How to Enhance Your E-commerce Store

Is your e-commerce business ready to smash through the proverbial glass ceiling? If you want to grow your online store and ultimately propel it right to the very pinnacle of its market, it’s imperative that you put the advice laid out below into practice.

There are two things you must do if you’re serious about taking your e-commerce store to the next level.

Appeal to new audiences

Your current consumer base might provide you with your bread-and-butter profit, but this isn’t the be-all and end-all of your cashflow. You’ll never truly be able to grow and scale your store if you continue to put all of your eggs into one consumer basket, which is why you should seriously consider branching out. Once you start appealing to new, fresh audiences, you will instantly widen your scope with regard to the number of consumers that you are capable of reaching. This will enhance your content engagement levels and, in turn, draw more customers to your product range.

There are a whole host of audiences out there for you to hone in on, the Spanish-speaking market being one of the most profitable. Some 7.5% of all Internet users speak Spanish as their first language, and this percentage is only expected to increase over the coming decade. This is why Spanish SEO cannot be ignored. If you are going to get ahead of the curve in this instance, you should now be doing all you can to appeal to the burgeoning Hispanic/Latino audience.

Worried that your lack of knowledge regarding this audience will hold you back from being able to produce content that actively resonates with them? If so, fear not as help is at hand. A company specializing in Spanish-language SEO will be capable of helping you tailor content around a Spanish-speaking consumer base.

Set up a loyalty program

Serious about taking your e-commerce store to the next level? If so, you’re going to need to lay strong foundations for your future growth by cultivating a core consumer base. Setting up a loyalty program is one of the best things that you can do to achieve this all-important goal. Once people are aware of the fact that they will be rewarded for sticking with your business, your clientele will return to your store time and time again whenever they are in need of the products/services that you provide. Furthermore, loyalty programs are popular across the world, so no matter what market you are targeting, this approach will likely prove effective.

If you want to set up a loyalty program that actively draws clientele back to your store time and time again, you must:

  • Reward your customers when they take a variety of actions on your site
  • Incorporate gamification into your rewards program
  • Integrate a multi-channel customer service system into your transaction process
  • Cultivate credibility through the way you interact with your customers
  • Always go above and beyond to deliver additional value

Share positive experiences regarding your loyalty program

Top Tips for Service-Based Businesses

If you run a service-based business or plan on launching one, you must know how to succeed with this type of company. It is very different from providing a product for a consumer, yet most of the information you find will target product-based businesses. So, how can you find success as a service-based business? No matter what type of service you provide, there are a few handy tips that should help your business to stand out from the crowd, impress your target customer and ensure that you are providing the best possible service.

Have A High-Quality Website

There is a misconception that if you are not selling a product, then the website is less important, but this is not true in the slightest. People will still search online when looking for a service, so you need to have a high-quality website that contains detailed information about the service(s) that you provide, including customer reviews. In addition to this, you should be using digital marketing and social media to increase your visibility online and show your expertise by creating content for your target demographic, you will still need to use a clear and consistent voice across all of your marketing and content to keep your business strong and professional. 

Use Work Order Software

As a service-based business, you will need to stay on top of work orders so that every work order is properly carried out and to satisfy your customers. This can be challenging, but with work order software, it is simple; you can streamline the operation and manage all aspects of orders. This includes creating orders, assigning projects, billing, scheduling, communication, smart lists, and more. This allows you to improve results at every stage of the work order lifecycle, which will benefit both the business and your customers.

Know Your Customer 

The key to success in service-based industries is knowing your customer. Client relationships are critical to success, so you always need to take the time to get to know each customer, understand what their expectations are, and forge a friendly relationship while also maintaining professionalism at all times. You might also find it helpful to keep a record of their wants and needs – if you can remember these, it will reflect on your business well and encourage customer loyalty. 

Be Dependable

As a service-based business, there is nothing more important than being dependable. You do not want to let your customers down as this will cause you to lose customers and will negatively affect your business, which means that dependability and reliability need to be prioritized. This will also mean only accepting what you are realistically able to achieve so that your customers are never disappointed.

Running a service-based business is vastly different from a company that sells products but most of the information that you find online is targeted to the latter groups. Hopefully, these tips will be useful to any service-based business and help you excel, build solid relationships, improve your reputation, and take your service-based business to the next level.

