Best Ecommerce Growth Strategies That You Are Not Using

The eCommerce industry is a versatile industry that is growing and evolving day in, day out. Staying on top of your game requires you to constantly monitor trends, your rivals, and other factors that may impact your business.

In order to constantly grow as an online retailer, you need a comprehensive strategy and consistent work. In other words, once you build and gather a solid customer base, you have to continue growing. 

But, how do you do that? What can you do to set yourself apart from your rivals and gain the edge over them? 

Below you will find various strategies that may not be as prominent as some that are the most popular and widely used in the industry.

 

Consider targeting other groups

It goes without saying that targeting your ideal buyers is a must. That’s why creating your ideal buyer persona is something that you need to do before you even start implementing your first growth strategy.

But, why stop there? Placing all your focus on the main target audience is a priority, but you will benefit from targeting other groups too. You just need to be wise to target the right ones.

For example, if you are primarily selling to college students, you may want to figure out whether you should expand to other markets, that is, to target other audiences. For a start, you can try and target teenagers.

Another good example would be expanding your audience to stay-at-home moms if you are already targeting working moms.

Keep in mind that the audiences have to share something in common in order for this to work. The goal is to align the new audience with some vital features of the ideal buyer persona. That is a great way to acquire new customers and ensure growth. 

 

Include great product descriptions along with great photos

Many sellers often undermine the importance of a good product description. Some even underestimate the power of a good, high-quality photo of a product. Needless to say, these practices should be avoided altogether.

First of all, you need to know that the description can either persuade or dissuade a customer from buying a product. Also, if there are no photos of your products, well, the item will seem sketchy. Why would someone buy a product without getting a chance to see what it looks like?

An even worse thing that a seller can do is include photos that are low-resolution, full of pixels, or heavily edited. Usually, these kinds of photos are characteristic of scammers.

So, in order for your products to be attractive, you need to write a clear description that says everything about the value proposition to potential buyers. Details like features, problems it solves, and other benefits need to be included in the description.

In addition, you need to invest some effort (and potentially money) into having great photos of your products. For example, if you are selling clothing garments, you shouldn’t just place those items on the floor and take photos of them.

Instead, you need to kick things up a notch and maybe consider hiring a model or using the ghost mannequin effect. A fine-looking model is always appealing to customers but using the ghost mannequin effect will also do a great job. 

 

Sell through Amazon

In order for your products to stream out and for your income to rise, you need to spread to other markets. Of course, you need to sell products on your own store, but also consider spreading your presence to another marketplace.

One of the best (if not the best) marketplaces nowadays for eCommerce is undoubtedly Amazon. Amazon is a proven marketplace that is extremely popular nowadays. 

On top of that, Amazon’s infrastructure is difficult to compete with. The company has invested millions of dollars in infrastructure and technology to create an amazing buying experience regardless of platform. 

Amazon’s ecosystem is almost impossible to replicate or beat, and that is why it would be wise to join it. It doesn’t have to be your primary online sales channel, but you will have a higher chance of getting noticed as a brand there.

Just beware of infringers and unauthorized sellers on Amazon. Unfortunately, there are people who list other people’s products and sell them under a minimum advertised price. Not only can that hurt your sales, but it also destroys brand value by creating channel conflict. Hence, Amazon brand protection is an issue that should be considered.

Therefore, you should do the thinking first and protect yourself before you wander into this huge marketplace.

 

Re-evaluate your store builder

This may not be a strategy per se, but no strategy can work without a good foundation. But what is the foundation in this case?

It is the platform you use to build your eCommerce store. It is possible to create a website that would be free to build (excluding hosting and domain name). However, with an eCommerce website, things become a little tricky.

Given that you are building an eCommerce website to make money, the website will require some heavy features and widgets. Obviously, you won’t find a good builder for your online store free of charge.

Great builders are packed with multiple options and features. They will offer store integration, abandoned car recoveries, as well as payment gateways, product support, design choices, and so on.

Therefore, it is recommended to check whether you are using the right platform. You could compare Shopify vs. Squarespace, or BigCommerce vs. WooCommerce, and so on.

Just remember, you need a good foundation for a good business, especially if you want to grow it. If you start things off on the wrong foot, you can’t really expect great results afterward. 

 

Optimize the checkout process

Even though there are many studies that emphasize the importance of the checkout process when it comes to customers’ purchasing decisions, many still don’t invest necessary effort into optimizing it.

If you want to keep cart abandonment at a minimum, you have to optimize your checkout process. Even though this is something that the vast majority of online retailers fail to realize, that doesn’t mean that you should do the same.

Think of all the efforts you put into getting your potential customers to the point where they are only a few clicks away from making a purchase. Why should a complicated checkout process make all those efforts go to waste?

To make your checkout as smooth as possible, you can:

• add multiple checkout buttons
• make the process as secure as possible
• keep the number of form fields at a minimum
• offer a guest checkout option
• optimize the process for mobile users too

The checkout process has a great impact on conversion rates. And, when you don’t have decent conversion rates, you can’t really expect to grow.

Therefore, carefully consider whether it’s easy and quick for your customers to purchase something from your store. Don’t fail at the last step, and make sure to minimize the risk of losing shoppers during checkout.

Contributed by Dave Schneider, the marketing manager at Albacross, the free B2B lead generation platform. In 2012 he quit his job to travel the world, and has visited over 65 countries. In his spare time, he writes about SaaS and business at DaveSchneider.me.