Getting customers to trust your e-business

Trust forever the fact that when it comes to building a business; nothing works like trust. Trust is the foundation of a great business. It is just what drives your business, no matter how much you may have invested into it and no matter how organised and smart you are. Why should an ecommerce business earn it, and how does it earn it?
The importance of trust
No celebrity can drive a brand as effectively as a satisfied customer. This is the ultimate testimonial for a product, and is what may be considered the gospel truth about it. It is this word-of-mouth that is the ultimate seller of the product. No tool is as effective as a good referral. There are obvious reasons for which we would want to buy a user-recommended product rather than one endorsed artificially by a celebrity who is doing it for no reason other than for being paid to do so. The referral from an actual user is like the wisdom that flows from the horse’s mouth. It is something like: “Hey, I have been there and tried it and know it works. Why don’t you try too?”
Special for ecommerce!
While a good word of mouth recommendation is a great thing for any business; it is the final stamp of the quality of your business, when you can earn it doing an ecommerce business. If a customer who does not see you and has not interacted with you can recommend you, it means you know your onions! If you have already earned the rare honour of being recommended by your online visitors, keep up the work. If you have not and want to, remember that there is only one mantra: Quality!
All about quality service
Ecommerce is all about service. Service is more important than the product you sell on your site, no matter how good the products you sell are. It is only this quality that endears you to your faceless customer. Offer them the best you have, and in every sense, and there is no reason for them not to recommend you to their acquaintances.
Give them the opportunity to rate you
This is an important element of your ecommerce website. It should have a section on which you can let them air their views. And this should be a genuine one, upon which you should have no influence. This sounds risky for those who are not confident about their business; but not for those who are. By giving your customers the opportunity to tell what they feel about your product or service and depriving yourself the option of editing or excising it; you are showing that you have the ability to dare! And nothing drives your ecommerce business better than this.

Personalisation in ecommerce

Personalisation in ecommerce has been a highly debated and discussed area. Its genesis can be traced very nearly to the start of ecommerce itself. With the growth of this industry, personalisation grew, too. Today, personalisation is talked about as one of the most important components of ecommerce email marketing success.
Know your customer!
Well, knowing your customer is as important for your business as knowledge of the subject is for the teacher. But remember that this is all the more important in e-commerce, because unlike in the brick and mortar kind of business in which you can see the customer face to face and enquire as to her specific needs; here, you have the faceless customer who drops in and goes out. Getting the customer to stay on the site and purchase is the real challenge in ecommerce.
When a customer enters a website, what is it that is most likely to hold her attention? Of course, the product. But which product does she stay on the website for? This is the key to answering why personalisation is so important. When a woman in her 20’s visits your website and the first display is of an after shave lotion, does that make sense? Similarly, if your ecommerce website offers a glut of products that thevisitor has no interest for; you can be certain that you have lost a potential customer. But then, how do you know that the customer is a 20’s female? This is where personalisation comes into the picture.
Ways of personalisation
The high level of growth in the ecommerce industry can be traced to several factors, one of the most important of which is personalisation. Personalisation has now grown into much more than a customised “Dear Ms Sara”.Of course, personalising the email to the exact customer is an important aspect, but there is more to personalisation than just addressing the customer by name.
Segmentation
The most important purpose of personalisation is served when the customer who is looking for X product is led to X product and not to Y or Z products. This can be arrived at by properly classifying your visitor into a group based on the demographic data she has provided at the time of registering on your website. Market research professionals can help get a proper slot of the visitor. Once the visitor gets to see products that more or less match her needs, you can rest assured that she is not going to leave your site in a hurry.

