10 Clever Tactics to Boost Your E-Commerce Sales

Whether you are new to the business or you, have been here for years, generating sales and revenue can definitely benefit your company. However, there will always come the point wherein your business will experience plateaus and declines. It can be the seasonality of your products, the current state of the global economy, or your competitors outnumbering you. Whatever the reason, do not get discouraged. It may only mean that you will need to think of new ways to attract new customers, encourage repeat purchases, and generate sales. That said, we have listed down ten clever tactics that you can do to boost your e-commerce sales.

Work on Your Branding

The way you promote your e-commerce business can have an impact on how people perceive your brand.  Why do you think people prefer to make an online purchase via Amazon? That’s because they are one of the online retail stores that offer the best combination of price and convenience. For your case, this means that you should also figure out your e-commerce business’s unique value proposition, and then work on it. For instance, you pride yourself as one of the few eco-friendly businesses in the region. Then you have to make sure that you also walk the talk. You can do this by delivering your products only on selected days per week to reduce your carbon footprint. You can also opt to use recycled papers and cardboard boxes for packaging instead of single-use plastic. The key here is to know what expectations to set with your customers so you can easily manage it.

Learn to Upsell

Imagine you ordered a Big Mac with fries and drinks at McDonald’s. And then the crew asked if you would like to upsize your fries and drinks. That is what we call “upselling.” Technically speaking, it is offering a more premium product than what your customer intends to buy. Mind you; this is a more cost-effective way of boosting e-commerce sales than to acquire new customers. However, a lot of businesses fail in this part because:

1. They forgot to inform their customers that a premium product is available
2. They forgot to emphasize the difference between the original and the premium items
3. They are upselling the wrong product

Keep in mind that the product you want to upsell should fit what your customer wants. So if a customer is buying a leather purse from your online store, you have to upsell a better leather purse. For instance, she is buying a purse made of synthetic leather, make sure to upsell the same product made of real leather.

Build a Presence on Instagram

With more than a billion monthly active users, there is no denying that a lot of online businesses can thrive on Instagram. Provided that you take compelling images, use hashtags strategically, and knows the right time and day to post. Other than that, IG has a sleuth of features that you can use to drive e-commerce sales. You can choose to start an IGTV channel, integrate Instagram Live in your Digital marketing strategy, or drive customer engagement by creating Instagram Story. But the most useful of them all is the Instagram Shopping feature. It allows you to tag a product on your organic post or IG stories. Thus, giving your followers a direct path to purchase. Regardless of the tactic you will use, keep in mind that there a handful of Instagram marketing ideas that you can use to boost your e-commerce sales.

Launch a Facebook Store

In case you do not know, you can also drive sales using your Facebook page. All you need to do is change your page template into Shopping so you can activate the “Shop” tab.

1. At the top of your Facebook Page, click Settings and then Templates and Tabs.
2. Click the Edit button, which can be found next to your current page template.
3. Look for the Shopping template, click Apply Template, and then OK.

From there, you can launch a store straight from your page. The cool thing about this feature is that you can integrate it if you are using the Shopify platform ‒ making the purchase process as straightforward as possible.

Solve Cart Abandonment Issues

According to the Baymard Institute, the top three reasons customers abandon their cart other than “just browsing” are:

1. Expensive additional costs (e.g., shipping fee and tax)
2. Asking the customer to create an account
3. Complicate checkout process

Surprisingly, these issues can be fixed through design changes and taking customer fulfillment into consideration. For one, consider e-commerce platforms that let you integrate with various payment gateways and order fulfillment service providers. That way, you can lessen your operational costs and lower your additional fee. Second, allow your customers to checkout and make a purchase with ease and without the need to create an account. What’s important is that you get the necessary details to deliver their items.

Send Wishlist Reminders

In relation to reducing your cart abandonment rate, you can also send an automated wishlist reminder to your potential customers. This is to give them a nudge to continue the purchase and for you to generate additional sales. To do this, set up a system wherein you can monitor how long it has been since your customer last checked his wishlist. And then send out an automated email reminder that he has items on his wish list. You can even opt to give him a discount code for some, if not all, of the product in order to make a purchase. Who knows? It may just be the push that he needs to purchase that item finally.

