5 Ways to Optimize your eCommerce Strategy for 2017

The eCommerce landscape has changed dramatically over the past few years.  According to statistical researchers, retail and wholesale eCommerce revenues will exceed $4 trillion dollars in 2017.  Besides that huge market, a solid eCommerce strategy will let you grow your revenue and your business using technology instead of new hires.

Here are some specific points you should consider when you planning to optimize your eCommerce strategies.

Awesome Customer Experience:

Whether you’re online or not, the customer experience is key. A recent online poll indicates that 60% of online buyers have given up a purchase because of a poor online experience.  Surprisingly, however, personalization isn’t what it used to be. Almost all customers begin the sales process with online research.  That means that data is key. Customers want to research after hours, they want to engage without ‘being sold’ and they want cold hard facts.  All this leads us to the benefit of an online web store.

An eCommerce storefront lets your customers get a quote at any time, lets you create business logic for upsells and cross sells, and assures that prospects always get the right mix of products. Satisfying these customers’ research expectations translates to a great customer experience which translates into more sales.

Which leads me to my next point…

Personalize:

Site visitors want easy buying experiences. You don’t need to create a customer portal, but letting customers see previous orders and place recurring orders is the kind of personalization that purchasers love. Standing orders for stock replenishment? eCommerce stores can handle that. Tools are out there, and available even to small budgets. Tools that let you capture histories and preferences, and return a product selection led by discounts and special offers.

Make it about the customer!

Use CRM:

Whether you sell B2B or B2C, knowing your customer is crucial. You may never talk to a customer directly but your web store is talking to them all the time. A CRM lets you group and segment. Push this data back to your webstore and you can offer special discounts or incentives. Additionally, keeping good customer data is beneficial when a retail transaction turns into a considered purchase.

Create the appropriate business channel.

Use Both Wholesale and Retail:

Retail isn’t appropriate for all businesses, (let’s face it: consumers don’t buy million-dollar machines online) but for some businesses a retail channel can lead to a wholesale purchase. One BrainSell customer manufactures pet supplies. They usually sell directly to pet stores and don’t have a brick and mortar storefront. A few years ago, they created a web store to allow their retailers an easy path to replenishment. The web store started attracting consumers which increased their market recognition and lead to more retail demand. Besides, incremental revenue never hurts.

Which leads me to my final point…

Embrace the Abandoned Cart:

It’s inevitable that customers, both retail and wholesale, will abandon their shopping carts. But take heart! The sale isn’t lost. If you’re marketing properly you can keep track of those abandoned carts, find the customer who left it in the aisle and make them a special offer. You can recover those purchases and keep those customers engaged by reminding them of their interest – after all, they went to your site for a reason.

A marketing manager worth her salt can leverage your CRM’s segmentation engine to send a custom email campaign. Use your CRM to create a list of customers who live in New England and who abandoned a shopping cart with a value over $200 in the last two weeks. As soon as the segment is generated, your intrepid marketer launches a campaign offering them a time-limited offer to complete the sale.