Each year retailers look forward to seasonal events, counting on their e-commerce site to boost sales.
Whether you are working on getting your website ready for the upcoming holiday season, Valentine's Day, Easter or another event, here are some tips to help your site visitors hit that "buy" button.
Whether you are working on getting your website ready for the upcoming holiday season, Valentine's Day, Easter or another event, here are some tips to help your site visitors hit that "buy" button.
The slower your web pages load, the more customers abandon your e-commerce site resulting in lost revenue.
According to an infographic published by Kissmetrics, a 1 second page delay of an e-commerce site that is making $100,000 per day, could potentially cost the company $2.5 million in lost sales every year.
According to an infographic published by Kissmetrics, a 1 second page delay of an e-commerce site that is making $100,000 per day, could potentially cost the company $2.5 million in lost sales every year.
Keynote Systems publishes weekly its Retail Performance Index which you can use to benchmark the performance of your e-commerce site against the leaders in the industry and compare it to the industry average.
Keynote Retail Performance Index
Optimize the shopping experience for the multi-screen customer.
Gone are the days where shoppers used just PCs to purchase from a site. In the post-PC world, tablets and smartphones are increasingly becoming part of consumers’ daily lives. Consumers may be searching on one device and making their purchase on another. Therefore, your e-commerce strategy should focus on providing an optimal shopping experience across all screens.
Each shopper is at a different buying stage.
Not everyone is ready to buy when they visit your site. Formissimo claims that 68% of shoppers abandon their cart before they complete their purchase. Similar to what we experience in brick-and-mortar stores, one reason that could be contributing to abandonment is that a visitor may simply need more time to research for the best value before deciding to buy from your site.
Because each shopper is at a different stage of the buying cycle you have to work hard to market and nurture them until they are ready to re-engage and buy. Nurturing is about building a relationship with your customers and it is not just limited to email anymore. Interactions through social media and chat also play an important role in influencing a purchase.
Continue to engage the customer after the sale.
It is much cheaper to cross-sell or up-sell to existing customers than trying to find new ones. Yet many companies ignore a customer after the sale. Measure how many times a customer returns to your site to purchase and use this metric as one indicator of how well your e-commerce business is doing.
Use timing to drive purchases.
The timing of your emails plays an important role in driving sales. I recently traveled to Barcelona for a business meeting. Like many travelers do, before my trip, I searched for hotel accommodations through several websites including Booking.com. I did not book a place immediately. Based on my searches on their site, Booking.com had now valuable information which they put to good marketing use. The company instantly started reaching out to me with a series of emails that provided a range of different accommodations for Barcelona. By timing their emails to when it mattered to me, they focused on satisfying my immediate need and prompted me to take action that would turn into revenue for them.
You can’t improve what you don’t measure.
There are many tools today that can give you tremendous insight into your site visitors. Use the power of analytics to understand your customer data, purchase behavior and cart abandonment, and design marketing campaigns that will bring your shoppers back to your website and turn them into buyers.
Need help with your marketing strategy & execution? Contact us.
Gone are the days where shoppers used just PCs to purchase from a site. In the post-PC world, tablets and smartphones are increasingly becoming part of consumers’ daily lives. Consumers may be searching on one device and making their purchase on another. Therefore, your e-commerce strategy should focus on providing an optimal shopping experience across all screens.
Each shopper is at a different buying stage.
Not everyone is ready to buy when they visit your site. Formissimo claims that 68% of shoppers abandon their cart before they complete their purchase. Similar to what we experience in brick-and-mortar stores, one reason that could be contributing to abandonment is that a visitor may simply need more time to research for the best value before deciding to buy from your site.
Because each shopper is at a different stage of the buying cycle you have to work hard to market and nurture them until they are ready to re-engage and buy. Nurturing is about building a relationship with your customers and it is not just limited to email anymore. Interactions through social media and chat also play an important role in influencing a purchase.
Continue to engage the customer after the sale.
It is much cheaper to cross-sell or up-sell to existing customers than trying to find new ones. Yet many companies ignore a customer after the sale. Measure how many times a customer returns to your site to purchase and use this metric as one indicator of how well your e-commerce business is doing.
Use timing to drive purchases.
The timing of your emails plays an important role in driving sales. I recently traveled to Barcelona for a business meeting. Like many travelers do, before my trip, I searched for hotel accommodations through several websites including Booking.com. I did not book a place immediately. Based on my searches on their site, Booking.com had now valuable information which they put to good marketing use. The company instantly started reaching out to me with a series of emails that provided a range of different accommodations for Barcelona. By timing their emails to when it mattered to me, they focused on satisfying my immediate need and prompted me to take action that would turn into revenue for them.
You can’t improve what you don’t measure.
There are many tools today that can give you tremendous insight into your site visitors. Use the power of analytics to understand your customer data, purchase behavior and cart abandonment, and design marketing campaigns that will bring your shoppers back to your website and turn them into buyers.
Need help with your marketing strategy & execution? Contact us.
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