As we enter the post-COVID-19 world, it is evident that there is a significant change in how customers behave & respond, as the uncertainty from the pandemic still persists. During this time of uncertainty, if you own an eCommerce store, you probably should be mapping out the strategies that will boost your eCommerce sales and retain your customers in the post-pandemic days. Since, the year 2020 has been a year of unexpected and unprecedented events, knowing what to expect in 2021 might seem more challenging than usual. Having said that, online stores are increasingly turning to sales & marketing support services to increase their ROI, increase their conversions.
When the world was forced into a complete shutdown, e-commerce stood up as one solution, helping millions of people stay home and procure what they wanted at their doorstep. And thus, eCommerce is one of the fortunate industries that has witnessed a substantial growth of 17% post COVID-19. With eCommerce poised to have grown significantly and consumer behavior changing abruptly, it will be crucial for online retailers to find resilient ways and come up with a strong online strategy, to reap the maximum benefits.
If you do not have a strong strategy in place on how to take your business forward, here are some of the best eCommerce strategies you can deploy to boost your sales in the post-pandemic world.
Add extra sales channels
As an immediate consequence of the paramedic, consumers are more motivated to stay home than ever and shop almost everything online. Even in the post COVID era, this trend shall continue. This is creating the ideal market conditions to add more sales channels, sites, and touchpoints for consumers. Thus, now is the best time to explore & add extra sales channels to your operation. Other than selling on your own website, you must try Amazon. If you are already taking Amazon listing services, then also try eBay. Since there is a huge variety of marketplaces and channels to choose from, this can be a potential new source of customers for your eCommerce business that you could be possibly missing out previously.
Focus on personalization
Personalization is becoming a key strategy in driving sales in the current situation. Personalizing web content, offers & pricing in order to adapt to your customers’ unique style & preferences, is a great approach to take your eCommerce store to a next level. Though many online brands are prioritizing personalization today, there are still many brands that struggle to understand their customers preferences, gather insightful customer data, and provide contextually relevant and seamless experiences.
Since personalization is currently experiencing a huge surge in popularity, you must use it while reaching the audience. This will let them know that their preferences are valued, understood, and incorporated to ensure they have a shopping experience. Personalizing emails, ads, messages, & content using unique data retrieved from each visitor’s profile, makes sure that your consumers see what they prefer thusby, increasing your chances to get more sales.
- 71% of consumers feel frustrated when a shopping experience is impersonal
- 80% of consumers are more likely to purchase from a brand that provides personalized experiences.
- 63% of consumers will stop buying from brands that use poor personalization tactics.
- Personalized shopping cart recommendations influenced 92% of shoppers online to buy products.
Source: Forbes.com
Today, when you can deploy a plethora of personalization tools, including AI and machine learning algorithms, you can personalize your offerings like never before. Some ways how you can use personalization techniques to improve your conversions are:
- Design personalized homepages.
- Offer personalized guides/content.
- Display recently viewed items on your store.
- Based on location, personalize product pages
- Create personalized campaigns based on user behavior.
- Set up personalized emails.
Rely on data-driven marketing
In the post-pandemic days when your customers’ behavior is not constant, keeping the data at the center of your marketing efforts can help you increase your ROI and make grossing revenues. Using advanced data analytics tools can provide you insights on your customer behavior such as digital clicks, interactions on social media, bounce rate, most liked product, and more, you can use this information for positive business outcomes.
Hiring an eCommerce SEO marketing company that can help you to formulate data-driven strategies, dive deeper into traffic sources, and identify loopholes to fix them. As you get insights on changing consumer habits based on the data, it will allow you to make necessary changes to your offerings & take smart business decisions, leading to improved sales performance.
Redirect your efforts on SEO
As people are increasingly looking for products online in the post-pandemic days, it is necessary that your business rank high on search engines when potential customers search for your products. The more traffic you earn from a strong SEO strategy, the more sales you get! Thus, now is the perfect time to improve your eCommerce store’s SEO by contacting an eCommerce SEO company & stay on top of the search results.
