5 Reasons Personalized Email Marketing Is Important To eCcommerce

Personalized email marketing is more than just a clever marketing strategy. It’s a must if you want to succeed in a highly competitive and agile ecommerce environment.
According to a survey, 7 out of 10 online businesses and ecommerce use email marketing to bolster their sales. That's three quarters of businesses spends their resources on personalized email marketing.
In fact 72% of ecommerce customers now openly declare that they are willing to share their personal information to a certain degree in return for personalized content. Ecommerce personalization simply saves ecommerce customers time, and contributes around 10% to online revenue for ecommerce businesses. So, it’s a win-win situation for both parties.

Consider these email marketing stats from 2018:

• Email marketing has an average ROI of 3,800 percent. For every dollar invested, the average return is $38.
• Email is the third most influential source of information for B2B audiences, behind colleague recommendations and industry thought leaders.
• Segmented email marketing campaigns get 14.64% more email opens and 59.99% more clicks compared to non-segmented campaigns.
• Including video in email can increase your open rate by 19% and increase your click-through rate by 50%.

Email marketing drives customer acquisition and retention. Email’s usefulness was followed by that of other digital tactics like organic search at 62% for acquisition and social media at 44% for retention—both rated effective by far fewer respondents than chose email.

Source

Here are 5 benefits you will get from personalized emails:

1) Conversion rates from personalized emails can reach 4 times more than the average.
2) Unsubscribe rates are significantly lower with personalized email campaigns.
3) Personalized emails don’t create any operational costs for you.
4) You can choose from 10 different scenarios to match your business needs and goals
5) Personalized emails will get you a sales return 6 times more than regular bulk email campaigns.

How do you personalized your email marketing?

There are a great many ways to personalized email marketing. I just would like to mention a couple of ways to get you started right away. I will be writing more about this topic in great details on a separate article.

1. Show your customer you understand their need.

A great way of showing your customers that you understand their needs is to provide customized recommendations on what to buy next based on their past purchases. One way of doing this is to send your customers information or offers on related or complementary products.

2. Another way you can personalized your email marketing is to send how-to guides

For example, if a customer has bought a shirt from your store, you could send them an email that includes a style guide on how to put together a complete ensemble using that shirt and other items from your store.
Sources
leightoninteractive
emarketer
Additional ecommerce reads

5 Indispensable Ecommerce Features Your Shop Should Have

In conclusion

Message personalization is the most effective email marketing strategy today. Marketers have witnessed an increase in their email open rates by leveraging personalization.

Top 22 eCommerce Stats to Help Your Business Succeed

Ecommerce stats are indispensable in today's ecommerce business. The world is becoming more and more online. And according to data, which I will share with you, ecommerce business is going to overtake brick-and-mortar soon. The line between eCommerce and brick-and-mortar stores is increasingly being erased. Physical shops without an online presence and eCommerce purchase options are killed off by competitors at an increasingly worrying pace.
Any company is an ecommerce company; otherwise it either doesn’t exist or won’t be around for long.

Here are 12 of the 22 Most Important Ecommerce Stats To Help You

#1. Over 4 billion people (53% of the global population) are connected to the internet, and nearly all of them (92.6%) go online using their mobile devices.

As of 2018, the average daily social media usage of internet users worldwide amounted to 136 minutes per day, up from 135 minutes in the previous year.
In 2019, the report shows that consumers are online an average of 6 hours and 42 minutes each day whereas mobile devices remain to be a popular mode for connecting to the digital world.
The numbers above equate to more than 100 days of online time for an average internet user. That is more than 27 percent each year.
According to the Digital 2019 report, the 6h 42m internet time is the world’s average while the USA to fall slightly below 6h 31m.

#2. Most (42%) of online shoppers prefer to pay with their credit cards. 39% of online buyers prefer to pay for online goods and services via PayPal.

PayPal accounts connect directly to a bank account, buyers can pay for online purchases even if they do not own a credit card. Using PayPal increases financial security for buyers since the seller does not receive bank account or credit card numbers, only the PayPal account number. The fact that PayPal is free and available in almost all location in the globe, is also appealing to many buyers.
Buyers can pay for merchandise immediately, sellers receive payments immediately without having to wait for checks to go through the mail or clear the bank. Individual sellers can accept credit card payments without having to pay the fees credit card processors charge, and merchants may find PayPal's fees lower than other processors. PayPal offers a seller protection policy as well that may cover losses for products lost or damaged in shipment or from a chargeback.

