Online shopping has brought increased convenience to so many people’s lives. Not only can you order things to be delivered directly to your door, but you have a much larger selection of products to browse and choose from. No longer are shoppers restricted to the selection of items available in your nearest stores, but for many businesses, they operate in an industry that is saturated with competitors, meaning that making a profit can be tricky.
By spending a little time planning and researching your target audience, looking at your marketing and taking stock of your product line, you can learn how to make your ecommerce store stand out amongst your competitors. Let’s take a look at some ways in which you can make your ecommerce store stand out from the competition online.
Increase Your Prices
There’s a fine line between shoppers buying your products because they’re budget friendly and shoppers buying your products for their quality. It’s important as an ecommerce business to ensure that your prices are inline with your target market’s interests as, if they’re too cheap or too highly priced, they will look elsewhere, usually taking their custom directly to your competitors.
Before you consider increasing your prices, take a look at your competitor’s stores and try to gauge their product quality. If you have a much higher quality product on offer, then increasing your prices is likely no issue and can make you seem like a more reputable brand that people can trust.
Increase Service Quality
In the online world, standing out through the promise of quality customer services is easy, simply because so many other businesses are focused on revenue, rather than service. There are a number of reasons why an online store can show that they are not interested in the shoppers buying their products, such as being non-responsive to calls or emails, not sticking to delivery deadlines or using poor shipping methods, having poor quality websites or simply just not caring.
If you want your online store to succeed and stand out, then look at increasing and improving your customer service quality. Create an easy checkout process so that users can just click and buy, without having to sign up or pay premiums for postage. Have a review platform where customers can leave honest and open feedback. Create a customer loyalty service or offer discounts for new customers. All of these things show that you care about the customer, not just your bottom line.
Create Useful Product Combinations
If you stock products that are complimentary of one another, such as skincare products and cotton flannels, or luxury candles and matchsticks, then why not look to create custom bundles with these products with a slight discount on buying them separately? This not only encourages customers to try a wider range of products, increasing the likelihood of them becoming a regular customer, but helps to increase your average order value, too.
This approach is suited to a number of different industries, from jewellery to homeware. Jewellery businesses who sell contemporary jewellery could put together ear stacking bundles, ready for customers to wear, whilst homeware stores could create fun gifting bundles such as student accommodation or first home selections. One reason this approach works so well is because it is a form of customer service – you’re making your customer’s life easier. People will pay for convenience.