Whether you are new to e-commerce or already have experience running an online store, there are things you simply cannot learn from a course book. In my experience, running an e-commerce store has more to it than just creating a website and building its digital footprint. If you want your online business to thrive and make its competitive edge, you must utilize methods that yield higher results in shorter timelines. While there is no magic pill you can swallow or a switch you can flip suddenly summon a flood of sales, there are ways that can filter your efforts from a prism of success. I call them hacks and this article will share 7 top rated hacks that you can use to increase your conversions, boost your sales and build a bigger customer base.
Your Home Page is More than What Meets the Eye
A very common habit among online visitors is that no matter where they land, at one point or the other they will visit the website’s home page. This is where all your business propositions must be concentrated into one digital dashboard. While you can’t afford to miss anything, there is no need to overcomplicate things either. Keep your home page elegant but intuitive, functional but user-friendly. Don’t flood your home page with unnecessary blocks of text, visual content or navigation links. Use every element wisely to make the experience fast, pleasant and meaningful for your customer. Here is an overview of a successful home page design.
- Segregate the content into sections e.g. banner, mission statement, benefits, testimonials, etc.
- Use Above the Fold strategy for the banner, catchphrases, and main features
- Focus on distinctions, things that make your company stand apart
- Explain your unique selling propositions in small digestible bits
- Avoid distracting visual content and features such as pop-ups
- Make sure your contact details are clear and visible
Use FOMO to Your Advantage
Fear of missing out, or FOMO, is a feeling that can be induced within customers so they become more inclined towards purchasing your products. The feeling makes the customer move towards the conversion path so he/she does not miss out the rewarding experiences other customers are having. If used strategically in your online marketing model, it can make a great hack for increasing your conversion rate and boosting revenues.
The idea is to create a sense of urgency by offering limited time, quantity or additional features on your products. Since the practice has shown excellent results in most online marketing models, it serves as a brilliant means for a brand to increase conversions and boost sales. Moreover, it also acts as social proof to your website when you show these details, substantiating a thriving community that keeps purchasing from your store.
Create Self-Explanatory Titles
Your titles play a deciding role in converting a visitor into a customer. Titles are often the first content your readers and search engine algorithms see and establish a key element in any e-commerce website’s
A good title must be able to describe the content the visitor is expecting, engaging them to read further with interesting propositions. Without an appropriate title, you cannot afford to attract the reader and therefore fail to meet your conversion goals.
Give Delivery Options
Without a reliable delivery method, you cannot expect the customer to trust your store and order products. More and more, online shoppers expect their products to be delivered in shorter timelines and in lower shipping rates. Similarly, online merchants seek more cost-effective and reliable means to deliver their products, especially when the recipient is located in just about their logistical reach. This is one of the main reasons why many e-commerce stores fail to meet their sales targets since customers hesitate to shop from stores that have high shipping fees and limited delivery options.
By adding multiple delivery methods, you not only give customers the full authority to choose their preferred means of delivery but help minimize costs and delays associated with courier services. There are numerous extensions available that you can use to add delivery methods without any need of custom integrations. For example, if you have a Magento store, you can use store pickup extension for Magento 2 to add store drop-off options for customers. This allows customers to order products online and have them delivered to your physical store nearest to their location. This helps save shipping charges, delivery time and find product availability before placing the order.
Work on Product Engineering
While digital marketing is a powerful means to increase your e-commerce sales, it is not the only method you can use. Another effective technique to enhance your catalog and improve sales is product engineering. Product engineering is the science of designing a business solution by developing a product that can be successfully produced as an item of sale. While there are numerous hacks to go about it, one of the most underrated practices is creating a “Loss Leader” or “Loss Product”. A loss product is a product type that is produced and sold at a loss to stimulate sales of products that depend on it. For example, video game consoles are loss leaders since they are produced and sold at loss to saturate them into the consumer base. This boosts the sale of video games since gaming consoles require title purchases from the market. Similarly, many online software downloads are offered free but require paid features for full functionality.
Designing products that influence the sale of products that directly complement them is a proven method of boosting sales.
Exhibit Social Proof
Every customer demands to know what their peers like, what their preferences are and why they chose a particular product or service. Here, social proof establishes a key determinant to the conversion process, allowing customers to experience the buying process without being physically present. Social proof is the art of providing evidence of your brand’s successful buying experience through various channels. This includes testimonials, positive reviews, online feedback, ratings, forums, and comments. Ideally, customers seek testimonials from social media networks such as Facebook where your brand must have a corporate account for postings and updates.
Here, reviews matter more than anything so establishing a good relationship with your customer even after services rendered is highly important. Furthermore, you can use customer supplied pictures, company event gallery, social media posts and videos to imbue the “human factor” within your e-commerce website.
If you master the art of social proof, you are far more likely to convince a customer to covert than a website that doesn’t have social proof.
Improve Checkout Experience
For an e-commerce business, the online transaction process is extremely crucial. It takes a considerable effort to get the customer to fill in their credit card details, maintains their trust, and bring them back for repeat business. During the process, the merchant must ensure to the customer that the product is worth buying, their payments are secure and there is no additional information required.
But most importantly, you must make sure the checkout experience is short, straightforward and easy to follow. Having an active strategy to minimize your checkout abandonment is vital to your ROI. This means optimizing your checkout fields so they are relevant, user-friendly and easy to understand.
While there are several ways to go about it, you skip through the hassle of custom integrations and install extensions for that purpose.
Conclusion
So to see what we have gathered, let’s run through a summary of the points we have shared.
- Maximize your efforts on Home Page to make presentable and engaging
- Make your titles attractive and easy to understand
- Use customer psychology into the marketing mix
- Provide convenient delivery options
- Add product engineering to enhance your product sales
- Use social proof to spread your customer’s word of mouth
- Make the checkout process simple and straightforward
While there are numerous tactics to increase your customer’s pool, in this article we have featured 7 most effective hacks from key areas such as digital marketing, web design, functionality integration, customer psychology, and business development. By focusing your efforts on these valuable tips, you can effectively attract more traffic to your site, increase conversions and boost your sales.