#3. In 2019, retail e-commerce sales worldwide amounted to 3.53 trillion US dollars and e-retail revenues are projected to grow to 6.54 trillion US dollars in 2022, up 14.1%

We cannot deny that last year 2019, the top global ecommerce market was China, with $1.935 trillion in ecommerce sales—more than three times greater than the US at No. 2 with $586.92 billion. It’s hard to fathom, but China only recently surpassed the US in ecommerce sales in 2013 for the first time. Since then, it has quickly widened the margin. On its own, China represents 54.7% of the global ecommerce market, a share nearly twice that of the next five countries combined. As China goes, so goes the global ecommerce market.
Today, ecommerce stats influences up to 56% of in-store purchases.

#4. By 2019, B2B firms will spend more on eCommerce technology such as analytics than online retailers.

As technology continue to evolve rapidly and shopping trends shift on a daily basis, ecommerce is in a constant state of adaptation that can leave brands fumbling in the dark. To keep up, ecommerce businesses must anticipate changes in the market using reliable data insights. In short, they need effective ecommerce analytics.
Ecommerce analytics simply refers to any tool or strategy designed to analyse large amounts of data in order to produce actionable insights. Because it exists in an almost entirely virtual space, ecommerce generates complex, comprehensive datasets — particularly those related to client buying behaviour.

#5. By 2021, 53.9% of all US retail eCommerce is expected to be generated through mobile commerce.
(Statista)

More and more users are accessing the web from a tablet or smartphone than a desktop, they are doing so with more eCommerce intent than ever before. During last year's busy holiday shopping season, a third of all online purchases came from smartphone users. Not even Black Friday (6.2 billion in online revenue in 2018) was immune to mobile fever, as nearly 40% of sales on the traditionally brick and mortar shopping day came via a mobile device. On Cyber Monday ($9.2 billion in online revenue in 2019) 54% of visitors came from mobile devices, while around 33% purchases on their mobile device, up over 40% from the year before.

#6. More than 1B consumers with mobile phones used them for banking purposes.

Consumers are now becoming more and more comfortable using mobile phones for banking purposes. The survey said more than half of mobile banking users had used their mobile phones to deposit checks, compared to 38 percent in 2013.
And while the survey found that around 14 percent of consumers are still part of what it calls the underbanked, meaning people with limited access to financial institutions, over two-thirds of this group has access to a mobile phone.
Mobile phones are also changing the way many consumers now make their payments.

#7. Mobile payments will have passed the 50% milestone, becoming mainstream in most markets by 2026.

Mobile payments stats is a good Ecommerce stats to think about as it has been quickly evolving, with more recognizable brands stepping into the industry to advance technology and offer what consumers and businesses want in terms of apps and services that allow them to pay with their phones.
For example, Google’s recently announced Hands Free. It’s a new mobile payment app that uses either Bluetooth or Wi-Fi, like most other payment apps — except that this app allows you to keep your phone in your wallet or purse. Google is also tinkering with facial recognition to confirm an individual’s identity.
More tech companies will continue to roll out their mobile payment platforms.

#8. Millennials now make 40.0% of all purchases using mobile devices.

Millennials in 2019 make 60% of their purchases online, the survey of 1,002 millennials (consumers ages 22 to 37) found. That’s up from 47.0% in a survey CouponFollow conducted in 2017. Millennials now make 40.0% of all purchases in stores, down from 53.0% in 2017.
The 2019 Ecommerce stats also found massive growth in mobile shopping among U.S. millennials. Consumers in that age group now make 36.0% of their total purchases using mobile devices, up 20 percentage points from 16.0% in 2017. Purchases made on a desktop or laptop computer make up 24.0% of total purchases, down from 31.0% in 2017.

#9. Eight out of 10 mobile users look for local businesses online.

8 out of 10 respondents said a search engine was their top choice among a collection of digital and nondigital sources to look up information for local businesses last year.
The survey also found search engines lead other sources when it comes to consumer trust and accuracy. In fact, the percentage of US internet users who agreed with this sentiment increased dramatically from 2015 to 2016.
Search engines only fell short when respondents were asked about their favored source when ready to make a purchase. At this point in the purchase journey, 27% cited company websites vs. 24% for search engines.

