Etail Insights

BY ROGER S. RAMAN
CHIEF EXECUTIVE OFFICER | ETAIL LABS

After the heady growth E-commerce businesses witnessed during COVID, Online Retailers must now sustain momentum and performance. A large colony of E-commerce startups have already taken birth to disrupt E-commerce. Here are ways in which best online retailers ensure continuous growth.

Customer-Centricity
Successful online retailers invest in understanding their customers’ needs and preferences, and tailor their offerings and services. Offering exceptional customer service, personalized recommendations, and convenience elements like pay later options or shorter delivery times, go a long way. All top retailers I have worked closely with leverage data analytics to gain insights into customer behavior, market trends, CTR, ROI on digital marketing spends and sales performance of each channel. They use this information to optimize their marketing campaigns, refine their product assortment, and improve overall business operations.

Leverage Multi-Channels
Today’s online retailers love being on multiple sales channels. They establish themselves across multiple online platforms including their own e-commerce website, popular marketplaces, and social media channels. They expand their reach and tap into different customer segments.

Innovation and Marketing
Leading online retailers focus on innovation. Taking lessons from Clayton Christensen’s works successful retailers innovate bottom-up keeping in focus customer experience. This includes adopting new technologies, exploring emerging trends, and embracing evolving customer preferences. They constantly seek ways to improve their products, services, and overall customer experience. Walmart’s experiments with drone deliveries and driverless deliveries is a classic example.

Successful online retailers invest in strategic marketing. They execute a mix of digital marketing strategies including SEO strategies, PPC advertising, Social media marketing, Influencers, and Email marketing. They analyze the impact and prioritize targeted campaigns to reach their target audience and drive traffic to their online store.

Efficient operations play a crucial role in growth. They optimize their supply chain be it private label or branded products, merchandising processes, inventory management, and fulfillment processes to ensure smooth operations, fast order processing, lower returns and timely delivery. This helps maintain customer satisfaction and enhances the overall shopping experience.

Branding
I am a fan of Seth Godin when it comes to branding. Frankly, online retailers don’t do a great job at branding. The content looks the same across all competitors. It doesn’t speak to the retailer’s brand. The best online retailers focus on building long-term customer relationships and fostering brand loyalty. They prioritize customer engagement, reward programs, personalized communications, and post-purchase support to encourage repeat purchases and referrals

The e-commerce landscape is dynamic, and successful retailers embrace change. They adapt to market shifts, consumer demands, and technological advancements swiftly. They stay agile, continuously refining their strategies and adapting their business models to remain competitive.

BY ETAIL LABS EDITORIAL TEAM

Retailers spend a ton of their hard-earned money on Google Ads, YouTube Ads, Insta Ads and Marketplace Fees. Every customer who checks into your site is a potential business. All those spends go down the drain if there is not much conversion. User experience is critical to conversion. Here are five proven strategies to improve the e-commerce user experience:

1. Rich Product Information
We cannot emphasize enough the importance of content. 90% of the multi-brand retailers either use the content supplied to them by brands or purchase a standard catalog content off-the-shelf. Search engines do assign any SEO value to those. And your customer experience boils down to pricing. I would like to paraphrase Kjell Nordström and Jonas Ridderstråle from Funky Business – “The ‘surplus society has a surplus of similar online retailers, employing similar people, with similar educational backgrounds, working in similar jobs, coming up with similar ideas, producing similar things, with similar prices and similar quality.”

I still see many retailers with insufficient product specifications, long product titles that don’t follow SEO principles, meta descriptions that are not focused on CTR, Provide comprehensive and accurate product information to help users make informed purchase decisions. Include high-quality product images from multiple angles, detailed descriptions, specifications, and customer reviews. Utilize videos, size guides, and interactive elements where appropriate. The more information users have, the more confident they will feel in making a purchase.

2. Reviews
Anthropologists will tell you humans by and large exhibit herd behavior. As the count of 5-star ratings go up, the product is likely to dominate the category than a product with wonderful photos, amazing description but has a score of 3 out of 5 in customer reviews. But reviews are also about customer service, many times. We see more retailers engaging us with the task of reading the reviews and responding to low-starring reviews. Real time alerts on bad reviews help us respond quickly to boost customer confidence.

3. Mobile Responsiveness
Many retailers use responsive websites, but a mobile device cannot display all the content of a desktop website with same level of clarity and impact. I would suggest product content written for mobile devices. Mobile-friendly navigation is crucial to enhance usability on smartphones and tablets.

4. Streamlined Checkout Process
Simplify the checkout process to minimize cart abandonment rates. Offer guest checkout options, reducing the need for users to create an account. Implement a progress indicator to clearly display the steps involved and minimize the number of form fields to be filled out. Enable saved payment information and provide multiple secure payment options to enhance convenience and trust.

5. Innovative Content
There are some non-negotiables like character length of a Meta Title but 90% of the content is in retailer’s hands. Being innovative helps. In once case, a perfume retailer increased sales by having us recreate the perfume’s hero images with all the base notes of the perfume like Jasmine or Sandal also as a picture. Featuring a human clipart next to a dimensioned furniture image helps a shopper in visualization.

