As businesses attempt to regain their lost sales from the pandemic, many retailers are turning to ecommerce as their customers shift online to conduct their shopping.
Online sales are expected to become a lifeline for many businesses after the events of 2020 have caused a major change in the way customers across the UK buy. In order to help ecommerce retailers be ready for this shift in 2021, Andy Bojko, Director at Hidepark Leather, has included 3 tips below on how firms can successfully implement small changes to their online business to help them succeed in the next year.
Use your personal connection with customers to your advantage
With Amazon currently dominating the ecommerce market, the competitively priced service is particularly popular among students who use the rapid delivery options for just a small fee each month with a student Prime account. For your business to compete with this, you must focus on the unique selling point you have with customers if you wish to set your brand apart from retailing giants like Amazon.
Amazon benefits from the speedy delivery it is able to offer its customers, however, young generations are also keen to gain more interpersonal connections with brands amongst a sea of faceless corporate giants. Coupling this with the fact that the pandemic has left many consumers wanting to support local firms, small businesses have an excellent opportunity to reach out to their local communities for support. By offering vouchers or discounts to these customers, you can help to instil loyalty in your customers and help convert this audience to make a sale.
Improve customer experiences with the data available to you
To understand what it is that your customers are looking for from your business, you must take the time to analyse your Google Analytics traffic from previous years. This can provide valuable insights as to which products typically perform well in busy periods, which pages are of high value and which pages typically lose customers interest. This data can be used to improve product listings and feed into where products are placed on the website so customers can find their product of choice as easily as possible.
Customer communications must also be seamless in 2021 if businesses really want to stand out from the sea of communication which their audience will receive from other brands. Businesses may achieve this by offering special offers through targeted email marketing or through creating a series of paid advertisements which retarget customers who have previously engaged with the brand. Through this sense of repetition, businesses will work to instil loyalty in their customers and attempt to create a unique brand experience for their audience.
Create a flawless website design for your customers
Customers will be spoilt for choice in 2021, meaning businesses must ensure their website is as simple and easy to use as possible for their customer base if they wish to keep them on their site. To achieve this, businesses should focus on utilising strong call to actions on their site to ensure customers are not lost on their journey and can check out efficiently. A website must also have clear contact details or a contact form for the business so that customers can get in touch with any queries they have when they are using the site.
Many customers are still incredibly wary about giving out their personal information whilst they pay for a product or service, with online security being highly important for these users. To help customers feel comfortable when navigating your website, you should ensure your business has the latest secure financial technology to help reassure customers that their money will be safe once they have handed over their details. By using services such as PayPal and the new ‘buy now, pay later’ offerings from Klarna can act as trust signals to customers when they are looking to convert, so businesses should consider adding a section to the site, perhaps in the header or footer which shows the payment options available to consumers.
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