Online shopping has created lots of new opportunities for small business owners. Brick-and-mortar retailers can expand sales by offering around the clock access to products. Online-only stores can build a presence while saving on retail store costs.
Consider these 10 ways to help boost your online sales.1
1. Get organized
Organize products into logical categories that make sense to your customer. Use high quality photos, enticing descriptions, and updated prices/promotions.
2. Keep it simple
Avoid overloading your customers with buttons to click, information to read, or pages to open. Ideally, a customer should be able to complete a purchase in 4-6 clicks. Expanding your options to include eCheck payment processing can help capture sales from customers who prefer direct bank transfers.
3. Be consistent
Keep your branding (logo, colors, tone of voice) consistent. Your online store is an important touchpoint for your customer. It might even be the only place your customers interact with your business.
4. Supply and distribution are important
Make sure you have a planned supply and distribution process in place before you go live. This is one of the easiest ways to make your customers happy.
5. Test delivery
If you’re advertising fast delivery speeds, test it before you launch, especially if working with a third-party distributor.
6. Embrace automation
Set up an automated email process for order confirmations, invoices and receipts, shipping notifications and feedback requests.
7. Stay vigilant
Check your security settings and reports regularly to stay ahead of new threats.
8. Schedule checkups
Set a schedule for checking that products are up to date, prices are correct, and links are still active. Check back weekly or monthly. Also, don’t forget to make sure that your security and payments subscriptions and certificates are up to date.
9. Analyze then tweak
Take time to dive into your site analytics and reporting. You might find that a particular page has a high bounce rate, only to discover that a button is inactive. With any website, constant tweaks and improvements are the key to success.
10. Spread the word
Offering customers sneak previews or advance discounts for upcoming sales are a couple of quick ways to get the word out about your online presence.
The most important thing is to act—start now and start small. Pick one tip and start working on it. Don't limit your customers to cards alone.
If you’re interested in learning more, we have a few recent economic insights that can help fuel your business growth.
