How to Market an eCommerce Business

Ecommerce could be one of the most popular online business. As the internet technology in retail web development and payment gateway expands, ecommerce follows to grow significantly in the last decade.

Just as in the brick-and-mortar retail stores, ecommerce let merchant display his products online along with their descriptions, specifications and prices, allowing customers to browse through and select the ones they like to add to cart and purchase.

And since ecommerce is growing fast, that means it is getting much more crowded by the day, which also means it is getting harder for customers to reach your online store. Ofcourse, it is common for retailers to place advertisement at Google, Facebook or other social media, but still an organic solution is required to maximize your ecommerce marketing.

Followings are four marketing tips you may want to try to improve your ecommerce business.

1. Personalize your communication

Though ecommerce means you don’t have to deal with the customers face to face, but still, a customer is a human being that needs to be served just as intimate as in offline retail store.

Personalized communication in ecommerce is about making customers feel like shopping in a real retail store.

How can you achieve this?

Greet your customers when they visit your site. Create a message box saying Good morning, good evening and how are you today?
An online chat box with real person to answer questions let your customers communicate much faster aand easier
Friendly contents everywhere, from product description, promotions, articles in blog, etc.
If you are doing email campaign, make sure to greet recipients mentioning their name. Content in the email should be friendly and easy to read too
If you are into social media, which you should, personalized your content.

2. Good User Interface (UI) and User Experience (UX)

Good visual design helps build brand awareness and trust. Imagine if your website does not ‘look good’ enough to represent an ecommerce store, who wants to place order?

The same goes to the user experience as well. Who will buy from you if it is not easy to navigate your site?

UI and UX is definitely two things to consider deeply in order to push your ecommerce marketing.

How to create good UI and UX:

Clean and simple yet uncrowded visual layout
Focused and easy navigation
Categorized your products for easier browsing
Make your text clear and easy to read
Simplify any forms on the site
Include contact information and office or physical store location.

3. Provide secure payment system

Though it is getting more common to pay online, but still you need to ensure our customers that you are using a secure payment gateway.

Hesitation in paying using credit card or other payment method could reduce your sales revenue since customers are not willing to input their card information resulting in sales cancelation.

How can you fix this?

Secure your site using encrypted connection by implementing HTTPS.
Only choose trustable payment gateway provider.
Write information about how your site has been secured with HTTPS and SSL for payment security.

4. Protect customer’s privacy

Have you ever experienced buying from an ecommerce store one day and receive countless spams on the other days? I have.

There are a few online store who don’t keep our data confidential. Someone, somewhere within the store could be using customer database to gain exposure, whether for the ecommerce business itself or selling the data for other businesses.

How can we avoid this?

Only shop and purchase from a reliable and trustable ecommerce site.
Never use your company or business email to purchase at an online store.

5. Improve relationship with customers

Do you assume your customer will come back to buy from you again? Even if he or she is satisfied? Without good relationship, he or she might not buy from you again.

How do you deepen the relationship?

Improve communication, such as sending frequent email or message to their smartphone. Remember to not become spammy anyway.
Offer them exclusive promotions that not everyone get.
Offer loyalty program or referral incentives.

Marketing is not a sprint but a marathon. In marketing an ecommerce business, you have to recognize and understand your customer and market continuously. Whether it is online or offline, customer is always the key of a retail business.