Starting an eCommerce business in 2017 is fairly simple. All you need to do is find your niche, choose the right platform and follow a quick and self-explanatory tutorial. Still, although starting may be fairly easy, growing your business, making it self-sustainable and of course triumphing over your closest competitors is something completely different. So, here are five simple tips on how you could effectively grow an eCommerce business.
1. Target other demographics
While most guides will advise you to focus on a single major demographic in order to get the most effect, every once in a while, it might be worth your while to reach out to other audiences as well. Sure, you are still better off focusing the majority of your resources on those you deem as low-hanging fruits or qualified leads, but it doesn’t hurt to make an extra effort and add an additional objective to your outreach plans.
2. Outsource
Growing your business can cost a small fortune and expanding your business rarely seems cost-effective in the long run. Furthermore, trying to do everything in-house gives you a lot less flexibility, which is why it might be a much better option to simply outsource. While there are those who hate the idea of outsourcing core-tasks, in most situations, this is where the greatest savings can be made. Furthermore, if you, for example, operate out of Sydney, you can use a Sydney-based warehouse storage solution instead of purchasing a warehouse. This way, you can also save a lot of time and effort on hiring, handpicking and training a team. Overall, whether or not outsourcing is resource-efficient may be quite situational but it is always more flexible and more scalable.
3. Market your most popular products
Another simple trick that will help you grow your eCommerce business lies in your marketing focus. More often than not there will be so many different items in your stock that you won’t have enough time, space or resources to market all of them properly. This is why, in order to get the best results, you need to figure out which of your products are the most popular ones and focus on promoting them individually. This way, you will not only boost sales of your flagship products but you’ll also increase the chance of driving attention towards your other products as well.
4. Use affiliate marketing
Whether or not traffic is a vanity metric is up to a lot of debate. Still, one thing is certain – without traffic, there is no profit. for example, your conversion rate can be 100 percent, but if you only get a few visitors on your website every month, it won’t amount to much. One of the ways you can boost your traffic is through a cunning use of affiliate marketing and PPC (pay-per-click). Even though some dislike the idea of paying for visitors, no one can dispute the effectiveness of this method.
5. Focus on return business
Finally, you need to keep in mind that the thing that will generate you the most profit is not new conversions but return business. In fact, according to research, 8 percent of your return customers are responsible for over 40 percent of all your profit. For this, however, you need to have great analytics tools and an even greater post-sale follow-up technique. Here, methods such as email marketing or even traditional telemarketing are highly recommended.
Conclusion
With these several growth hacks, you are bound to set your eCommerce on the right path towards success. Not only are these techniques optimal for creating some great immediate results but they also excel in helping you scale a lot better than your current business model. The best thing here is the fact that the above-listed five are nothing more than a tip of the iceberg and there are many other tricks left for you to discover.