There are many more, however these strategies are important as well.

BY ETAIL LABS EDITORIAL TEAM

The power of original content in e-commerce is immense and can significantly impact the success of a business. Here are some key aspects that highlight its importance:

1. Brand Differentiation: Original content sets a brand apart from competitors. It showcases the unique voice, style, and values of the business, creating a distinct identity in the minds of consumers. This differentiation helps in building brand recognition, loyalty, and trust.

2. Search Engine Optimization (SEO): Original content plays a crucial role in SEO. Search engines value fresh, relevant, and unique content. By creating original product descriptions, blog posts, articles, and landing pages, businesses can improve their search engine rankings, visibility, and organic traffic.

3. Customer Engagement: Compelling and original content captivates and engages customers. It educates, entertains, and provides value beyond just selling products. Engaging content builds a connection with the target audience, encourages interaction, and sparks conversations, fostering a sense of community around the brand.

4. Thought Leadership: Original content establishes a brand as a thought leader in its industry. By sharing insights, expertise, and valuable information, businesses position themselves as authorities in their respective niches. This enhances credibility, attracts a loyal following, and creates opportunities for partnerships and collaborations.

5. Social Media Sharing: Unique and interesting content is highly shareable on social media platforms. When customers find content that resonates with them, they are more likely to share it with their networks. This amplifies the brand’s reach, increases brand exposure, and drives traffic back to the e-commerce website.

6. Enhanced Conversion Rates: Original content has the power to influence consumer buying decisions. When customers are provided with comprehensive and persuasive product descriptions, informative blog posts, or engaging videos, they are more likely to make a purchase.

BY ETAIL LABS EDITORIAL TEAM

Online retailers often benefit from having content partners and we see that time and again with our customers.

Enhanced Product Information
Content partners can provide in-depth and accurate product information, including detailed descriptions, specifications, and features. This enriched content helps online retailers provide comprehensive information to customers, leading to better-informed purchase decisions.

SEO Optimization
Content partners can assist with search engine optimization (SEO) efforts by creating keyword-rich content and optimizing it for search engines. This helps improve the visibility of the retailer’s website, leading to increased organic traffic and potential customers.

Content Creation and Variety
Collaborating with content partners allows online retailers to access a broader range of content formats such as blog articles, videos, infographics, and social media posts. This variety of content helps to engage customers across different channels and cater to various preferences.

Expertise and Authority
Content partners often possess specialized knowledge and expertise in specific industries or niches. By leveraging their expertise, online retailers can establish themselves as authorities in their respective fields, gaining trust and credibility among their target audience.

Cost and Time Efficiency
Outsourcing content creation to partners can save online retailers valuable time and resources. Content partners handle the creation, optimization, and maintenance of content, allowing retailers to focus on other core aspects of their business.

Expanded Reach and Audience: Content partners may have their own established audience and distribution channels. Through collaboration, online retailers can tap into these existing networks and gain exposure to new potential customers. Partnering with content creators also fosters creative collaboration, bringing fresh perspectives and ideas to the retailer’s marketing strategies.

This collaborative approach often leads to innovative content campaigns that resonate with the target audience and drive engagement.

Content partners provide online retailers with valuable expertise, diverse content formats, improved SEO, cost efficiency, expanded reach, and creative collaboration.

BY ETAIL LABS EDITORIAL TEAM

SEO provides a cost-effective solution for ecommerce companies compared to the ongoing expenses associated with SEM campaigns. By focusing on optimizing organic search results, ecommerce businesses can drive sustainable, high-quality traffic without incurring additional costs for each click.

Organic Search Visibility
SEO aims to improve organic search rankings, which means that your ecommerce website will appear prominently in search engine results pages (SERPs) without relying on paid advertisements. This increases visibility, brand exposure, and the likelihood of attracting organic traffic.

Trust and Credibility
Consumers often perceive organic search results as more trustworthy and credible than paid ads. By ranking higher in organic search results through effective SEO practices, ecommerce companies can enhance their brand’s reputation, build trust with customers, and encourage repeat purchases.

Targeted Traffic and Conversion Potential: SEO allows ecommerce businesses to target specific keywords and optimize product pages accordingly. By focusing on relevant keywords and user intent, SEO helps drive targeted traffic to your website, increasing the likelihood of conversions and maximizing your return on investment.

Sustainable Growth: SEO focuses on long-term results and sustainable growth. By continually optimizing your website’s structure, content, and user experience, ecommerce companies can build a strong foundation for organic visibility, which can lead to consistent traffic, conversions, and revenue growth over time.

User Experience Optimization: SEO involves enhancing website usability, load times, mobile responsiveness, and navigation, which results in a positive user experience. Improved user experience leads to higher customer satisfaction, increased engagement, and improved conversion rates for ecommerce companies.

Investing in SEO as a primary marketing strategy offers ecommerce companies cost efficiency, organic search visibility, enhanced trust and credibility, targeted traffic, sustainable growth, and optimized user experiences. By prioritizing SEO, ecommerce businesses can establish a strong online presence, attract relevant customers, and thrive in the competitive digital marketplace.