5 “BORING” THINGS MOST ONLINE RETAILERS DON’T DO, BUT SHOULD DO?
1.Not understanding the customer Mindset
This is a crucial aspect that most retailers tend to push aside and happens to be the number one thing you need to focus on in order to increase your sales. Understanding the customer mindset means knowing exactly what the customer wants.
This is where most retailers go wrong. It’s not always the price! Actually it’s never really the price. You need to find out what moves your target market and you need to sell it to them good. For example if you’re an online store that sells baseball caps and notice that people the red baseball cap is the most popular, that is undeniable proof that you need to focus hard on marketing that particular product.
The good thing about that is you may even be able to charge more for this product because you know it’s what the people want!
2. Understanding why people are leaving your site
You need to understand why people are coming to your site but then leaving straight away. In the marketing world this is known as a bounce rate. The aim is to keep your bounce rate as low as possible.
A great free tool that you can use to find out the ins and outs of your site is Google analytics.
Not only will it give you the bounce rates but it would also tell you the average time people are spending on your site.
If your bounce rate is high and people are not spending enough time on your site you seriously need to work on that. You need to analyse the sites you are sending your visitors to and always test with different things.
For example you may want to change font styles, colours, buy buttons images etc. The trick is you should always be split testing so you can see what works and what doesn’t. Remember there’s always room for improvement.
Take Amazon for example. They are a billion dollar company but the site has changed dramatically since its launch 22 years ago.
3. Find Out Why People are Abandoning the Cart
If you can find out why people are getting to the checkout page but not buying the product that will dramatically increase your sales.
There are things you can do to reduce the amount of abandoned carts.
For example having a security button clearly displayed on the cart page will reassure potential buyers that their payment details are in safe hands. Do this one simple thing and you should see far less abandoned carts.
4. Build Trust
Building trust is crucial with any business as it will dramatically increase your sales through recommendations and increase the value of a customer. Even more so if you are an online business because people can’t really see you so trusting you will be harder for them.
The process to build trust is simple but may take a while.
You need to be transparent about everything you do. For example if you are offering Free Delivery make sure you don’t leave important restrictions in the small print like, “if you spend over £150”.
Make sure the requirements for the offer are very clear.
Having testimonials and product reviews from previous customers will make your visitors trust you from the get go. Have them displayed as close to the product as you can so customers can clearly see them.
5. Insufficient Product Descriptions
Having detailed product descriptions is vital. It will do two things. Improve your SEO (Search Engine Optimisation) and make it easier for your customers to make a decision. If you don’t do this your site may not appear high up in the search engines and your site will look thin (because of the lack of description).
If you need any help with your website whether it be content, building or WordPress please do get in touch with us on the form above. Have a great day 🙂