Here’s how you can improve your online store’s SEO:
- Do an In-Depth Technical SEO Audit: Conducting a technical SEO audit is one of the best ways to pull up for success as your traffic rates begin to pick up again. It requires you to go through all facets of your online platform such as site’s structure, site mapping, tags, content, etc. It is also important for you to update the internal linking structure for both mobile and desktop versions of your site.
- Optimize for Mobile-First Indexing: Google announced in early March 2020, that it will now switch to mobile-first indexing for all websites. This implies that Googlebot will prioritize your site’s performance on mobile devices before desktop – keeping in mind that the majority of users now interact on smartphones. If your eCommerce site is not fully tweaked for mobile-first, it’s high time that you do it now.
- Continue Investing in Content Marketing: eCommerce sites with a consistent flow of fresh content tend to have higher rankings and higher CTRs. The last year saw that almost 70% of marketers are actively investing in content marketing and many marketers are eager to further increase their investment in content marketing in the post-COVID environment. You can outsource content marketing services for generating interactive content, crafting personalized content, & follow best practices in content marketing. Deploying a successful content marketing strategy can help increase brand awareness, get more exposure, capture new audiences, and ultimately generate more sales & prospects.
- Optimize for Mobile commerce: M-commerce is becoming a major channel for shopping and is changing consumer shopping habits enormously. As estimated by Statista, it is predicted that by the end of 2021, 73% of eCommerce sales will be through mobile devices, besides, 30% of online shoppers are likely to abandon their carts in the middle of shopping if they find out that your website is not mobile-friendly. Thus you must optimize your store for mobile devices & make sure that it stays your priority while developing a winning SEO strategy.
Offer Free Shipping
As people are surrounded by options and alternatives, the best way to attract them is to offer them things for “Free”. Offering free shipping to your customers can be the ultimate sales maker! in the post-COVID-19 environment, unless you are selling internationally, you can serve free shipping in your local regions. As per research by Deloitte, 85% of consumers prefer free shipping over fast shipping. Free shipping influences buyer’s decisions to an extent that the shopping cart abandonment rate is approximately 70% if shipping fees and other extra costs are added to their final bills.
Don’t miss out on social media
As per the latest stats, online stores with a social media presence have an average of 32% more sales than those who do not. With people spending more time at home during & after the pandemic, using social media, you must deploy great social media marketing strategies to attract new customers, engage them & boost your conversion rates.
Provided the fact that almost 74% of consumers rely on their social networks to make purchasing decisions, social media can play a crucial role in driving your eCommerce sales. Thus, you must stay updated on the latest social media trends & generating relevant content to target your customers in the most engaging ways. You can also add Instagram Ads or Facebook Ads into your sales funnel that run on specific demographics to reach your target audience.
Lean on Shoppable Posts
As social media has become one of the most powerful ways to reach the audience, eCommerce brands all over the world are to use it in its full capacity during & after the pandemic. In recent times, social media trends like shoppable posts are evolving and helping businesses to provide a delightful customer experience.
As an online business owner, you must make use of Shoppable posts to minimize the efforts of customers to make purchases after they see your product. Instead of providing URLs in your Insta bio, or creating clickable stories on Instagram, you can simply allow the users to add products that they see on social media through shoppable posts right to the checkout. Shoppable posts can notably boost sales because they don’t threaten or interrupt a consumer & makes their purchasing journey smooth & easy.
Final thoughts
Now that you know the foolproof ways of boosting your eCommerce sales in the post-pandemic days, it’s high time you get started. Since planning, strategizing & implementing these strategies to elevate sales can be daunting for you to handle alone, it calls for professional help. At SunTec, you can take advantage of our wide spectrum of eCommerce solutions to help you at any stage of your project. Whether you are looking for eCommerce marketing services, eCommerce PPC services, Amazon marketing services, sales support, or any other eCommerce solutions, we do it all!
Keeping a close eye on the latest trends and ongoing market changes, we make sure to study your specific eCommerce needs before developing a unique plan of action. So without further ado, contact us today and get world-class eCommerce solutions at your disposal focused on increasing conversions, boosting sales, and get you a high return on investment.
Reach out to us at: info@suntecindia.com.