Pre-sell Your Items

Are you considering expanding your product line? The best way to evaluate product demand is to pre-sell it and see how many will place their orders online. For instance, you can promote an upcoming product via Facebook and Instagram, and emphasize that you are accepting pre-orders until a certain date. Depending on the demand, you have two options:

1. Make the product part of your permanent inventory
2. Let the first batch sell out and then move on

Another tactic you can do to pre-sell an item is to list it as out of stock. And then give your potential customers the option to receive an email notification when their choice is available again. When a particular item that is set to be released gets the most back-in-stock notification, it only means that there is a market for this product.

Personalize Your Approach

According to the Boston Consulting Group, companies that invest in personalization are seeing a revenue increase of 6% – 10% than those that do not. With the help of behavioral data, such as your customer’s purchase history and preference, you can leverage personalization to boost your e-commerce sales. You can even integrate it with localization. For instance, you noticed that there is a spike in swimwear sales in California around October every year. On the other hand, people from Maine are busy buying coats around this time of the year. You can personalize your customer’s shopping experience by promoting the best-selling swimwear to people in California (or coat if their IP address says that they are in Maine). This is to ensure that you are making it easy for your customers to make a purchase decision.

Localize Your Marketing Tactics

Aside from personalization, localization is a great tactic to drive e-commerce sales. Here are two ways you can do that:

Run a Local Promotion

Using your digital analytics, see where you have a large customer base. Take note that “customers” mean people who made a purchase on your online store. You may also want to look at the best-selling products in that location, a trend in their purchase behavior, and so on. From there, you can come up with a promotion that is solely for your existing and potential customers in the area. PRO TIP: It is best to tie up your local promotion with an important event or season in the area.

Provide Location-Based Premium Services

This tactic is applicable if you have a warehouse or third-party logistics partners in various locations. For example, your business is based in California, and you have a warehouse in Florida. You can then offer an expedited delivery service for your customers in Florida. This will not just help boost your e-commerce sales; this is also a great way to ensure that you are providing an excellent service.

Reward Your Loyal Customers

As somewhat mentioned earlier, customer retention is one of the most cost-effective ways to increase your online sales. In fact, you can save five times more in customer retention than acquiring new ones. And you can use the money you get to save to reward your loyal customers. When you reward them, there is a big chance that they will post about it on their social media accounts. Thus, piquing the curiosity of the people in their network. Who would not want to be rewarded for their loyalty, right? Doing so can lead to acquiring new customers and boosting your e-commerce sales. Luckily, there are various ways to reward your loyal customers; some of them does not even require monetary incentives:

1. Feature Your Customers. Feature your customers on Facebook or Instagram. Ideally, you should use a picture of them using your products. You may even include a snippet of their positive reviews on the caption.
2. Turn Them Into Affiliates. Another way to reward your loyal customers is by turning them into affiliates. You can provide a link with a tracker code, which they can share with their network, allowing them to earn in commission for every sale they will generate through the affiliate link.
3. Invite Them to an Exclusive Event. It does not have to be a grand ball. It can be just a tour of your warehouse, giving them behind-the-scenes access to your production process. What’s cool about this tactic is that you can use this as part of your brand awareness campaign.
4. Provide an Exclusive Discount. This may not sound like rewarding your loyal customers. However, this is a great tactic to make them feel that they are part of your company’s exclusive group. What you can do is create a pre-order hype among them, and provide a discount or run a promo that is exclusively designed for your loyal customers.
5. Send Some Freebies. Because who does not like some free items?

Conclusion

At the end of the day, the best way to boost e-commerce sales is by providing the best online shopping experience and retaining your loyal customers. After all, who would not want to continuously acquire happy customers and see purchases on a regular basis? That said, it is best that you optimize your e-commerce website and checkout process first. It will be easy to drive traffic and generate sales from there. What other e-commerce tactics can you implement to drive more sales? Let us know in the comments!