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Retailers across the UK are looking to end 2021 strongly after another challenging year for the economy, and now is the time when many will start to reflect and look ahead to consider what they could do differently in the New Year.
Few would have predicted the twists and turns of the past two years. This, coupled with the pace of change in the eCommerce sector, means it’s now more important than ever to ensure your online shop is maximising sales – and the website is as visible as it can be.
Throughout the year, DivideBuy has been sharing lots of actionable advice for eCommerce retailers – helping with things like how to make the most of seasonal trends, boost SEO, and increase revenue at the checkout.
Here are our top 10 tips for eCommerce retailers looking to boost sales and revenue in 2022:
1. Firstly, reduce shopping cart abandonment by being clear about delivery charges upfront. This problem, meaning a customer adds items to their shopping cart but then leaves before finishing the purchase – affects all online retailers. One major way to reduce it is by being clear about all costs upfront – especially delivery charges. Be sure to carefully balance your shipping costs with the price of the item. Giving the customer the option to spread the total cost of the order including delivery can also help.
2. Be sure to identify seasonal trends for your business. This isn’t just about winter and summer but relates to any trend, key date or event relevant to your business. Christmas, Easter, Valentine’s Day and Halloween are some of the best examples (think Aldi’s now-infamous egg chair and Starbucks’ Pumpkin Spice Latte). To identify what these might be, look at historical data and analytics to find times when you see specific peaks in traffic, market trends and keyword research, using free tools like Google Trends. Also, keep an eye on your key competitors.
3. Once you’ve established the key dates, make the most of these seasonal trends by planning a stand-out campaign that can help you take advantage of these periods. Put in place early preparation, considering the full customer journey, setting clear objectives, timing campaigns carefully and keeping an eye on the competition and previous trends. Establishing your objectives will help to shape your strategy and inform the content you create, and the channels you’ll likely utilise. Not only this, but without clear objectives in place, you’ll be unable to review and evaluate the success of specific campaigns – so ensure you’re readily able to monitor this. With timing, it’s always best to launch the campaign before the actual event to build buzz and get people excited, but not so early that people switch off and forget about you. Take care mapping out your timings and be prepared for things to change along the way. Your competitor analysis and market trends insights can help to shape this. More on that here.
4. Focus on SEO for your eCommerce website to increase the quantity and quality of traffic to your page through organic search results. Optimising your site is all about making sure it answers visitors’ questions. According to Big Commerce, every SEO strategy should include keyword research, site architecture, on-page SEO content marketing and link building.
5. Do some research into consumer psychology. Having some insight into what motivates consumers to make purchases will give you a better understanding of what needs to be done to increase the conversion rate on your online store. There’s plenty of advice on our website about what colours attract customers to spend, how scarcity and urgency to increase sales and why social proof is important for eCommerce – as well as useful consumer pricing strategies.
6. Drive conversions and increase revenue at checkout, especially if your eCommerce conversion rate is low or your average order value isn’t as high as you’d like it to be. As above, there are multiple reasons why people abandon their shopping carts, but there are ways to overcome this. Ways to drive conversions and increase the average order value include utilising guest checkouts, offering promotional codes, using upselling techniques, promoting your checkout page, providing a great user experience and spreading the cost of purchases.
7. Boost sales by introducing interest-free credit payments. For retailers, offering a range of payment options is an absolute must. It is a significant factor in a consumer’s purchasing decision, so isn’t something retailers can afford to overlook. For many retailers offering this benefit, they can be used both in-store and online – and customers can check their eligibility before they buy.
8. With online purchases using retail finance growing at a rate of 39% per year, alternative payment options on eCommerce sites need to be working hard to convert browsers into buyers. Whether you’re looking to add additional payment options or wondering if the partner you have now meets all your customers’ needs, it’s important to regularly review your retail finance options. Consider aspects such as how easy it will be to implement on your website, how scalable the finance solution is, and what is the cost of the new solution. More here.
9. Perfect your digital storefront for the best customer experience. Online retail is always evolving so there are endless improvements to be made when it comes to bettering your eCommerce customer experience. Be sure to get the fundamentals right – images, promotions, social media and rich media. Also, remember that customer experience still reigns – be sure to have a quality system in place for customer responses and easy access in the path to purchase. That’s as well as utilising your customer base and knowing what their expectations are. You can read more on that here.
10. Point of sale (POS) finance is a conversion tool in itself, integrating with your website to offer your customers more ways to pay when they reach the checkout. Proactive brands looking for ways to differentiate and capitalise on the current boom can drive conversions and stand out from the crowd by working POS finance software into their eCommerce marketing strategies. Read how here.
