COVID-19 skyrocketed eCommerce’s popularity and enabled the eCommerce industries to shine and give birth to new, more optimized, and seamless online shopping.
Various consumers shop across an increasing list of online market platforms. From social media to online marketplaces, and from the seller’s shop sites to end-customer delivery, eCommerce brought out more ways to look and shop for products online. This new system of online shopping will be the new norm.
Source: Statista
As more consumers shop online, this business is becoming more competitive, and you need to be on top of your game.
As early as now, it would be best if you established the right marketing strategy for your eCommerce business, which includes identifying your brand’s goal and objectives. Studying your own business’ ups and downs can determine which part needs improvement, whether your shop’s website or your product’s search scores on search engines.
Applying all eCommerce techniques you’ve learned takes time and effort to implement before achieving your desired results. The number of eCommerce tactics you can use in your store can be quite overwhelming, so we’ll break them down into four different sections.
I. Your Products
Know Your Target Audience
People use products; putting users, and their needs first will always be a good idea. That is why, before you start to create your business, you need to have a deep understanding of your target audience. With that, you can narrow down to what eCommerce niche that you want to set up.
Understand the Problem
Problem definition plays a significant role. The product you want to sell should help your consumers solve their problems. You need to not only identify the problem but also ensure that the problem is worth solving. It’s essential to know why you want to sell a product to answer their needs and wants. Then we can evaluate your product’s performance in terms of the value they bring to your consumers.
Redefine your PDP
PDP stands for Product Details page. Every product that you sell should have certain characteristics that separate it from its competitors. Many consumers go to PDPs to learn about the product at the time of purchase. PDPs are an important conversion tool, but also a valuable brand asset that can share your brand promise and answer important consumer questions. So, it is vital to try to create a unique set of PDPs for your product.
II. Shipping Method
Creating an effective ecommerce shipping strategy is one of the most impactful steps you can take to grow your business online. This can also differentiate between a good and great eCommerce entrepreneur. Offering the right shipping rates and options to your customers is crucial to your success as a business owner.
Important Ecommerce Shipping Considerations
Product size and weight
To streamline the process, measure and update the size and weight of each product you sell. Having that information set up will help you get a good sense of your total costs, and pass along accurate prices to your customers.
Shipping Destinations
Shipping destinations is as important as product dimensions and weight. In simpler terms, in domestic shipping, a flat-rate or free shipping option might work well for you but your strategy can change if you have international shipping options.
Cross-border purchases are becoming more popular now, this can also be a chance for your brand to spread across other countries. You can charge your customers real-time carrier rates for shipping. This allows your shoppers to choose and pay for the exact product they want.
Shipping Options
Managing your shipping options allows you to delight customers and keep costs in check. There are many shipping options that you can choose from depending on your products, customer’s location and other factors.
Here are some of the top shipping options that you can choose from:
- LTL freight carriers
- Same-day delivery
- Free shipping
Optimized Packaging
The weight and quality of your product packaging is a significant factor for your shipping costs. You have to consider how much packaging you need to ensure that your products arrive in time at their destination safely with no damage. Implementing this not only solidifies your business’ integrity but also pleases your customers and might do business with your shop again.
For items that should be handled with care, you might want heavier packaging like cardboard to protect them. For thin and light items like clothing, you can go for lightweight packaging.
III. Fulfillment Provider
Establishing an effective order fulfilment requires a sound strategy behind it especially if you want to grow your business exponentially. With customer satisfaction and loyalty is at stake, many entrepreneurs are looking for ways to accelerate their ecommerce order fulfillment and their logistics operations.
Important Ecommerce Fulfillment Considerations
- Location
Where you fulfill your orders from is one of the most important factors in meeting customer expectations around delivery costs and speeds. Since both affordability and fast shipping options are important to consumers, optimizing your fulfillment systems based on where your customers reside will help you reach the most people in the most cost-efficient manner.
A great strategic step in optimizing fulfillment is to distribute inventory to multiple locations that are within close proximity of your customers.
The more fulfillment locations near common shipping destinations, the more ground your business can cover, which is significantly cheaper than expedited air and faster than shipping from a greater distance.
- Technology Integrations
Software that integrates with ecommerce platforms and online marketplaces can help manage orders seamlessly. Implementing this, meaning as soon as an order is placed online, the fulfillment staff can quickly be notified to pick, pack, and ship the items to the customer. This also helps eCommerce entrepreneurs understand when to order more inventory to prevent stockouts.
IV. The Right Supplier
Finding the right eCommerce supplier for you can be daunting at first, that comes down to extensive research. Once you’ve found the right supplier that you can trust and negotiate with, you can focus more on building your relationship with them.
Let’s list down some tips that would help you build a strong relationship with your supplier:
- You’re not the only client
In today’s competitive eCommerce market, many other big, mid, or small-sized entrepreneurs have the same needs for the same product from the very same suppliers. Therefore, your supplier might be a little busy from time to time, as they also have other clients to take care of. Don’t overreact to such bottlenecks and show patience. Be sure that your patience will pay off because all long-lasting relationships are built with patience and trust. - Pay on time
No one likes late payments. Paying on time will have a huge impact on your relationship with your supplier. Remember that retail mostly runs on tight margins, and cash flow is crucial. Therefore, if you cause a crisis that’ll impair the business of your suppliers, their reaction to it wouldn’t be good. That might harm your supply cycles in the future and might cause a loss of those products’ supply - Solve problems smoothly
Like any business, eCommerce has its hardships. In case of a problem, don’t point fingers at anyone; instead, focus on creating solutions. Make sure that such an approach will be remembered in case of an error at your end.
Wrapping Things Up
Ecommerce will undoubtedly continue to explode over the next several years, and it is here to stay. There’s an increasing number of entrepreneurs tapping into the world of eCommerce. Effective eCommerce marketing strategies are essential to stand out and be recognized, but without a solid plan, your website and your products may get lost in the crowd.