#10. The total, global M2M connections will rise to 1billion

Another Ecommerce stats to keep an eye on is the total number of global cellular M2M connections will reach 1.3 billion by 2022. With emerging cellular networks - including LTE-M and 5G - growing to account for an estimated 10% of all cellular M2M connections.

#11. 2.62 billion internet users access social media at least once a month.

Social media statistics is another Ecommerce stats that is key ingredient in any social media marketing strategy. The ability to not only direct shoppers toward a new product or an attractive deal, but to engage with them and create a sense of community, is incredibly useful. A complete social media eCommerce presence also includes direct sales through some networks. It’s also important to have the back-end tools in place to let customers share products and recent purchases with friends and followers through just a single click.

#12. B2B eCommerce market could reach $1.1T and account for 12.1% of all B2B sales by 2020

Manufacturers, wholesalers and distributors used to take most orders in person, by phone or by fax. That’s no longer the case—now those B2B sellers are increasingly going online and generating more new and repeat business through ecommerce.
Last year, in fact, business-to-business ecommerce sales through websites and online marketplaces grew at the fastest rate yet and for the first time surpassed $1 trillion.
Resources:
Ovum
Nielsen
Statista
Research Gate
Shopify
Additional Resouce:

11 Most Important Key Metrics To Track In Your Ecommerce Sales Report

How Data Analytics Enhances Ecommerce Business Performance

In Conclusion:

If there’s one thing all the above data, reports, and trends reveal, it’s that global ecommerce isn’t a choice; it’s a necessity. The future of your company’s growth depends on it. Maybe even its survival. Any company is an ecommerce company; otherwise it either doesn’t exist or won’t be around for long.

11 Most Important Key Metrics To Track In Your Ecommerce Sales Report

The desire to know the different ecommerce key metrics isn't enough. To fully take advantage of your data, you must have a firm understanding of which sales metrics to use and when.
Sales report that are based on key metrics data is important in increasing or maintaining a high performance sales team? They play a vital role in pointing out exactly what things are needed to change or improved and with which particular aspect of the sales process.
For example, if you set a 20% target in increase total monthly revenue from new prospects but only arrived at say, 5%. You have the sales report to thank for. Sales reports allow you to detect if your prospecting strategy in place is effective or not. You can then device plans for training on prospecting and perhaps spending more on marketing and SEO.

The following are 11 Key Metrics You Need To Track In Your Sales Report

#1 Key Metric: Total Sales.

Your Ecommerce flatform must be able to at the very least offer data on this key metric. All businesses relies on information of the total sales for a particular period, like, daily, weekly, month, etc.. This is the minimum that you need to have access to and that you need to track for your business.

#2 Key Metric: Total Completed Orders

The percentage of orders that your warehouse delivers without incident.
This measurement tells you how often the correct order is sent to the correct customer and is on time and in good condition. If your perfect order rate is low, it’s time to identify the issues and review best practices to ensure that your customers are receiving the products they want, when they were promised.

#3 Key Metric: Average Order Value

Your average order value (AOV) is the average order value per person for a particular period. It is calculated by dividing the (total revenue for a period) by the total number of orders for that period.
This key metric is important in determining how to raise the value of order per person. Cross-selling and up-selling are easily two of the often used sales strategy to address this metric.

#4. Lifetime Value of the Customer

CLV is the total worth to a business of a customer over the whole period of their relationship. It’s an important metric as we have seen this post Double Your Sales with Customer Loyalty Programs ,that it costs less to keep existing customers than it does to acquire new ones, so increasing the value of your existing customers is a great way to drive growth.
How Do You Measure CLV?
If a customer bought a $40 Christmas tree from the same grower for the last 10 years, his CLV has been worth $400 to them. Not factoring the cost for acquiring and maintaining that customer.
CLV is one of the most important key metrics to have for your ecommerce.

#5 Key Metric: Conversion by traffic source

Knowing what source of traffic brings you most sales conversions is huge in today's online economy. Traffic coming from google, bing, reddit, pinterest, twitter, instagram, etc are just some of the sources of your revenue. But to be given information that tells you which ones of these gives your website the most revenue is big for you decision making.
You can basically streamline your marketing strategy and double your revenue with those data.

