Fuelled by the pandemic, eCommerce growth opportunities have accelerated, and experts predict that by 2040, 95% of consumers will make the majority of their purchases online. According to Statista, revenues are expected to grow at a 3.5% annual rate in the UK alone, resulting in a total market volume of £92,464 million by 2025.
This comes as no surprise to most businesses due to the convenience of eCommerce and this change in consumer behaviour – they expect a higher demand for online shopping even after the pandemic.
But how can they survive and thrive in this new environment? We’ve gathered the best tips from the financial and eCommerce entrepreneurs to help businesses grow:
1. Reward customer loyalty
Dan Kavanagh, Head of Operations at Stor.co, the next generation eCommerce platform for SMEs, advises: “By developing a loyalty program for your store, you can encourage repeat purchases from existing customers. It doesn’t need to be a complicated process either and can be as simple as offering a discount after a set number of purchases.”
2. Answer customer questions on all channels
“Everyone is in. Everyone is investing, but most find themselves unprepared to shift from selling their brand vs the eCommerce necessity of trying to intersect the buyer’s journey and competing on features and benefits,”
Greg Harris, Vice-President of Strategic Services for eZidia, a content writing agency for eCommerce websites
3. Get the word out about your products without breaking the bank
Andrew Youderian, the founder of eCommerceFuel.com, a private online community for independent eCommerce merchants, thinks that “the most important factor for success is the ability to cost-effectively market your brand well and/or create an organic way for your customers to do it for you. You can do this through savvy SEO, cost-effective paid traffic campaigns or by building a product that’s so remarkable and differentiated that your customers can’t help but talk about it […].”
4. Make online payments frictionless
“A smooth payment process that requires little effort from your customers is about enabling them to buy faster, using their preferred payment method, whether that is card, eWallets like Apple Pay or Google Pay, Bank Payments or even cryptocurrencies. It will yield great results as it will considerably reduce cart abandonment as there are fewer steps to complete an online transaction,“
Kevin Dodson, Senior Vice President – General Manager – US at Trust Payments, the global unified payments group for global pay-in, pay-out and customer journey technologies
5. Have a laser-sharp focus on your eCommerce strategy
To fuel your eCommerce growth, bestselling book author Chloe Thomas advises: “[…] you have to first research to identify the methods you believe will be the best for you, then stay focused on optimizing them – don’t get distracted by the 100 ideas that hit your inbox every week. If that method you thought would work hasn’t done as well as you hoped – move on!”
6. Increase conversion and retention with ‘Buy Now, Pay Later’
Brands can boost growth by offering a ‘Buy Now, Pay Later’ (BNPL) option that facilitates the completion of purchases and attracts new customers. Leverage BNPL to help your customers for seasonal use as Brad Lindenberg, co-CEO of a major U.S. BNPL provider, points out:
”Back to school is one of those time periods during the year where families need to outlay money for their kids and really need to buy these things before school starts […] BNPL is a great tool to be able to do that and also budget over the next few weeks as they get paid.”
7. Focus on selling an experience
“In a little over 25 years, we’ve gone from an economy based on scarcity of goods and services to one that offers unimaginable abundance. There’s very little you can sell that can’t be gotten elsewhere. Focus instead on how you sell what you sell. Completely differentiate your customer experience and make sure it’s remarkable. Products come and go, but there will always be a market for truly remarkable experiences,”
Doug Stephens, Founder of Retail Prophet, the retail industry consultancy
The final take-away
The list of advice is not exhaustive for any growing business. Still, the common thread is that your business needs to examine its own metrics and identify what has worked best in the past to support steady eCommerce growth. Then you can build a retention program based on that data.
