You have a small business now, and you know you want it to grow. Growth means more customers, more revenue, more inventory, and more success. Before you can get to this space, however, you have to set some practices in motion that will foster natural and lasting growth. Check out these 10 e-commerce best practices for small businesses
10 e-Commerce Best Practices for Small Business
1. Have a Mobile-Friendly Interface
Most consumers are doing their shopping from their smartphones or tablets. With this in mind, having a website that is mobile-friendly is a must because it increases the chances for sales and new customers. When your website is easily accessible through their smartphone, they’re more likely to stay, browse, and purchase.
2. Connect With Every Potential Customer
Though you invest in advertisements and campaigns to generate traffic, you need to go the extra mile to retain new visitors once you have them. The best way to reach out to a new visitor is to give them a way to stay in touch with a call to action. This can be an email sign-up page, such as a pop-up that welcomes the visitor and gives them information on how to stay in touch.
3. Follow Up on Abandoned Shopping Carts
Online shopping carts are easily abandoned, and this can mean a lot of missed opportunities for sales. Help move things along by reminding shoppers about their abandoned carts. You can add an automatic feature on your website that reminds customers via email about their forgotten cart with these reminder tools.
4. Let Shoppers Know When An Item has Been Added to Their Cart
When it takes a few tries to add something to your cart, shoppers are more likely to just abandon it all together. When this is the case, even a gentle email reminder won’t encourage customers to return. Fix this small but significant annoyance by adding a simple pop-up feature that confirms when a product has been added to the cart.
5. Liven Up Your Landing Page With Excellent Images
Adding images and crisp visuals to your website home page, product pages, blogs, and more can really capture a visitor’s interest as well as make a sale more likely. Look for web hosts that support image-friendly pages like Squarespace or Weebly to get started. There are also tons of sites that offer excellent images and gifs for free such as Stocksnap and Unsplash.
6. Minimalist Is Best
While images are always a good choice, you also have to think about what images you use, how many, and their layout. A good rule of thumb to remember is that a minimalist, clean design goes a long way.
7. Always Remember Content Is King When Developing Your Marketing Strategy
Show your customers that you can answer their questions and provide useful information by creating pertinent web content. For example, if you have an online clothing store, you may want to create blogs about the latest fashion trends, great looks for fall, how-tos on accessories, and more. Keep in mind, however, that not all kinds of content belong on your site – so choose wisely!
8. Utilize Mobile Payment Solutions
Providing mobile payment solutions for customers makes online shopping easier than ever. There are mobile apps you can try such as the popular PayPal that allow shoppers to complete their purchase with ease, but keep an eye out for monthly fees and maintenance that might come with them.
9. Plump Up Your Product Descriptions
Product descriptions are part of a content strategy that can lead to more sales. When creating descriptions, ensure that you or your writers are not just describing your goods and services, but selling them as well. Customers will likely consider adding a product to their cart if the description is rich, informative, user-friendly, and concise.
10. Extend the Navigation Bar
Improve your website by widening the navigation bar to include more categories. For example, if you sell clothing and have a “Women’s” category, you can extend this to include “Apparel,” “Accessories,” “Jewelry,” “Underwear,” etc. This variety can lead to more perusal of your wares, which can lead to more clicks, more “add-to-carts,” and more sales.
These ten e-commerce best practices can really make a difference for your small business as time goes on. Use them and watch your business grow!