Want To Grow Your eCommerce Store in 2021? Here are 5 ways to help.

Online shopping has been on the rise since last year. According to Statista predictions, 2021 will have over 2.14 billion digital buyers. In this situation, any business must think about setting up online stores.

Shopping online has been a saving grace for many people since 2020, when social distancing became the new norm. Although the global economy has suffered greatly, businesses with online shops are in better shape than was expected.

Experts predicted dire outcomes for the future of shopping and personal finance last year. However, the reality is a bit different. Although money was scarce due to lost jobs and economic decay, buying online was an escape fantasy for people in a tough mental spot.

Although COVID-19’s effects on the global financial situation are only just slowing, online shopping continues to grow. One factor has changed slightly: people are less emotional and more concerned about their savings.

As an online shop owner, now’s the time to fine-tune your strategy. You can take a more gentle and understanding approach, nurture your customers, and provide value to all of them. In this article, we’ve gathered a few methods to attract more buyers and make the existing ones love your shop even more.

1. Buy Now, Pay Later

“Buy now, pay later” (BNPL) is a third-party service for online shops. It offers customers the possibility to buy mid or high-cost items at once and pay for them in installments. While the BNPL provider and the buyer continue their relationship, your company receives the full amount at once. It’s different from layaway, where the customer gets the product after paying the last installment.

This happens due to third-party services like Klarna, Afterpay, Sezzle, and Splitit. Main features offered by these companies include:

• Increased conversions: Several factors can stand between a landing page and a successful purchase. When the customer is shopping around on your website, the option of paying in installments can ease them into the process so they’re more eager to go through with the purchase.
• Increased order value: Similarly, if the customer is thinking about buying more but has no money to do so, BNPL might nudge them to a larger purchase.
• Decreased in-cart abandonment: The hesitation before clicking the “Buy Now” button is another factor that keeps your sales from skyrocketing. These services remove the friction from the process, as the customers know that they won’t give away too much money at once.
• Zero risks for the shop: The entire risk of the transaction falls onto the BNPL provider. Thus, you can be sure that your shop will receive the money immediately.

In addition to the standard services mentioned above, most BNPL merchants have marketing options like listing your shop in the “Featured” sections. Such services might be a part of your payment tier or be an add-on. Either way, it’ll help you grow your eCommerce store in 2021, as you’ll be receiving more attentive eyeballs than you’d ever as a small business on your own.

2. Local Same-Day and Next-Day Delivery

Delivery isn’t optional anymore, especially for an internet store. When the customer purchases online, in 90% of the cases, they expect the item to be delivered to their doorstep. If you’re a small local business, you have two options:

• Hire a dedicated delivery person
• Partner up with a local distribution service

If you want the delivery to be part of your product’s experience and brand, hiring a driver is the better option. In this case, you’ll have more control over the appearance and rules that apply to them. However, this might add more administrative tasks than you can manage. Also, it can be more expensive to maintain a dedicated delivery crew.

You’ll have to deal with layoffs during slow months or you may have difficulty meeting the volumes, which will cause delays.

In partnering with a delivery service, your only concern is the other company and the agreement between you. As long as both parties keep the set rules, you won’t have to micromanage every single delivery.

This option also removes the need to hire employees, pay a salary, and make sure that the brand image is on point. Outsourcing distribution is suitable for small-scale family businesses and those with seasonal or irregular sales patterns.

3. Monthly Autoship

To make things easier, perceive Autoship as a monthly subscription for goods rather than digital services. If you have a subscription, the delivery option is attached to the product itself. If you want to change your order, the whole package should be canceled and re-ordered.

Autoship is better in a few ways, as the shipping option isn’t attached to a particular product. It enables you to:

• Change the order quantity
• Add to or remove from the delivery bundle

This method gives your customers more flexibility in managing orders and creates less work for your customer service representatives. The buyers can use their accounts to modify their orders before the shipping day. It also gives your business space for planning and ensuring timely delivery.

This option certainly benefits shops that sell miscellaneous items, which are most likely to require repeat purchases. To identify if your business needs this service, review your returning customers, top-selling products, and make sure to improve your website’s suggestion algorithm.

The “Related Products” section can become a gold mine with the help of Autoship. You can create bundles and push complementary goods that otherwise might not have received enough traction. It also boosts convenience and ensures that your customer doesn’t search for the product elsewhere.

4. Social Media Marketing will help grow your eCommerce store in 2021

Social media is an easy way to connect to your audience and build traction for your brand. However, it’s also an excellent sales channel if you choose to use it as such.

Buying items through social media has become a trend that’s lasted several years, as social media giants decided to monetize online buyers. Facebook added the “Offers” and “Shop” tabs, while Instagram and Pinterest rolled out shoppable posts.

It would be a huge missed opportunity not to use these options. However, with the declining curve in organic reach, you should aim to get more views via targeted ads. Make your content lucrative, basing it on the buyer persona you’ve built. Think about engaging ways to ease the customer into decisions that result in sales.

Native videos, live broadcasts, and carousel ads are an effective way to showcase your online shop.

Retargeting is one of the trickiest yet most efficient methods to grow your eCommerce store in 2021. In the rush of today’s life, many customers don’t make decisions right away. This strategy aims to bring back the customers that left your website without finishing a purchase. Depending on how far the customer made it in the checkout process, the campaign will choose the next ad to nudge them towards buying the product.

If done well, this strategy will work wonders. On the other hand, if the customers see too much of the same ad, you’ll most certainly get blocked.

5. Search Engine Marketing will also help grow your eCommerce store in 2021

Sure, making the product easy to find is crucial for your business. However, it’s also a way to show your customer that you value their time. Getting your shop’s ad campaigns right should be one of your top goals for 2021.

Gone are the days when websites should be trying to fool search engines. As a result, you have to place the customer on the central axis of your search engine optimization (SEO) and search engine marketing (SEM) strategies.

Customers face choices at every step. Targeted campaigns can make the buyers discover your product.

While your product pages are the main decision-making points for a customer, your site’s visibility in search is crucial. SEM ad campaigns begin with keyword research; being relevant is what counts.

If you’re an online women’s bag shop, your customers are most likely going to search for that term when they need to buy a bag. Learn as much as possible about your customer and their searching habits.

Ask yourself the following questions to ensure that your ad campaigns revolve around the right customer persona and their search intent:

• Who’s most likely to search for women’s bags on the internet?
• How old is the customer?
• Where do they live?
• How much do they earn?
• What do they like?
• What hobbies do they have?

Once you answer these questions, you’ll picture the ideal customer and better grasp the types of ads that’ll work best.

Keep an eye on Quality Scores. The higher the number, the better your ads will rank in search results. Plus, you’ll spend less money, boosting the efficiency of your campaigns.

Final Thoughts

As you can see, there are many ways to grow your eCommerce store in 2021. All of them focus on the customer. If you keep your customers in mind while working on your methods, success will be unavoidable.

If you need help setting up or growing your online store, Contact Innovative Flare Today!