crowded online retail market isn’t easy, but a great customer experience will put you ahead of the competition. If you need to make some capital investments to bring your mobile web experience up to standard, but you lack the funds, be sure to have a look at your credit score before pursuing a loan. The better your score, the more likely you’ll be able to secure favorable terms on your loan.
Increase Brand Awareness
In addition to enhancing the mobile shopping experience, you’ll be better positioned to increase profits when you increase your brand awareness. You could partner with influencers, create quality content and custom graphics for your website with help from a freelancer, and run paid online ads and affiliate marketing programs. You could even write guest posts for other websites and blogs, run contests and giveaways, or launch your own podcast. All of these efforts will help to increase brand awareness—and as a result—your profits.
Of course, it never hurts to have marketing professionals on your side when it comes to boosting brand awareness. Remember, this is their wheelhouse, and creating a solid marketing strategy is their superpower.
Build an Email List
Even if you’re using social media to reach your existing customers and communicate with your target audience, it’s worth building an email list or growing your current one. Your email list can be used to encourage repeat purchases, contact customers directly, and send reminders if shoppers abandon their carts. And if for some reason your social media accounts are hacked and you lose access to your followers, you’ll still be able to reach your valued customers via email. Without an email list, you might lose those followers forever and have no way of reaching them.
Consider investing in CRM (customer relationship management) software, which will allow you to keep track of your clients and communicate with them, along with generating new leads. There are different resources that will fit the size and needs of your business. Once you adopt a CRM, you’ll wonder why you didn’t do it sooner!
Consider a Restructure
If you’ve been running your eCommerce business as a sole proprietorship, it may be wise to restructure to save money and protect your venture. The easiest way to do this is to convert to an LLC. LLCs offer personal liability protection for business owners. This means that if your business is sued, your personal assets won’t be at risk. And because LLCs are considered separate legal entities from their owners, they can take advantage of certain tax breaks.
An LLC also gives your business a professional image and can help you eventually attract investors. If you’re not sure how to start an LLC, look to an online service that can walk you through all the necessary steps. In many cases, you can get this done in a matter of hours or a few days.
You’ll likely need to submit a combination of online forms and PDFs of important required documents, so it’s helpful to get familiar with a few free PDF tools. Simply drop the files into a merge tool, arrange them as you need, and save the new combined file. Then it is ready to send for your registration!
The Bottom Line
To keep your eCommerce business going strong after the pandemic and well into the future, it’s important to expand your business knowledge, enhance the mobile shopping experience, increase brand awareness, and build an email list. These strategies will boost your profits and prepare your eCommerce store to conduct business in a highly competitive post-pandemic world.
Looking for more helpful tips about developing your eCommerce business? Then add Readersfact to your weekly e-reading list!