How to boost e-commerce profit.

25 ways to boost e-commerce profit has been explained in this article.An e-commerce business is a business model where buyers and sellers exchange goods and services over the internet.

Therefore, you need a workflow diagram of ideas or tasks that must be followed to successfully run a profitable business.They are broadly categorised as Business to Business {B2B} or Business to Consumers{B2C} eCommerce.

1.Focus on the market.

It’s important to know how to reach out to your target market to boost e-commerce profit. You need to recognise what your customers want in a product or service and identify how they compare the options available to them.

You can make a point of talking to your prospective customers in person or sending them surveys to get an insight into their thoughts. You can also use Google Analytics to get useful data like traffic services and such information to help you improve on the different aspects of your business.

2.Reach out to your repeat customers.

Though it’s important to acquire new customers for a business to grow, statistics show that repeat customers contribute a lot to the business kitty.

You should therefore keep your loyal customers happy by building relationships with them, keeping in touch, and sending them personalized messages and emails, especially on personal occasions such as their birthdays.

That way you will win their trust and retain them as loyal customers.

3.Use brilliant product descriptions.

Since customers don’t have time to read the details of the products, you should make sure you use descriptions that are easy to read. You should use large readable fonts, and bullet points, use subheadings, and involve spacing that enables the customer to read easily at a glance.

4.Focus on selling not registering customers.

You should concentrate on making the customer purchase the product instead of wanting them to register before checking out. Research shows that customers who are forced to register to opt out of the purchase before they complete it.

You need to provide an option for guest check out such that a good experience will make a customer return and as such, they can see the need to register.

5.Use great product photos.

Since e-Commerce is about online shopping, customers rely on the website photos they see before making a purchase. It’s therefore important that you present them with photos that are enticing but you should also be real to boost e-commerce profit.

If you can afford it, you can engage in the services of professional photography and invest in product photography.

6.Engage in product reviews.

Product reviews are social proof that the item or service that you offer works and this helps boost e-commerce profit. You should use product reviews to your advantage by encouraging customers to put reviews on your products or service.

An undecided customer, upon bumping into a product review, is most likely to make the purchase based on what the other user has stated about the product. Reviews can be gathered in the following ways;
-Put a thank you note in the delivery package plus the link to your review page.
-Offer a significant amount of cash or store credit as a reward for lucky customers’ reviews.
-Send an email to your customers between 1 and 24 hours after purchase to ask them to review their items. To prevent dismal reviews from making it online, you can include a phone number so that they can contact you personally in case of complaints and concerns.
-If a bad review makes it on your page, address it properly and promptly to display excellent customer service.

7.Sell more with personalisation.

Most of the sales occur as a result of recommendations. You should therefore decide on the areas that you would like to focus on in upselling. You need to make use of data from previous customers’ purchases and searches to strengthen your upselling, add-on sales, and cross-selling strategies.

8.Optimize your site’s speed.

Since e-Commerce is about online shopping, the speed of your site matters a lot. A one-second delay in loading may irritate a prospective customer and as such make you lose millions of sales.

Difficulty in loading your site also decreases the chances of conversion. You should therefore ensure that your site’s speed works at the optimal level. You can use Pingdom to check website speed and determine if it’s being overloaded.

Here are tips on how to improve your website speed;
-Use compression software to lessen data size.
-Ask your hosting provider for an assessment of your current traffic size to avoid cracking your site during peak hours.
-Utilize caching technology to temporarily contain data and avoid querying the database.

9.Manage shipping costs wisely.

You need to make sure your customers know about your shipping costs early in the purchasing process. They need to be fully informed of how and when the shipping services are offered throughout all the stages of the purchase on most parts of the website.

This helps in preventing the abandoning of the cart since it mostly happens when the customers learn of the shipping costs late into their purchase transactions. The information should be evident right from the home page, through the product page up to the check-out page.

10.Offer discounted bundles.

Bundling in eCommerce helps both the shoppers and the business. The shoppers get discounts on the products while the businesses increase their Average Order Value without additional overhead costs.

Bundling here comes in three forms;
*Mixed bundling-here products can be bought individually or as part of the bundle.
*Introductory bundling-this is a strategy for bundling popular or best-selling products that you want to introduce to the new market.
*Choose your bundle-here users are given the option to choose what they would like to include in a bundle.

11.Use of videos to increase sales.

Statistics show that videos sell six times more than print or online ads.

E-commerce can therefore optimize the video strategy to maximize its profits in the following ways;
-Videos with a mix of superb storytelling and product showcase.
-Videos that highlight a product and provide entertainment at the same time.
-Educational videos that add value to your product.
-Product review videos.

All these categories of videos work towards increasing sales and therefore increasing e-commerce profits.

12.Study the “why and “when” of abandoned carts.

E-commerce is about online shopping and therefore for a purchase to be complete, there has to be an online procedure.

Since some of the customers abandon the cart midway through the procedure, it’s important for eCommerce business owners to determine why they abandon the cart and at what exact stage they abandon the cart.

Such information will help the business to know areas that need improvement to ensure that transactions that began go all the way to the checkout stage.

It has been realized that most of the customers abandon the carts when they learn about the shipping costs whereas others abandon the cart to try to compare the prices with the competitors.

