E-commerce is a booming industry, and your business needs to join the party.
As you’re likely aware, most people do their shopping online, these days. You yourself have probably purchased a product from an online store over the past month. It’s an incredibly easy and convenient way to shop; after all, why head down to the store when you can grab your phone and order what you want in seconds, instead?
Even shipping times have evolved to be super fast, as people rarely have to wait longer than 3-5 business days to receive their orders. In fact, online shopping is so popular that most companies are now offering next-day delivery yearly subscriptions, so that people can receive their goods within 24 hours – talk about 21st century convenience!
E-commerce is only going in one direction: upwards. Your business needs to nail down an excellent e-commerce platform so that you too can experience the benefits that come with it; such as increased sales and brand recognition.
Here are some pro tips to help your e-commerce platform.
Focus on your e-commerce fulfillment center
Your e-commerce fullfillment center requires careful design and planning to ensure that it can operate successfully. However, some businesses outsource their shipping and warehousing to another company’s fulfillment center; usually because they have the better resources and the experience required to do it effectively. Therefore, you need to carefully research and find the best e-commerce fulfillment center for your needs and requirements.
Try to provide low shipping costs
Modern consumers care a lot about shipping costs. They can bundle potentially hundreds of dollars’ worth of products into their digital baskets – like Pokémon card packs, which are incredibly popular, right now – to then change their minds at the checkout because the shipping costs are too high.
So, to ensure you retain as many customers as possible, try your best to keep shipping costs low – even though it will slightly hurt your profit margin. This way, you’ll keep customers satisfied and your profits high.
Make returns easy and stress-free
When consumers purchase products online, one common concern they have is: What happens if I have to return it? Quite simply, consumers don’t want to pay postage fees to return your products. This is why you should offer free returns (and make sure your packaging is re-sealable). This will give your customers peace of mind and make the returns process super easy – as all your customers will need to do is put the product back in its packaging, stick the returns label on, and send it back to you!
There are plenty of companies you can work with who specialize in resealable (or reusable) packaging for e-commerce, so make sure to check them out online.
Provide chat support through your website
Customers who shop online want access to immediate chat support so that they can ask any questions they have about your products.
Just by having chat support, you’re going to experience more customer conversions. For example, a customer might be unsure about your returns policy and so messages your support service to ask about it. A chat support team member can then inform the customer that you provide free returns, which in turn could convince them to go ahead and buy your products!
Therefore, it’s a no-brainer to incorporate 24/7 chat support into your e-commerce platform.
