Navigating the E-commerce landscape can be daunting for businesses that have been stuck in the brick-and-mortar mentality. But it doesn’t have to be. Below are a few key mistakes online businesses make that may be affecting their bottom line. Correcting these mistakes will result in a more streamlined e-commerce site, and an expanded, engaged, and more loyal online customer base.
Not Optimizing Your Site for Mobile
With over half of online shopping being conducted on mobile devices, it is imperative that your e-commerce website is optimized for mobile. Doing so requires software that has excellent support for both desktop and mobile shoppers. When you choose an e-commerce software provider, pay particular attention to how customizable the shopping experience can be.
Customers want a shopping experience that is tailored to them, regardless of which platform they use to access your content. Ensure that the transition between desktop and mobile is seamless, so that both first-time and returning customers can use the most convenient option for them.
Ignoring Your Analytics
One of the biggest differences between traditional shopping and online shopping is the sheer amount of data that can be collected about your online customers. Use this incredibly powerful tool to your advantage. Invest in deep analytics software that utilizes metrics to highlight key performance indicators. This will allow you to generate more actionable insights that can drive change within your organization.
Ensure your analytics software can provide real-time analysis of the data that you need most, and has the ability to filter it down into a usable and intuitive format. Real-time analytics can help take your e-commerce business to new levels when it comes to customer service and engagement, as well as give you greater depth and breadth of knowledge about your customers.
Using Manually Produced Product Recommendations
In the past, online retailers used staff to manually merchandise their product recommendations, but this is no longer the most efficient or accurate way to recommend products. Instead, implement machine-driven, intelligent, product recommendation software to automate your recommendations strategy.
One of the primary benefits of this approach is that it provides more accurate product recommendations based on customer search history or product views. In these cases, more accurate recommendations lead to more sales.
Additionally, machine-driven recommendation software works more quickly and efficiently than manual merchandising. This can free up costly manpower to work on other forms of customer engagement, while providing a more tailored and relevant shopping experience for your customers.
Not Taking Advantage of Social Media
The myriad of connections between social media and online shopping shouldn’t be ignored or downplayed by your organization. Leverage a robust and far-reaching social media presence to engage with your customer-base across a variety of platforms.
Responding to customer reviews, offering product recommendations, and responding to customer questions or concerns on social media platforms will help you provide a superior level of customer service.
This, in turn, will encourage new customers to navigate to your site. In addition, a strong social media presence transitions a higher percentage of customers from one-time shoppers to returning customers. Social media should also be leveraged as part of your overall merchandising plan to disseminate information about promotions or new products.
Using social media to stay in contact with your customer base can create a better customer experience where consumers feel engaged and important, while also giving you multiple avenues to provide proactive customer service.
Ignoring SEO
Good SEO ensures shoppers can find your site without slogging through pages of search engine results. Develop a comprehensive SEO plan to guarantee your site will consistently rank high in search results.
In the past, this was done primarily through targeting specific keywords. However, search engine algorithms have become more sophisticated over time. Adapting to complex search engine algorithms will require you to use a broad approach to SEO.
The most efficient way to maximize your SEO footprint is to adopt SEO optimization software. You’ll free up time for other projects and automate your rankings for relevant keywords. Make sure to use an SEO solution that is flexible enough to adapt over time to changes in search engine algorithms. Doing so will allow you to stay ahead of the curve every step of the way.
To learn more about creating an online experience that can rival the in-store experience, watch our webinar Merchandising Matters: Mimic the In-Store Experience.