Getting the basics of email marketing right

It is surprising that although email marketing is inseparable from ecommerce and is its driving force; there are ecommerce businesses that commit fundamental blunders in their email marketing. It always pays toget the basics right, whether it is someone who has been there for a while and knows the ropes or is a new entrant.
Follow your customers!
The old adage, “the way to a man’s heart is through the stomach” can be paraphrased to “the way to the customer’s mind is through the website”. The business has to make a habit of consistently tracking the customer no end. When the website fails in this; it goes out of the customer’s mind. When this happens, it is the end of the relationship with that customer. How does an ecommerce website remain in the customer’s mind, when she visits hundreds of similar sites? This happens only when the ecommerce business is in constant touch with visitors and customers.
Simple mails do the trick
Wouldn’t we greet a person who pays us a visit? This is just what is needed when a visitor comes to your ecommerce website. Just a simple and sincere “hello…thank you for passing by” after she leaves the website is a great welcome message.This is the first step to making the visitor feel at home with your website. Here, the business doesn’t need to go overboard. It can be to the point, rather than trying to promote itself at the first instance.
Following up
When a customer fails to complete a sale, it is a case of cart abandonment. Finding out the reason is not the easiest of things to do, because it can happen for a variety of reasons. To get to the root of the problem, just mail the visitor and politely ask what she expected and did not get from the site. One way of trying to get the customer back into the website is by offering an incentive for buying what she wanted to but did not. Of course, the ecommerce business can use its discretion and offer a discount with some conditions. This will act as a bait to get the abandoner back.
Stay in touch
Remember that any ecommerce business can think of being successful only when it is in the minds of its customers. This can happen when the business shows its customers that it is interested in them. There are some shoppers who register for updates and don’t turn up for some time. When you notice such a gap, you can write to them asking them why there have been no visits from them. When they still show no interest, you can assume that they are just casual visitors and can remove them from your mailing list. When a visitor is bombarded with unsolicited communication, you can be sure they are trashing your mails. So, be selective in sending out mails.

Words to avoid at promotions

A promotion is a sure-fire way of attracting customers to your ecommerce website. Promotions are usually occasional and don’t happen on a daily basis. The aim is to push a few products at a particular time of the year when customers are more likely to buy. While this is the primary aim; a promotion is also a way of making customers come back for more from time to time. Given that these are the twin intentions of a promotion, some care needs to be taken in the choice of words. Some words can have a magnetic effect on customers, while others would turn them off. Research has shown that a few words or expressions tend to be viewed unfavourably by the customer.
Pompous words!
Always remember that an ecommerce website is meant for selling products, and is not a place for showing off the depth of its vocabulary. For a creative person who may have spent a good deal of her career honing her writing skills, it is always difficult to suppress the urge to write creatively. But note the major difference –writing creatively is different from writing pompously. An ecommerce website is usually global and hence caters to customers who are from all parts of the world, many of whom are not native English speakers. Writing high-sounding, grandiloquent terms could deterthem from buying from the website. Keeping it simple and straight is the way to go.
Roundabout expressions
Selling a product does not need too muchmore detail than is necessary to make the visitor understand what the product is about. About the only information any visitor to an ecommerce website expects is what the product is about, and how it could help her.Anything more than that is not likely to make the customer any closer to the purchase. It is well known that web viewers’ attention span is much limited compared to that of readers of print. So, the faster you come to the point, the better.
A few must-avoid terms
A promotion is meant to attract as much as possible. There are some words that are known to be catchier than others. Try to model your promotions on these words and try to avoid some that are known to act as repellent factors. Some of the words any promotion must avoid to avoid being turned away are:
“No obligation”: This gives the impression that there is some hidden bait.
“Sign in”: This could scare a customer away because she might think that signing is a way of pulling her to the purchase.
“Deal”: When you use this word, this is likely to give the customer the impression that there is something deceptive about the whole sale.
“Buy today”: This, along with the related expression, “buy now”, can be quite a put-off. These expressions are almost like demanding the customer to buy.

Ways of getting seen on Amazon

For an ecommerce business, selling on eBay and Amazon is the shortcut for reaching out to nearly 300 million potential buyers, at least a tenth of whom are from the UK. When your ecommerce business can help you get across to such a huge marketplace from where you are seated; it is an opportunity that cannot be missed. But how does one make sure that the product you are going to place there among hundreds of others gets noticed? Keeping a few thumb rules in mind could go some way in helping your product crawl its way in these sites.
Categorise rightly
Categorising your product is a key to selling on these sites, especially Amazon. It is important to know where to place your product. This is what categorising is all about. Getting your product listed on these categories is often the first step in helping visitors to see your product. Getting this wrong can make the product confusing and out of place. No visitor is likely to make sense of a grouping that categorises cell phones with shoes. Categorising cell phones with say batteries and shoes with socks is simple common sense. This is the heart of the matter; there are several sub categories that refine the search further.
Usethe right terms for the products
Obviously, it goes without saying that the more apt the description of the product; the easier it is for visitors to get an idea of what they are looking for. With some experience, a business can get down the specific terms that online visitors use for products. It is important for the business to include words that don’t really confuse the visitor. The words and brand should be clear and the description of the product should be apt and to the point. Basically, the thumb rule is to understand that the buyer usually researches on these sites and does not just browse. Offer words and phrases that make this easy. Any description that is too lengthy or any word that is too high sounding is almost certain to take the visitor away from the product.
Make display attractive
This is another fundamental of any marketing, more so when you want to market on these sites to which there are hundreds of visitors at any point of time. It is a good idea to induce the visitor to see the product for herself. Having a photo or video of the product will complement the text. eBay has the gallery photo option. This is a way to open the auction bid on eBay attractively.

