How Do E-Commerce Businesses Boost the Sale from Their Websites?
How can I boost the sale on my E-commerce website? Originally appeared on Quora: the place to gain and share knowledge, empowering people to learn from others and better understand the world.
Firstly, I want to share our experience of a similar situation.
We had a client specialised in boutique fashion. We setup her shop online on multiple places – Flipkart, Amazon and her own store on Shopfiy.
To promote her shopify based site, we spread the word through FB and we ran an email campaign for about Rs. 20,000/-. The net result was possibly one sale on the own website.
Meanwhile, Flipkart (which was idle for almost 1 month) started to pick up sales. But returns were over 20%.
Then we got a chance introduction in Voonik and setup shop there. This proved to be a breakthrough and orders started flowing in. And soon Amazon started delivering results as well.
She also got articles featuring her designs in the metro section of the newspapers. That helps a great deal in recognizing her work.
The key learnings that can be relevant here:
Traffic to website is a critical driver
One in 100 would end up buying… (assuming we have done very good pictures of the product and have a value for money pricing). And you may need to be present in popular marketplaces where footfall is huge.
Brand recognition is a big driver
When you are selling niche products and havent built a brand, we need to find a way to ride on another brand. Voonik had a name in exclusive women’s wear.
Offline word of mouth is critical
You got to get the word out. Limited adv budget is everyone’s challenge. But your time for the business is plenty. Keep pegging away at spreading the word.
Do you have a story?
This is the big question. Are you yet another store for the products? OR do you have some story that is unique and attention catching? For e.g. this could be unique chemical free stuff, unique as its made by self-help groups or maybe something else. But you need to have a story. And keep sharing that on your website, share that with local newspapers, category magazines…somewhere you will get featured, soon footfall (or eyeballs) to your website will grow.
The obvious ones – try Adwords and SEO
Google adwords are good way to find genuine leads. But simple ads taking people to home page of your website may be wasted money. There is an art and science to ad copies, to get some expertise (some FB friend will put their hand up if you can buy them beer and lunch :). SEO comes as a natural outcome of great content on your products and your customer needs. Try and get a good article out every week on your website.
Any influencer friends around?
If you have friends active in FB, Twitter – big fan base…maybe they can post/tweet about your product. That is possible if you ask. But before you ask, do you have a story for them to announce.
