#6: Editorial / value-added content
Useful information about your products supplements a simple list of product details and prices. "How To…” guides are common on good eCommerce sites and are valued by customers.
#7: Product search
Customers won’t always click through category and sub-category pages to find your products. Provide an option for them to search your site simply by entering keywords. If search results can then be sorted by brand and price, so much the better.
#8: Capture customer info
Every time you make a sale, you capture customer information; not just who they are but what they bought. Supplement this data by enabling visitors to sign up to a newsletter or a Special Offers mailing list.
#9: Use customer info
And then put this data to good use! Do send out a newsletter to contacts, reminding them that you still exist. Do inform customers of current promotions. Do tell customers who bought product X all about complementary product Y. In short, don’t waste the valuable asset that is your customer data.
#10: Make yourself different
If you have many online competitors selling products similar to yours, you have to give customers a reason to buy from your website instead of elsewhere.
You can compete on price if you have healthy margins but this is unlikely to be a successful long-term strategy. Instead, offer something different that makes your site unique. 360° rotating product images allow customers to interact with your product and see it from all angles. Today, video is relatively easy to produce and cheap to host so why not include some product demonstrations on your site? A loyalty scheme will keep your customers looking your way rather than sniffing around elsewhere.
Generating consistently high levels of online sales is hard work and takes thought, planning and perseverance.
Use these tips to improve your online sales today!
(See Part I of this article)