Easy ways of selling successfully on eBay and Amazon

Selling on eBay is not rocket science. It may at first sound intimidating to be able to stand out among hungry competitors, but a business should be more focused on the seemingly unlimited opportunity these websites offer. Like all other activities that one does over the long run, selling on eBaycan take a little time, since it has its own set of dynamics and subtleties, which one has to get a hold of. A person or business selling on eBay could implement a few simple and easy to implement steps that can serve as a basis for successful selling on these sites.
Know who your buyers are!
Knowing your market is as fundamental to selling on eBay as it is for a doctor to diagnose an ailment. This is the foundation on which the whole business is built. When you know which products you have, knowing who needs it should be intertwined with it. The product should be inseparable from the buyer, or else there is no point in having a product. When you are planning to sell several products, it is going to take some time for you to get a precise feel of who your buyers for these multiple products are. Although this can take time initially, once you get used to the brass tacks, it is easier for you to pitch your product.
Try to sell unique items
Once you have done considerable research on your market and have some idea of what sells and what does not, you can consider introducing unique items on your product list. If you have noticed that a buyer of furniture could be making consistent purchases. Keeping such a buyer, you could think if introducing an elegant wall painting to your collection. A small step like this is helpful in two important ways. First, it offers the buyer an option to buy a unique product that really supplements her tastes and preferences. Secondly, when the customer gets the impression that you respect her preferences, it is sure to bring about loyalty. A loyal customer is the best asset for any business.
Think of the long run
Selling on eBay and Amazon need not be only a fad. You could think of it as a serious option. But for that to happen, you have to be focused on being there in the long run. This calls for some planning and mix and match of the products from time to time. You would also be required to understand the market pulse, which will help you outdo your competitor. Like in all other businesses, when selling on eBay and Amazon, you will come across situations that are peculiar to this business. Persistence and intuitiveness is key.

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Ways of increasing sale value

Getting a visitor to buy on your ecommerce site is one aspect of marketing. Making this happen, although at times formidable, is only half the work done. Getting the customer to buy a higher value on each sale is the more important part for the business. If with all your efforts, a visitor ends up buying s soap when you would have liked her to purchase a jewellery item can be disappointing. Are there ways by which the value of a sale can be made to increase?
Entice the customer!
Making a customer buy more than she is prepared for qualifies as success in ecommerce marketing. The most effective way of doing this is by luring her into buying more than she intended to. The way to do this is to offer some incentives that will push her into making that extra purchase perceiving some value from it. If a customer were offered something like a discount on extra purchases but not on single items, it would make her think strongly about placing an order for that extra pack. If a 100-ounce moisturising lotion were to cost say £ 7 and the offer would be three packs for £ 16, the customer would be forced to seriously think of going in for the bundle, thinking of a saving of £ 5 on a product which is going to be used daily and whose requirement she would have anyway for a lot more time to come.
Associate products wisely
Another way of increasing the value of a purchase is to offer different but related products as incentive. This is what is popularly called cross selling. Here, the point to bear in mind is that products have to be associated judiciously. It is good to associate related or supplementary products rather than offer something that is in no way related to what is being purchased. It makes sense to cross sell a pair of socks with apparel, but to someone looking for a flower bouquet, socks would mean nothing. Even if a pair of socks is offered at a very attractive price, it would hardly catch the buyer’s attention, because her mind is focused on a totally different kind of product. This is where a little common sense can go a long way in increasing the value of the sale.
Other incentives
If it is not possible to associate products or cross sell in some circumstances, it will be a good idea for an ecommerce business to offer other kinds of incentives. One of the most popular options relates to delivery. Let us say a set of toiletries costs £ 20. If the cost of delivering it is £ 3; it could make the customer think twice. On the other hand,by offering free shipping for a purchase of three sets of the same item, you would offer the customer a strong reason to choose the three’s pack.
As you go about with your ecommerce business, you will learn that ingenuity is the name of the game. The more you experiment, the likelier you are of better results!