If you’ve recently started your own eCommerce store, you may be wondering what to do next. You’ve got the site started, but how do you get it to grow? The thing you’ll want to focus on is adding value to it. The more valuable you can make your site for customers, the better off it will be.
Below you’ll find why adding value to your eCommerce site is a good idea, along with some simple strategies for how you can start doing so.
The Importance of Adding Value
There are two main reasons why you’ll want to focus on adding value to your eCommerce site. The first is that you’ll need to keep up with your competition. There are millions of eCommerce sites, with more being created every day. Many of those are in your niche and are looking to improve themselves all the time. If you don’t look to add value to your own site when you can, you’ll quickly fall behind your competitors.
The other reason is that you may want to sell your eCommerce site one day. When it comes time to contact a website broker, you’ll want it to be worth as much as possible so that they can score a better deal for you.
Adding value takes time – it’s not something you can typically do overnight. So by focusing on adding value now, you can set yourself up for a bigger sale down the road.
Be Consistent Across All Channels
The first thing you’ll want to focus on is delivering a consistent experience across all your channels. Whenever a customer interacts with your brand, they should get the same feeling. For example, you should use the same tone of voice in your website copy, on your social channels, and in your social media posts.
To get started with this, you should first look at your website. Your website is the main point of contact online between you and your customers. Think about things like your color scheme, copy, and how your website behaves.
If you’re using a platform like Shopify, you may need a Shopify theme development agency to help you get all of the intricate details exactly how you want them to be.
Once your website is complete, apply the same aesthetic to your other online portals. For instance, you can change your Facebook and Twitter pages to better match your website’s colors. By being cohesive across all of your channels, you’ll help build a brand that is identifiable anywhere online.
Focus on Customer Service and Experience
The next area you’ll want to focus on is delivering great customer experience. Statistics show that customers increasingly want a personalized experience when shopping online. There are many simple ways you can implement this that will help to add value to your eCommerce website.
For example, you can provide product recommendations based on their past purchases or other items in their shopping cart. Another option is to use personal information about the customer when contacting them. You could use their name when you send them an email, or send them a special coupon on their birthday.
A big part of customer experience is also your customer service. It should be easy for customers to get the answers they are looking for and to quickly have any problems they are having addressed. A simple way to do this is by adding a live chat feature to your store. This will allow your customers to quickly connect to a customer service representative and have a conversation with them.
Once you learn which questions are most likely to occur, you can then create a FAQ page or implement a chatbot to reduce your customer service load.
Encourage Repeat Customers
To get the most out of each dollar you spend, you’ll want to focus on bringing back more repeat customers, rather than spending all your money on getting new customers. It’s much more expensive to get a new customer than it is to bring back an old one, so the more money you can invest in this, the more value your eCommerce store will have.
A great way to bring back repeat customers is by building customer loyalty. This happens when customers feel appreciated and a part of your business, rather than just a number on a page.
Some simple ways to build customer loyalty are following up with them on their shopping experience, going above and beyond in your customer service, and by creating a rewards program that promotes repeat purchases.
Optimize Speed
Finally, the last way you can add value to your eCommerce site is by optimizing the speed throughout. No one likes to use a slow website, and if it takes too long to complete a purchase through your store, customers are likely to look elsewhere. There are two main areas you should focus on when it comes to speed.
The first is your website itself. Pages should load quickly and be responsive to the user’s interactions. You can test out your website’s page speed by using this tool from Google. If you find that your website is running slowly, consider some simple actions like reducing image size, removing unused plugins, or switching to a faster server.
The other area to focus on is the checkout process. Your goal should be to make it as easy and quick as possible for your customers to checkout. The longer this process is, the more likely they will abandon their cart. Look to remove unnecessary steps like logging in or reviewing similar products.
You should also add as many different payment options as possible so that customers don’t have to try and find alternative ways to pay rather than their preferred method.
Always Look to Add Value
There’s no downside to adding value to your eCommerce site. Either you’ll bring in more customers and make yourself more profitable, or you’ll have a more valuable website to sell somewhere down the line.
You can add value in all sorts of ways, big and small, it’s just a matter of keeping your eyes open for them. If you can develop a habit of always looking for ways to add value, you should have no trouble steadily increasing its worth over time.