If you think selling online is all sunshine and rainbows, you’re both wrong and right.
Selling online is much more complicated than most ecommerce store owners think — especially new ones.
After all, there are mounds of critical factors that you need to consider such as the design of your storefront, product catalog, and more.
However, if you are equipped with tried and tested ideas and strategies to sell online, then the whole thing can also be straightforward.
With the right game plan and mechanism in place, your products will come flying off of your virtual shelves once you start marketing your online store.
Of course, that’s what we’re going to talk about in this guide, the online selling strategies you can use to skyrocket your sales.
1. Elicit a sense of urgency and scarcity.
When you add an element of scarcity, your customers are likely to take action on your offers immediately. They wouldn’t want to miss out on your offer, after all.
Urgency triggers can come in the form of limited-time offers, countdowns to the end of sales and expiration of product discounts, showing the few remaining stocks in the inventory, etc.
Here’s how the 18 Karat Store added an element of scarcity on their website.
18 Karat Store announced on its site header that its massive sale is going on for a “limited time only,” prompting customers to scour the online shop right away before it ends.
When you execute these purchase triggers strategically, you’ll have people buying immediately, as opposed to them procrastinating in their purchase.
2. Boost your SEO.
Boosting your SEO benefits your ecommerce business in several ways.
It can augment your website traffic, online visibility, chances of producing sales, and others.
When shoppers see you on the top search results, they’re more likely to click your site, browse your store, and find what they’re looking for.
Now, to boost your SEO, you need to target the right keywords.
You can do that through tools like SEMrush.
Let me show you how it works.
As an example, I entered “women’s running shoes” as my seed keyword. SEMrush then showed me these results:
SEMrush displayed keyword suggestions and critical indicators such as the average monthly volume, difficulty in keyword ranking, competitive density, and others.
Ideally, you should go for keywords that yield a high volume of traffic but are low in competition. That way, you can increase the chances of appearing on top of the results before your rivals.
3. Provide instant online support.
Customers sometimes have questions that they want to be answered before deciding to buy your product, such as “Does this item have a warranty?” “What’s the material used?” and more.
If they can’t get immediate answers, they can choose to abandon your site and, instead, find other sellers who can provide the information they need to decide on a purchase.
That’s why you need to respond to inquiries swiftly so your shoppers are encouraged to stay and buy on your site.
To do that, you can dedicate a page for FAQs that your shoppers can refer to for basic inquiries.
That’s what SIR The Label did in its site:
Sir specifically set a page for FAQs that its shoppers can refer to. If they still can’t find the answers they’re looking for, Sir indicates a link they can click for customer support.
Besides an FAQ page, you can also install live chat for real-time communication with your shoppers. You can do that with tools such as LiveChat.
LiveChat lets you communicate with your customers in various channels, like on your site, social media accounts, and others.
It uses AI and automation and integrates with other apps to deliver excellent and efficient customer support for your customers while they’re shopping online.
With live chat, you can address inquiries right away, shorten your customers’ buying decision process, and increase your chances of generating sales and revenue.
Bonus tip: FAQ pages and live chat can even help you solve customer problems that may arise later on and maintain your buyer relationships, which are crucial for preserving your sales.
4. Employ reliable payment gateway systems.
Customers are careful when processing online payments.
They want to make sure that their money gets transferred safely to your ecommerce store.
To assure your customers of their money’s safety when transacting with your store, you must employ reliable payment gateway systems on your site — and have multiple options for them.
Once you’ve secured these methods, you can display their logos on your site so your customers immediately know how they can send their payment.
Below is how Toyshades hinted its customers of its store’s accepted payment options:
Toyshades displayed the logos of Visa, MasterCard, Paypal, and other reputable payment gateway systems accepted in its store.
Doing this not only informs your buyers but can also enhance the trustworthiness of your store, which is vital in customers’ buying decisions.
5. Take advantage of testimonials.
Testimonials tell positive experiences and feedback that your buyers have about your product.
When your new shoppers learn from your buyers of your excellent product quality and results, they can be convinced to grab the items on your virtual shelf.
You can post testimonials by individual shoppers, as well as well-known websites, magazines, and others, just like Lifebox did:
Lifebox published on its site what buyers said and what notable media companies wrote about its brand and products.
When its visitors and potential buyers read these positive reviews, they’d be impressed with Lifebox and more highly consider purchasing from it than before.
Remember, with testimonials, you can improve your digital reputation, significantly influence your shoppers in their buying decisions, and multiply your sales and profit.
6. Showcase high-quality photos of your products.
When you display your products, you want them to wow, attract, and entice your shoppers to get their hands on one.
You can do that by showcasing high-quality photos of your products.
Take a look at how NCLA Beauty did so:
NCLA Beauty features a blown-up photo of fingernails flawlessly painted with its peach gelato nail polish, captivating and tempting its shoppers to buy the same item.
High-quality photos, especially large ones, emphasize and magnify the material, detail, and quality of your product.
This not only captures your shoppers’ attention and interest but also allows them to inspect and validate that your product is indeed worth their hard-earned money.
Earn truckloads of profit with these techniques.
Online selling can undoubtedly be a profitable venture when you maximize these and other foolproof techniques.
By implementing them consistently and keeping your customers in mind, you can strategically present your products so that your shoppers can’t resist buying them.
Pair these tips as well with the right tools and platforms so you can enhance your shopping experience and make your buyers want to come back to complete more purchases.
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