E-Commerce Seller Financing   •   November 25, 2019

Regardless of what stage your e-commerce business is, boosting your sales can always benefit your business.

However, e-commerce businesses tend to go through ups and downs and sales often fluctuate. Don’t worry if that happens as it’s natural for any business to go through more and less lucrative periods.

Therefore, your business and the strategies that you are using should always keep evolving so that you keep satisfying your customers and bringing in sales.

Let’s take a look at what strategies you can apply to boost your e-commerce business’s sales.

Strategies to Boost E-commerce Sales

1. Target Your Past Customers

It’s a common assumption for many businesses that they should be continuously reaching new customers to make more sales. In fact, bringing back and retaining existing customers is not only cheaper, but also yields higher revenue.

Past customers not only are already familiar with your brand, but also are more likely to add more products to their cart and consider more expensive products as well.

That doesn’t mean that you should only focus on past customers. Ideally, you should be continuously working on both – converting new buyers and encouraging past customers to buy from you again.

2. Make Sure Your Site Is Secure

While you may think that purchases on your site are secure, your potential buyers do not know that especially if they are unfamiliar with your brand.

From 2012-2017, 46% of Americans experienced credit card fraud. So, since 2018, Google has made a point to prioritize sites that use a secure HTTPS connection rather than an unsecured HTTP one. In certain instances, search engines may even display a warning that prevents visitors from accessing a site that’s not secure.

So, if you haven’t secured your site yet, it’s a good idea to do so. You can do that by installing an SSL certificate. Some hosting companies may offer a free one; however, certain hosting companies may require you to pay for an SSL certificate.

Additionally, you can also display different security badges, such as Norton Secure, MacAfee Secure, PayPal Verified, and others.

3. Offer Various Payment Methods

You may be missing out on a lot of purchases if you only accept  Visa and Mastercard payments. People have different payment preferences and abandon their shopping cart if you do not support them.

Therefore, make sure to offer a variety of payment methods including a variety of cards, debit card payments, and PayPal. Since mobile payments are becoming increasingly popular, you may want to consider Apple Pay, Android Pay, and Samsung Pay, as well. They speed up the payment process and make it much easier and straightforward for the buyer.

4. Provide Video Demonstrations

Videos are becoming an increasingly important marketing tool. An increasing number of marketers use them, and their effectiveness speaks for itself.

So, you can use that in your favor. Use videos to demonstrate how your product looks or how it can be used. You can also demonstrate different models, colors, sizes, and so on. This can provide your potential customers with a more multi-dimensional view of your product and boost your sales.

If your budget allows that, you can look into contracting a professional to film your products. However, that’s not a must. You can also use your smartphone as most modern models come equipped with powerful cameras. If you do so, make sure that your sound is great and that you’re using enough light.

5. Add Photos to Customer Testimonials

Credibility is essential for your e-commerce store to increase your potential customer trust and boost your e-commerce sales.

Customer reviews can considerably boost your e-commerce store’s sales. Nonetheless, nowadays, faking reviews is an easy feat.

To make sure that your reviews don’t come off as fake, consider asking your customers to add a photo of their experience with our product. This can especially useful if your store has social media channels.

You can create a hashtag that is specific to your e-commerce business and ask your customers to post their photos with your product as tag you to let you know. You can even incentivize them with a special offer or an entry to a giveaway, especially if your following isn’t large.

Later, you can repost these reviews on your social media channels demonstrating that your products are real and your customers are satisfied and valued.

6. Offer Discounts and Holiday Promotions

Discounts are always useful to help customers make a decision and buy your product. Therefore, brands often use them to boost their e-commerce sales. Discounts can be especially effective before and during holidays since most e-commerce businesses use and buyers expect them.

Therefore, it is a good idea to regularly brainstorm discount and promotion options. It doesn’t always have to be around holidays. If your store features seasonal products, you can run a special promotion before the season starts to meet the increasing demand. For instance, if you sell clothing, you can run a promotion on swimsuits before summer starts and a promotion on sweaters in early fall.

Do you have special tricks on how you boost your e-commerce store’s sales? Which do you find to be the most effective and why?