7 Essential Ecommerce Tips For Your First Online Store

Competition in e-commerce has increased over the past 5 years, and this trend will only continue. The number of sites selling various goods and services is increasing every day. 

So, how can you increase brand recognition, expand your customer base and increase the efficiency of your business?

1. Lead magnet

Lead magnet is a free offer for customers, which allows you to access a closed file or a unique service of your company by means of an e-mail subscription or a mobile phone number. 

The main reasons for using the lead magnet 

• Expansion of the potential client base.
• Free access to closed valuable materials for the client. Additional value for the client.
• Competitive advantage over those who do not use this chip.

The most popular options for using lead magnets, for which you can get contacts of a potential client: 

• Instructions, checklists, chips; 
• Gifts, bonuses, coupons, discount on purchase; 
• Free testing, trial use of the product or demo version;

2. Booby-trap product

Unlike a lead magnet, which helps to create a base of potential customers, a trap product already creates real customers who pay you money. On average, the cost of a trap product varies from $1 to $50, depending on the cost of your key product, but most often it is $1-5. 

This chip is aimed at making potential customers become real, and give a real profit. Sales – this is primarily a psychology, and sell to those who have already paid you easier than those who have not yet done so.

There are several important rules to follow when creating a trap product: 

• The product should be useful to the buyer. 
• The product must belong to the same category as your main product. 
• The product should only partially solve the customer’s problems, and only your key product solves them completely. 
• The cost of a trap product should be such that a person is ready to spend money without hesitation. 

Recommendations for creating a product trap: 

• Electronic format – solves issues with logistics and time, created once and for all. 
• Causes an impulsive desire to buy. 
• The value of goods should be tens of times greater than the price. 
• Fast and easy payment. 

A few examples to broaden your horizons: 

• Hosting sells domain names for $1 to sell its main product in the future. 
• Set of materials: video, book, webinar recording. 
• Perform analysis or audit for the client. 
• Sell a sample or part of your main product to feel the value.

3. Blog on the site

What are the features and value of the blog on the site: 

• Cases. Through articles you can share your achievements, thus showing your expertise.
• Useful content. Find and disclose issues of interest to your potential clients. Each article written in the blog goes into the search engine index annals and guarantees you lifetime traffic from the search (the amount depends on the quality of the content).

Tip: regularly update your blog, find a professional copywriter to create an image of your brand: best custom essay writing service

4. Blog on YouTube

Advantages of blogging the company on YouTube:

• One video instead of a thousand words. In one video on your YouTube channel you can give answers to all your audience’s questions.
• Backstage. Share your inner kitchen, people are interested.
• Reviews. When we see a real person’s feedback from a real company, it begins to take on a deeper meaning and audience loyalty.

5. Chatbots 

Not all customers trust robots. Not all sellers are ready to accept that chatbots are the future of online sales. Already now they have learned how to advise customers, sell food, tickets, clothes.

What is the use of electronic assistants

• Bot is cheaper than a call center. He works 24 hours a day without lunch, sick leave or vacation. Unlike people, he is almost not mistaken. Reacts to requests instantly.
•  In the process of communication with the client, the robot remembers the information about him and uses it in the future (location, preference, previous orders). This simplifies re-shopping, helps to effectively offer personal offers and create a feeling of “special” attitude. 
• The bot has access to a huge amount of information and is guided by it without a “human factor”. Huge catalogues of goods, points of sale, terms of delivery, personal information, payment data, warehouse balances, etc. 
• With simple short surveys, the bot helps to choose the right product for the client, even from a large range of products. This is especially important to keep new visitors, who may get confused in the unfamiliar interface of the store and leave the site. 

6. Marketing auto funnels

A sales funnel is a series of pre-prepared and automated processes for your customers. 

Simply put, the auto funnel allows you to sell a product or service to a customer automatically via letters, SMS, social networks, etc. It is thanks to this chip that info-business has made a big leap forward in the last few years. 

Unfortunately or fortunately, e-commerce does not yet use this chip much, but this is definitely the future. Seo Masters is still at the stage of implementation of this technology, but already now it looks like this:

I’ll explain how it works with one car funnel as an example. 

• You make and sell kitchens. 
• You have received a lead from a potential client, you have had contact with him. 
• At the moment, he is thinking, looking at other contractors, choosing.

In the final stage, the potential client chooses the companies that have performed best. For example: who answered the call immediately, how quickly answered, etc. There can be many selection criteria: time, service, responsibility, price, etc.

7. Visual Search

Sometimes we want to buy something without knowing the manufacturer and model of this thing, and sometimes even the name. Then we have a search term such as “an egg-whipping thing” or “a device to determine something there…”, etc. And we can also, for example, see a car with beautiful disks in the street and irresistibly wish to buy the same ones. 

The first step in this direction was made by the popular in the USA and Canada furniture brand West Elm. He launched a search function on his site for pictures with Pinterest (known in America as social photo hosting). The user can insert the images found in this image bank and “translate” them into a list of specific products on West Elm’s website.

Conclusions

The raging online sales market is never tired of introducing technologies and creating trends, becoming every year more convenient and friendly for the client who generates profits. What else do you think online retailers will prepare for us in 2019?