#6 Key Metric: Conversion by device type

Over 1.2 billion people worldwide access the internet from their smartphones. That’s four times the population of the US.

90% of consumers say they use multiple devices to complete everyday tasks, while 40% say they use their mobile device to conduct research prior to making a purchase.
The future of mobile commerce is blindingly bright. By 2021, mobile is predicted to dominate online sales, driving 54% (or $659 billion) in sales.

#7 Key Metric. Orders Conversion rate

Conversion rate is calculated by dividing the number of completed orders by the number of website visitors.

Example:
If the number of completed orders is 50, and the number of visitors is 1000. The Orders conversion rate = 5%.

#8 Key Metrics: Orders Conversion rate of new vs returning visitors

Numerous studies have shown that websites tend to have more new visitors and fewer returning visitors. But the returning visitors tend to have higher engagement — they bounce less, view more pages per session, and have higher session durations. They also tend to have higher conversion rates and higher sales…much higher. How higher? It's 60%-40% in favor of returning visitors. This tells us to sell more to returning visitors.

#9 Key Metric: Percentage of Returning Customers

Returning customers metric is a great metric to track for measuring customer loyalty, but it helps to know how those returning visits translate to revenue. That’s why you should track your percentage of returning customers – the people who come specifically to spend money.

#10 Key Metric: Conversion by Product

The overall conversion rate for your store is an important metric for measuring and improving performance. It’s usually pretty easy to get, depending on your platform. But when working to grow your business, it pays to get granular, especially when it comes to optimizing your products. I always recommend that you know how a specific product is converting before you start optimizing it for pricing, description, SEO keyword phrases, etc.

Conversion rate by product formula:
Conversion by Product rate = (Total purchases for product/Total visits on a website) * 100Example:(2 purchases / 40 visits) * 100 = a 5% Rate of product conversion rate

For e-commerce stores with a huge SKU inventory though, this is a necessary metric to pay attention to.

#11 Key Metric: Cart Abandonment

According to annexcloud, the percentage of abandoned carts ranges anywhere from 50% to 80%.

Abandoned cart cost online sellers 2 to 4 trillion per year.

Cart abandonment is fairly common metric that’s tracked by online stores. E-commerce platforms are even designed to help you keep up on cart abandonment with built in autoresponders to help win back abandoned carts.

In Conclusion:

The most successful eCommerce businesses make decisions based on key metrics. These statistics are significant way to measure your or your team's confidence in the strategy you put in place. It’s a way to determine if your metrics are reliable. This way, you can decide if there’s really a relationship between your decisions and your results.
Analytics data is an absolute indispensable feature of any ecommerce platform that seeks to provide greater power for store owners to manage their online sales! If your ecommerce platform does not provide analytics features of these key metrics, consider migrating to one that have it. Contact us if you need help regarding ecommerce analytics.
Additional resources on analytics and key metrics

How Data Analytics Enhances Ecommerce Business Performance

Ecommerce Analytics Presents Huge Advantages For Your Online Biz

What is SMA – Shoptech Media Analytics?

Making Your Customers Your Friends Is Huge For Your Business

Why make your customers your friends? What is the BIG deal?

The simple and obvious answer is:

Because you want your customers to bring in other customers.

Customers are people too! They have families, friends, office mates, and acquaintances. Some of them are members of a community club, sports club, etc. You customers will most likely tell something about their purchase if they have a really good experience with it. In short, They are a FREE talking and walking advertisements for your business! That is how huge an impact making friends with your customers is to your business!

Consider the following data:

• 80% of your company’s future revenue will come from 20% of your existing customers.
• According to Forbes​.com, attracting new customers costs a company five times more than keeping an existing customer.
• The same article notes that it’s about 50% easier to sell to existing customers than to brand-new prospects.

I have listed here several ways how to make your customers your friends after a sale!

#1. Keep the connection going with follow ups.

Making a sale is just one of the steps to a great business model. Keeping your customers connected to you and your business is a totally different step in your model.
Let me list for you some of the  more important steps you can make to keep your customer connected to you after a sale.

