It’s frustrating, isn’t it? Everyone says starting an ecommerce site is easy. Yet, when you actually go and try to do it yourself, you run into roadblock after roadblock. Here’s how to get through the clutter and set up shop and nurture its growth.
Don’t Make A Fuss Over Launches
This runs counter to the usual advice to make a big deal out of the launch date. Unless you already have an army of customers or prospects waiting to buy from you, don’t turn it into a big deal. One of the biggest mistakes new ecommerce sites make is to rush it and force the launch.
And, while you only get one shot at a first impression, remember that most of the people on the web haven’t heard of you before, so your launch doesn’t need to be something “over the top.” People will continue to find you for the first time years from now.
That doesn’t mean you shouldn’t try to set up your social media, PPC, and other marketing channels to maximize impact. You should. But, don’t get disappointed or too fixated on things if it doesn’t go exactly as planned.
Put The Focus On The Customer
You have to focus on the customer’s problem, not your solution. This is a huge mistake most new ecommerce sites make. If you don’t let your customers visualize their problem on your site, and get them involved in your solution without hard selling, it comes off as being both desperate and a sort of disconnected feeling.
While you can’t let your customers feel, touch, and smell your product, you can give them a 3D view of it, make ordering easy, and make returns streamlined.
Test Everything
You probably have heard people talk about this before. Test everything. Before, during, and after the launch, you should invest a lot of money in testing and analytics. Think like your customer and try to figure out where your site breaks down, where the ordering process becomes difficult, where you might be losing customers, and how to improve the sales process.
Set Up A Strong Social Media Presence
Don’t even think about outsourcing your social media or delegating it to another team. This is the most important marketing channel you have. While it’s fine to hire a manager, you should stay on top of the big picture details yourself.
Use Mobile
If you don’t have a responsive website, you’re toast. Pack it up and go home. Responsive websites are not new, but many websites still don’t use them. Instead, they expect users to navigate the full-desktop version of the site.
This is bad. Users not only won’t do this, but on some devices, it’s simply not practical to. If you make your website frustrating to use, they’ll go somewhere else.
Stay On Your SEO Game
SEO isn’t dead and it never will be. As your ecommerce site grows, SEO will become more and more important to your growth. That means, you need to hire an SEO consulting company that knows how to scale an ecommerce site through linkbuilding and other onpage and offpage methods.
You also need to be following this ecommerce guide.
The Money Is In The List
Don’t forget to be building your email list. Collect names via landing pages on your site, and even through your homepage. While it’s important to market your products through many different channels, remember that people that sign up to your email list can be marketed to for free.
Most businesses aren’t very good at this and, as a result, leave a lot of money on the table.
Emailing your list often, as much as once per week and, in some cases, once per day, can have a dramatic effect on your sales and repeat site visits.
Make sure your email provider has a high deliverability rate and that you’re sending out emails on a consistent basis.
Kayleigh Robertson has recently started her own e-commerce shop, after successfully running a brick-and-mortar store in the real world. She has learnt quickly through trial and error, and enjoys sharing her tips with other business owners online.