How to Streamline Your eCommerce Store

Once your eCommerce store is open and running, you’re constantly looking for ways of streamlining it and improving its performance. If you’re looking to take your store to the next level, then take a look at these simple streamlining ideas.

Make Sure Your Pages Load Quickly

People don’t want to be waiting ages for your pages to load. Every second a page takes to load its bounce rate increases, and these are potential customers you are missing out on.

Use these tips from blackbeltcommerce.com to find the right Shopify developer, and work on your load speeds. People want things fast, and if your store takes too long to load, then they’re going to go elsewhere for their online shopping.  

Streamline Your Copy

They may seem like words on a page, but your copy is actually very important.

In a brick and mortar business, we recognize the ability of a great salesman to make upsells and boost revenues, but what about on an online store? Your copy is the salesman, and to get the desired effect, it needs to be focused on your goals (to make sales.)

If you recognize that your copy is an essential part of the sales process, and work on crafting the right messages, then you’re going to find your conversions go up.

Use High-Quality Media

One of the advantages a physical store has over an online store is that people get to see the goods with their own eyes and feel them in their hands. We can’t offer that experience with an online store, but we can get as close as possible to it by having high-quality images and video.

People want to see exactly what they’re getting, and the only way to do this is by giving them an accurate picture.

Make sure you’re optimizing all your images and videos, so the files aren’t too large, and give your potential customers the closest thing to feeling the product in their hands.

Build Touchpoints Through Automated Emails

People don’t tend to purchase on their first visit to your store. This means you’ve got to build touchpoints and keep people coming back to your site. One of the ways you can do this is by getting people’s email addresses.

Once you’ve got people’s contact details, then you can create a series of automated emails that are designed to turn them into customers. The important thing is that you’re offering people value in your emails, so think about what they want, not just what you want from this interaction.

The right email series can have a big impact on your sales and help streamline the work you do with your eCommerce store.

Make Payments Easy

Don’t make it difficult for people to pay!

Once people have made that decision to buy from you, you want to make it as easy as possible for them to do so. This means removing barriers such as lengthy forms and minimizing the number of clicks it takes to complete payment.

Think about how simple it is to buy something on Amazon and replicate this as best you can with your store.

Managing Startups: How to Set Your Budding Business Up for Success

While starting a company and getting it off the ground requires plenty of capital and dedication to get the job done, things take a different turn when you have to keep it afloat during its first two or so years. There will be plenty of challenges ahead, as not only do you have to compete with other startups vying for the limelight, but you also have to deal with veterans that overshadow your business before you can even begin.

There is no denying that running a startup is tricky, and even experienced business owners will tell you that it can be more challenging than keeping a large company afloat. Fortunately, trial and error are not necessary to push your startup ahead of the competition. Here are just a few ways to set your budding business for long-lasting success.

On the topic of marketing your startup

There are plenty of ways to market a business, but not a lot of them are ideal for a young business. After all, traditional marketing can be quite expensive while providing no guarantee that people will connect with your company. A few tips to cementing success include:

  • Building a quality website. Keep in mind that most people will only give your site less than ten seconds to figure out whether or not it is worth their time. Ensuring that your website is easy to navigate and sends a clear message within the first ten seconds can do much to get the job done. You can make things even easier by outsourcing the task to quality services such as Expre.
  • Letting family and friends know. Before you even get your startup off the ground, it would be a good idea to ask your friends and family for help, specifically with spreading the word. Their chosen platform will undoubtedly help your business, which brings us to the next step:
  • Pushing social media as far as you can. If there is one platform your business will undoubtedly benefit from, it is social media. A social media platform of your choice provides you with the necessary foundation for marketing success while being entirely free.

The potential of business software

Aside from the tips above to help you market your business, the next step includes making things easier for your staff to get the job done. For example, a startup restaurant might not need too much to get things started, but a lack of business software in the form of a POS system makes things unnecessarily difficult. The same thing goes for many other industries that can benefit from the use of business software. The best part is that there are plenty of variations that can fit your chosen scenario like a glove!

While the tips above are more than enough to set your business up for success, it would also be a good idea to keep a close eye on how your employees operate. Acknowledge the hard work of your staff whenever you can; the results just might surprise you.