These are some of the ways of improving the shopping experience to reduce cart abandonment:
-Make check out an easy process.
-Simplify and streamline the checkout process.
-Think of offering an on-site comparison.
-Send a customized email to shoppers who abandon their cart to try and engage them.

13.Make use of social media.

Going by statistics, Facebook, Instagram, and YouTube contribute a lot to sales as a result of advertising.

You should therefore make good use of social media to reach your customers. To make use of social media platforms, use keywords in your social media posts, use hashtags to target the right audience, join groups, create polls, and build partnerships with social media influencers within your area to help you reach out to your prospective customers.

Social media presents a good way of interacting with your customers and you should therefore maximize your presence on the various platforms.

14.Use mobile e-commerce.

The usual practice of eCommerce is to deliver from a website to a format suitable for mobile. You can include exclusive deals for mobile customers from managing registries to showing featured products and gift card downloads to appeal to prospective customers.

15.Add live chat to your website.

A live chat is an important aspect of e-commerce because it helps customers who need an immediate solution to a problem.

Having a live chat prevents the customer from abandoning the cart.

Here are some of the advantages of live chats:
-It’s most convenient for the user to contact the business if they are having problems with the checkout.
-It helps cut down on call center expenses.
-It might help identify customers’ needs and therefore assist on time.

Live chats, therefore, help in boosting the profits of e-commerce.

16.Increase sales with coupon deals.

It’s almost like a trend to find shoppers looking for coupons on coupon websites, brand sites, and social media before making a purchase. Such offers help cultivate loyalty from your customer base and also help entice new shoppers to purchase from your site.

These offers include purchase discounts, store credits, free shipping, and gifts. They increase sales hence increasing profits in e-commerce.

17.Give referral discounts.

E-commerce businesses can offer irresistible referral rewards that help their loyal customers to recommend their products to other friends and family members. These rewards turn your loyal customers into your site marketing helping hands.

The most notable reward scheme is the double-sided referral which is the kind that rewards both the sender and the buyer. These rewards can either be monetary or non-monetary in the form of early access to new stocks for loyal customers.

18.Concentrate on your best products.

It happens that most of your profits come from specific products. It’s therefore logical that all your focus should be on such products to maximize profits from there. You should maintain, develop and promote the most performing products to reap optimally from them.

19.Focus on security.

Security to shoppers is of utmost importance in online shopping.SSL for security and encryption services should be given priority if you wish to attract and maintain customers.

Customers tend to feel assured that no hacking can occur to them during online purchases. To maximise your sales, you should incorporate badges that customers tend to identify with.

Shoppers want to identify with badges from programs of security that they trust. These include BBB, Trustee, PayPal, and Amex among others. Ensure that you guarantee the safety of your customers.

20.Keep your inventory in check.

Keeping the balance between your capital and stock is of paramount importance to boost e-commerce profit.

You need to ensure that your store has enough stock to meet the demands of the customers as well as make sure the capital does not run out.

To improve your inventory management, you need to focus on the following;
-Make sure stock information is consistent in all the platforms that you are available to avoid contradictory information.
-Set sessions to map demand forecasts. You need to set safety stock levels and assign a pre-order point to avoid running out of stock.
-Take a look into your inventory shipping costs.

You could get your stocks by bulk shipping, consignment, or drop shipping records.

21.User your receipt mail for marketing.

Returning users with receipt mail help in maximizing conversions that helps boost e-commerce profit.

All you need is to make sure the receipts have the company logo, personalized appreciation message, feedback section, order notes, and billing|shipping information as well as other discounts on offer. This way you help in marketing your products.

22.Partner with other businesses for cross-promotion.

Partnering with other businesses that are related to the goods and services that you offer but are not exactly rival businesses helps boost e-commerce profit and open up a new level of business opportunities.

The programs under partnerships may include partnership giveaways, event sponsorships, and co-branded campaigns.
All of these assist the business to maximize profits from prospective customers.

23.Offer a money-back guarantee.

Customers feel secure when they spend on products that the sellers are willing to bet on. So if the seller feels that their product is worth the price, they normally offer a money-back guarantee and help increase the sales because the buyer feels secure that their money won’t get lost if the product is below par.

Therefore money-back guarantee builds a customer’s confidence and thus increases sales. The same goes for services that offer free trials to assure the clients of the validity of the level of the services that they offer.

24. Utilize urgency and scarcity to drive sales growth.

Naturally, scarcity enhances urgency. This should be used by e-commerce businesses to drive sales in the following ways;
-Showing your stock meter which strikes panic mode and enhances a rush for the products.
-Set a cut-off time for next-day shipping to make customers click on the buy button to be included in the shipping offers.
-Show the number of users currently viewing the product. This makes them feel left out

The choice of phrases to utilize urgency, however, matters. You can use phrases like ‘one day only’,’don’t miss out,’ limited time, and others that don’t seem to bully the customers but encourage them to make the purchases.

25.Use retargeting

This strategy is mostly used when carts are abandoned midway. Retargeting utilizes cookies stored on users’ computers. It happens that when a would-be shopper browses everywhere on the web, they’ll see the ads related to your offers.

Cookies can also be sent via email using a platform such as retargets.

To sum up:

Since businesses have shifted to e-commerce, the competition is cutthroat and it’s therefore important that the business owners devise ways of maximizing profits in their e-commerce businesses and this is done without leaving anything to chance.