If you really want to grow your ecommerce business over the coming years, you must stay up-to-date on trends and statistics that will impact the industry.
When you own or help run a company that sells products or services online, you’ll need to do a lot to help it grow. Marketing, customer service, and even speedy load times are all important.
Here are some key online numbers that will help you company plan.
1. Don’t Surprise Customers with Shipping Fees
The lesson here is to be frank and clear on the shipping fees for your business. It’s okay to charge for delivery, but you have to make it clear that you are doing so before shoppers get down the sales funnel really far.
If you have a flat-rate charge, for instance, list it directly on your home page or each product page. Alternatively, if you calculate shipping for each individual order, then consider making a note about that fact in the shopping cart — at the very first stage of the process, not the last.
A clear and concise way to do this is to incorporate a “calculate shipping” feature directly within the cart that people can use early on in the checkout process to determine the additional cost.
2. Don’t Insist Customers Create an Account
It’s important to note that many shoppers don’t want to spend more time than they need to complete their order, and are only focused on getting their items, not joining a club.
To avoid losing nearly a quarter of your potential customers due to membership signups, make sure that the checkout design for your website includes a guest checkout option. It’s still great to have a member checkout as an choice for those people that are interested in signing up but who don’t push the shoppers decision.
3. Don’t Underestimate the Influence of Online Reviews
Online reviews are so powerful because customers know that they are typically genuine, not curated and hand-picked by a company. Think about how influential the reviews on Amazon can be for book sales, for instance.
Writer: Irly Nurvitasari
