5 Online Selling Tips for E-commerce Website Optimization

76% of US consumers shop online. Find out how you can boost your online sales.

These days, it’s crucial for US retailers to have a smart, seamless, and secure e-commerce website. In this digital retail era, Americans can enjoy a personalised shopping experience at home. In their pajamas. At 3am.

But with unlimited online shopping options, consumers are savvier with shorter attention spans – they’ll click away as soon as they spot a flaw, encounter delays, or feel like they could find a better, cheaper product elsewhere.

This puts pressure on you, the online retailer, to maintain a powerful e-commerce platform that drives online sales and instils trust in your customers. To help you out, the team at State Creative have come up with 5 ways to increase sales and create customer loyalty.

5 ways to build a powerful online shopping platform

1. Introduce a live chat: engage with your customers!

The average response time to email queries is 12 hours.

Whether you’re selling clothing, candy or cannabis – you can guarantee that your customers will have questions about your products. And people are impatient. If you can’t address their concerns quickly, they’ll ditch their cart and spend somewhere else.

3 ways live chats help you increase online sales:

1. Improve customer service: engaging directly with your customers will build trust and loyalty. Modern shoppers love to communicate via instant messaging.
2. Reduce cart abandon rates: answering a query instantly will encourage shoppers to stay on your site and follow-through with their purchase.
3. Gain customer feedback: you’ll be able to collect and respond to feedback more easily than via email – and chances are, customers will be more honest over an instant message!

Larger companies often have the resources to set up live chats with a real person behind the screen, but smaller businesses can create the same personalisation through clever automation. Either way, keep your customers engaged with real-world responsiveness that leads to increased online sales. Talk to us about how you can implement live chat in your website!

2. Measure your analytics: discover opportunities by measuring traffic and hot spots!

Without website analytics tools, you’re effectively running your e-commerce website blind.

Metric analysis tools can answer:

1. Which products are selling?
2. Who is buying them?
3. Where are customers coming from?
4. What’s their ‘click’ journey to get to their desired product?

This information is crucial. With these insights, online retailers can create responsive marketing campaigns and special offers to increase online sales – because they now know how their customers behave, and what they want!

Conduct regular tests of how customers navigate your website, what draws them in, and what they ignore. Website analytics are vital to discover what works online, and what doesn’t. And trust us when we tell you, you will find patterns with your online sales. We’ll help you assess your site for e-commerce optimization.

3. Automate communications: strategic messaging will bring customers back!

69% of shopping carts are abandoned.

Fleeing from the counter at Sephora is a little awkward, but online shoppers are notorious shopping cart-bailers – especially at the point where they’ve entered their shipping details, but the final total is a bit too steep!

This is where an automated email system can help you out, coaxing back the cart-bailers with a meaningful reminder – or a sneaky discount!

Automation is a crucial feature for e-commerce website optimization. You might think automation and personalisation don’t go hand-in-hand when creating the perfect online shopping experience, but think again.

Many successful e-commerce websites use automation for:

1. Reminders for abandoned shopping carts
2. Welcome emails for new sign-ups
3. Regular newsletters introducing new stock or retail updates

Creating this strategic feature will help you drive sales and build a rapport with online customers, because you’re demonstrating responsiveness and a personalized service that makes them feel valued. Invest in automation to give your customers an engaging experience.

4. Offer coupons and ‘subscribe and save’: discounts will entice hesitant shoppers!

While Black Friday is the extreme, online retailers can effectively boost online sales by offering coupons to incentivize shoppers who are a little hesitant to click “Order”.

The thing about coupons is that they increase customer loyalty, and you can use that to your advantage by exchanging a coupon for a customer’s personal details.

This is one of the smartest strategies for e-commerce website optimization. For a 10% discount, online retailers can build a solid database for email marketing, effectively:

1. Building your customer base: with a growing database for email marketing, newsletters, and promotions.
2. Creating customer loyalty: because people stick with your brand over another that is stingy and unresponsive.
3. Increase online sales: by giving hesitant shoppers the perfect reason to hit ‘Order’ – it’s discounted!

And the ‘subscribe and save’ method is great for customers who keep returning for the same product multiple times throughout the year. Save them time and secure ongoing revenue by introducing a subscription model – it works out cheaper for them, and you show great customer service by responding to trends!

5. Integrate useful pop-ups: create an interactive shopping experience!

A unique and effective online selling tip is to use pop-ups – but we don’t mean the dodgy kind that you avoid when trying to stream a movie. When used tastefully and strategically, pop-ups can create an interactive and persuasive online shopping experience.

Here’s how you can use pop-ups on your e-commerce website to boost online sales:

1. “Subscribe to our email newsletter and receive a discount!”
2. “Customers who bought this item also bought…”
3. “Order in the next hour and get free shipping!”

And that wraps up our 5 online selling tips for e-commerce website optimization. Now you know what you need to do to boost online sales – and ensure an enjoyable online shopping experience for your customers. Want to optimize your website for more sales? Talk with us!