Is your e-commerce business not making big? Don’t worry. Here are some simple strategies you should implement to see positive results.
Singapore is an ideal landscape for e-commerce business, thanks to its well-developed infrastructures, high income and tech savvy population. Estimated e-commerce user penetration in Singapore is at 64.8% in 2017 which is expected to reach 80.9% in 2021.
There are various ways to promote your business online but that doesn’t mean you get success by merely launching an e-commerce site here. You need to make your website well optimized and customer friendly in order to boost your sale. And this is very important as the island’s ecommerce landscape is already packed with several international and local players.
How will you gain customers in their presence?
Getting customers to your site may be somehow easy, retaining them till their checkout is challenging. Will they come back to shop from you again?
Don’t worry. All you need to work on the below-listed strategies we have learned after studying some successful e-commerce sites in Singapore.
Show Your Offers and Sale on Home Page:
Deal and offers can drive your sales. So, it is extremely important to make them visible so that they can catch visitor’s eye. Otherwise, a customer can leave your site to find deal on your competitor’s website if they unable to see offers or sale in first glance.
So, it makes sense to show your existing promotions or Big Friday Sales on the top banner of your home page. It will not only flash your offers to their eyes but also prompts a user to opt for your deals. Make sure to use high quality images and compelling “words”.
Read Also: 10 Mistakes That Make Your Ecommerce Website a Hacker’s Target
Make Searching Easy:
Adding “search box” to your website may sound basic thing, but it comes handy when a customer fails to find the product in the sea of your inventories. For example, he can type the product name or related keyword in the search box. So, make sure to have a search bar at the right corner of your website. It is your important filter!
Make Your Website Load Faster:
Your ecommerce site has thousands of products to offer. It has lucrative offers and discount to give. But all in vain if your website takes longer than a couple of seconds to load. This is because a loading time is the first characteristic of any website a customer experience. If it takes too long, chances are a customer may abandon it in the middle. Shockingly,40% of users abandon a website if it takes 3 seconds to load. And 79% online shoppers are not willing to return to a website because of the slow loading time or poor performance. So, you must work on your website’s loading time.
First of all, determine your site’s load time using Google’s PageSpeed Insights tool. Optimize your marketing tags as they may hinder the speed of your website. Then optimize your images and choose fast and reliable hosing servers to improve the loading time of your website.
Use High-Quality Images of Products:
Unlike in “brick and mortar” outlet where a customer can actually see and touch the products they want to shop, ecommerce stores rely heavily on the images to display their products. Online customers can only guess the quality of the product by viewing it clearly from various angles. Product images convey important information and can help boost the sale of the product. In simple words, the quality of your product’s image reflects the quality of your brand.
Here are the best ways to use images on your e-commerce website:
- Add photos of the product from various angles
- Shoot the photos with a good quality camera (or you can hire a professional product photography agency)
- Make sure the focus of the photo is the product
- Provide zooming options
Provide Description of the Product:
Uploading photos of the product is not enough unless you provide a proper description of the product. Your product description should include the features and benefits of the listed product. It is better if you avoid using the product descriptions provided by vendors or dealers as they lack efficient sale pitch. A good product description effectively describes the product by addressing the concerns and needs of the customer. Make sure that the description covers all aspects of the product so that a customer gets all info at one place. You can also incorporate SEO keywords in the product description to boost your site’s visibility in SERPs.
Make Your Website Mobile Responsive:
Did you know? An average Singaporean spends 12 hours on mobile phone daily. And nine out of ten people own a smartphone. If you don’t have a mobile responsive site yet, you are clearly missing a great opportunity to expand your customer base. However, desktop oriented websites don’t load on mobile device properly, thereby spoiling user experience. A responsive mobile design will make your website appropriate for every screen size and can be view from both portrait and landscape mode. Make sure the design is incorporated with touch screen interface instead of traditional cursor inputs.
Read Also: 10 Marketing Mistakes Small Businesses in Singapore Must Avoid
Easy Checkout Process:
Even a lengthy checkout process can turn off the customer. You may be testing their patience by asking their full name, email, phone number, mother’s maiden name and lots of unnecessary details. It is enough to drive the customer away.
It is better if you offer a guest checkout option that lets the visitor buy your product quickly and easily without making them go through the “round of investigation”.
Add Products Reviews:
A customer wants to see other’s experience with a product before purchasing it, especially in case of online shopping. So, you help them making right buying decision by providing feedback or reviews of the products they want to shop. In fact, genuine testimonials are more influential than promotion. According to one study, over 60 percent of customers are willing to buy from a website with reviews. As added bonus users testimonials act as “content “for your website, enhancing SEO ranking.
Your Should Have FAQS Page:
FAQS section is your customer support in first place. It not only resolves most of the purchase related queries, but also relieves the burden on your customer support. Make sure to add essential questions about your sale, payment, delivery and order in your FAQs section.
Add multiple payment methods:
Some customers prefer paying via card, some like the electronic transfer. There are many customers who trust on cash on delivery method. So, make all payment options available to your customers. Besides, it is useful for your conversions by minimizing the number of lost sales.
By working on these strategies, you can improve the conversion rate of your e-commerce site. All it takes your patience, time, expertise and above all market study to give a push to your sales.
