Setting up an eCommerce business offers entrepreneurs more freedom to pursue their ideal lifestyle. Better work-life balance, flexible working hours, no boss to answer to, you name it.
However, if you want to scale up your eCommerce store into a truly big and successful business, there are certain steps that you have to take first.
Here are 10 top tips to running a successful eCommerce business.
1. Offer fast and free shipping
One of the downsides of online shopping is that the customer is unable to touch, feel, or try out the actual product before making a decision. This is when you can offer good pricing or free shipping to compensate for the problem.
Customers are more likely to pay for something online if there is fast and free shipping as there are fewer risks involved in the process. A study found that 80% of online shoppers state shipping price and speed as their main reasons for choosing where to shop.
2. Simplify the process
While there are downsides, the great thing about online shopping is the convenience factor. Customers nowadays have very little patience for long waits for orders or complicated return policies.
Go through the entire shopping process as a customer and figure out what’s working and what can be improved on. You have to ensure that your customers are not abandoning their cart and purchasing from your competitors because you’re not simplifying the check out process enough.
To do this, you can save billing, shipping, and payment information to save time for repeat customers. Another way is to provide common payment options such as PayPal to speed up the payment process.
3. Build links (and relationships)
High-quality and relevant links are the best way to ensure that your business ranks highly on search engines. The advantage of running an eCommerce business is that you’re selling something that people already want.
Reach out to websites, forums, or review sites and build a relationship with them by offering samples of your product. Make sure that they are catering the to right kind of audience that you can sell to.
For example, if you are selling baby products, offering samples to parenting websites or parents who blog about their experiences. If they like your product and write about it, they are not only promoting to their own audience but also helping you rank higher to people searching for your product on Google.
4. Provide excellent customer service
To run a successful eCommerce business, it is key to build good relationships with your customers by providing responsive and high-quality customer service. This should be done not only for established customers but for potential ones as well.
Bad customer service can have a far-reaching impact on your business as customers are likely to google a business’s reputation before making a purchase. On the other hand, good customer service can actually help to build greater brand awareness and bring in new customers to your customers.
5. Nurture your brand ambassadors
Customers are more valuable to you if you nurture them to become your brand ambassadors. No matter how much you hype up your product, nothing can compare to a glowing testimonial of a satisfied customer to drive sales to your business.
Make it easy to regularly compile and share positive reviews from your customers. You can also incentivise them to do so by offering special discounts and perks.
6. Be personal with your marketing
As a small eCommerce business, you don’t have the marketing budget of giant companies such as Amazon. The good thing is that smaller companies can be more personal and use that to build closer relationships with their customers.
Successful eCommerce businesses often spend a lot of thought into creating their personal brand by telling stories of who they are and their passion for sharing their products with their customers. This bond between such companies and their customers help to elevate their businesses to a whole new level.
To make most of your marketing budget, consider signing up for the Aspire Corporate Card which can you 1% cashback on digital marketing and Software-as-a-Service (SaaS) spend. There’s no annual fee or hidden charges so you can use those savings for other aspects of running your business.
7. Collect customer information
As an eCommerce business owner, it is likely that you’ll have many different products to promote and sell. By collecting customer information and building a database, you’ll be able to cross-promote or upsell products to customers who bought similar items as well as inform them when their repeat purchases are on sale.
8. Manage your cash flow properly
One of the pitfalls that lead to failure as an eCommerce seller is the inability to manage cash flow properly. This is a basic skill that every business owner needs to master but it can be surprisingly difficult to monitor the money that comes in and out.
There are many tools online that can help you such as the Aspire Business Account which provides a credit limit for daily expenses, ensuring that you don’t go overboard with your business spending.
9. Focus on the long-term
Your business won’t be sustainable if you keep selling to new buyers all the time. Work on reaching out to new customers while ensuring that you are retaining your current ones. This can mean sending out regular email blasts or newsletters to increase the lifetime value of your customers.
10. Embrace failure
Setting up an eCommerce business or any form of entrepreneurship will always involve taking risks. The important thing is that you learn from your failures and figure out what went wrong so that you do not make the same mistakes again.
With these ten tips, you’re well on your way to running your own successful eCommerce business.
psst...you may also be interested to read this: 5 Best Local Courier Services for E-Commerce in Singapore
Frequently Asked Questions
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