7 Habits of The Most Successful E-commerce Websites Owners

While the idea of building a website, snapping some photos of your products, uploading them to that site, and promoting your goods seems fairly easy and straightforward enough, anyone who runs an e-commerce business knows just how taxing and demanding this line of work can be. Although the work is difficult, it is far from impossible and is actually made easier when you are equipped with the right resources to make your online business thrive. Doing this requires continuous trial-and-error, hands-on work, risk-taking, and of course, lots of research. One of the best research methods you could take advantage of is studying what other successful e-commerce business owners have done before you. Review what they have done and decide which tactics might be beneficial for your unique business. In this post, we will uncover the seven top habits of the most successful e-commerce website owners.

1. Build Your Audience With Content First: It is not uncommon for the most successful e-commerce owners to implement a content marketing strategy before officially launching their e-commerce website. So what exactly is the benefit of this? By first starting with a content strategy, you are able to obtain and build an audience. After two to three months of regular content output, you can then begin selling your products to an already existing target audience that you were able to build with informative, entertaining, and valuable content. With content, there are multiple ways to reach your potential consumers and target audience, be it blog posts, newsletters, or short videos. Determine which content methods are most suitable for your business and come up with a plan to regularly turn out that content, whether it’s several times a week, once a week, or a couple times a month.
2. Create a Loyalty Program: Plenty of in-person retail stores offer great loyalty programs so why should that be any different for an e-commerce platform? Incentivize your shoppers by rewarding them for spending their money on your products rather than another e-commerce platform. Consumers will be more loyal and more likely to spend a little extra when they have an attractive loyalty program that offers rewards for shopping with you.
3. Speak to Your Customers in Their Native Language: If you have a global e-commerce website with a variety of international customers, it’s just good business sense to convert your text into their native language. Not only does this make shopping more convenient for your international customers, you’ll be able to broaden your target audience reach and substantially increase your potential for securing new customers. If you do plan to translate your e-commerce platform to your international customers’ native language, you should definitely consider hiring a professional, human translator. Too often, machine translating leads to inaccuracies in sentence structure and doesn’t take into account cultural differences and other subtle nuances. You want your text to translate correctly in order to not only secure to customers, but make sure you don’t offend them with incorrect language.
4. Make Sure Your E-Commerce Platform is Optimized For Mobile Devices: You know how most people do their online shopping these days? On their mobile devices. If your website isn’t laid out in such a way that is custom-tailored for smartphone or tablet browsing, you are seriously hurting your potential to attract and retain shoppers. Making sure your e-commerce platform is fitted for mobile devices is one thing and now it is actually necessary today. Secondly, go the extra mile and consider creating an app for your e-commerce platform. This will create easier access to your website for anyone who has your app downloaded on their smartphone or other device. If you are unsure of how to optimize your e-commerce website for mobile devices or how to create an app specifically for your business, investing in a web and app developer is a shrewd move. Not only will they make your website look flawless, they will be able to tell you what else might need to be tweaked to make your customers’ shopping experience even better.
5. Personalize Every. Single. Customer Experience: If you are like most e-commerce businesses, you most likely have automated thank-you emails, confirmations, receipts, and other messages sent to any customer or potential customer of your business. Instead of sending generic, random emails, make sure to include the customers name in the email. It wouldn’t hurt to include their name in the email subject line as well, as this will catch their attention and create greater likelihood that they will open and fully read the email. When it comes to email marketing and newsletters, include each individual’s name on every email to personalize the message and the uniqueness of said message. Additionally, customer service is another area where personalization is so important. Train your customer service team to really establish a personal connection with each customer who needs help or has something to say. Continuously look for new ways to personalize every experience your customers and potential customers have with your e-commerce platform.
6. Stand Out From The Rest of The Crowd in Terms of Delivery: Obviously you want to stand out from your competitors in multiple ways when it comes to running your e-commerce business. But one of the strongest ways a company can outshine the rest of the crowd is by having a strategy set in place for impeccable delivery service. Make it a priority to never leave a customer unsatisfied in terms of their experience with delivery. And should anything ever happen that would be a less than desirable delivery experience, have a plan in place to make it up to that customer. In addition to having speedy, efficient, straightforward delivery, come up with creative strategies to really impress your customers. Zappos, for example, is well-known for its great delivery service. The company always delivers packages on time and on occasion, it will randomly expedite delivery for different customers. This small gesture makes those customers feel important and special and more likely to become repeat customers.
7. Start Integrating More Videos Into Your Digital Marketing Strategy: Want to bring in new clients, impress your current ones, expand your social media reach, and strengthen your brand identity all at the same time? Start implementing more video content into your digital marketing strategy. While written content is still relevant and just as important as ever, video content has been on the rise over the last year and it won’t be going away anytime soon. Many businesses are discovering just how powerful video content is and how it is fast becoming social media users preferred form of absorbing content. So how can you start using more video? For example, if you run a e-commerce platform that sells apparel, you can create a how-to video on twenty different ways to wear one of the scarves you are selling. Or you could create a tutorial on how to use a tech piece that you sell. Brainstorm with your team to come up with creative ways to produce attention-grabbing, informative, and entertaining videos.

Looking for more tips on how you can make your e-commerce website even better? Don’t hesitate to contact us today. Our team is passionate about helping online business owners find the right technology, resources, and knowledge to build a flourishing entity.