-Send a note to say thank you within 24 hours. Some companies send emails.
-Check in. It's a good strategy to call clients a week or two after the sale and find out how everything is going.
-Keep the lines of communication open.
-Think second sale.
-Ask for referrals.

#2. Answer questions and respond to comments as quickly as possible.

Responding to questions, comments and reviews is an important element of your ecommerce business, no matter the platform or industry. This includes, but not limited to replying to comments on social media, customer review sites, and your own blog, if you have one.

When done well, social interaction with your brand can go a long way towards managing and developing valuable customer relationships.

Answering and responding to questions and comments is not rocket science. The idea is to respond to as many comments as possible, with as quick a response time as possible. Doing so will help you grow your community and build relationships with current and prospective clients. It also gives you the opportunity to learn more about what people like or dislike about your products or services, ask questions, and find areas where you can improve your product, service, communication, and more!
Take a lesson how a response to a negative customer review is done:

Let me give you some pointers on how to do this:

First, you need to try to find common ground among even the worst comments your customers and potential customer throw at you.
Secondly, bear in mind that your response time goes a long way in providing top-notch customer service. Don't hang up on your customer.
Thirdly, Make a good impression about your company. You know your company well, so be sure to set yourself apart from other brands in your response.
Lastly, be consistent. You’re likely to have a wide variety of comments to manage and you may have a team helping you manage them. Whatever the case, be sure your style of response is consistent throughout to maintain your brand’s image.

One last note on this: Before responding to anything, take an outside-in approach and ask yourself if your response would satisfy the inquirer.

#3. Make sure to thank them wholeheartedly

• According to a Genesis Global survey cited by customer experience firm Smile​.io, 68% of businesses have lost a customer because that customer felt the business was indifferent to him or her.
• The same survey also revealed that 86% of American shoppers are willing to pay more for better customer experience, and 38% attribute a good customer experience to personalization.

Your customers need to know you appreciate them — individually and personally. Ensuring they know their value to your company will help keep them loyal to you and your brand.

You do not have to go too far to know the effect of thanking a person. Your mom always taught you to say please and thank-you…and those lessons never get old. Making sure you appropriately and adequately thank your customers is critical, but not hard. Take the time to do it well…and your business will thank you.

#4. Offer them discount in their subsequent orders

Offering discounts to repeat orders is an age-old strategy for increasing customer base and sales, and is a good way to make your customers your friends. Consumers are always looking for ways to save money, and they prefer to buy from stores that offer the best deals. I would, wouldn't you?
With proper planning and timing, it can drive your business to new heights of success. Check out the screenshot below of how smart this company is with how they encourage repeat orders through discounts:

There are a bunch of positives offering discounts can do to your business. From increasing sales to freeing-up storage. But the one thing I like the most about it is that, it builds customer loyalty!

offering discounts.. help increase customer loyalty. You can gain more repeat business by giving weekly or monthly discounts or special offers to repeat orders...

#5. Ask them their opinion and ideas how you can serve them better

Customers need to feel appreciated. It is not uncommon for a customer to go out of his way to get products or service from an inconvenient source if the source provides excellent customer service. In other words, if we make customers feel like a million bucks, they'll go the extra mile to do business with us.
Do your best to please your customers, satisfy their needs, and eventually to keep them loyal to your brand. But how can you be sure that your efforts bring desired results? If you do not try to find out what your clients actually think about your service, you will never be able to give them the best customer experience.

First, discover what your customer thinks about your products and/or service.
Second, after gathering information, analyze it.
Third, change what is necessary to improve your customer service rating.

The more you can meet customer needs, the more you become friends with them, the better your chance for long-term success in our fast-paced, ever-changing world.
Additional resource:

3 Simple Tools You Can Start Using To Get More Sales from Repeat Customers

Double Your Sales with Customer Loyalty Programs

5 Ways to Tell You Have Better Customer Service Than Your Competition

In Conclusion

If you want to stay on top of things you should put your customers in the center of your business. Make your customers your friends! Treat their feedback as the most valuable source for information in your company. After all, your customers are the ones who use your products and services, so they know best what could be improved to make them even more happy.  Thank your customers wholeheartedly. Be loyal to your customers as you are loyal to your company and in consequence they will spread positive word-of-mouth for you.

5 Ways to Tell You Have Better Customer Service Than Your Competition

Customer Service is a beast! Customers' needs are always changing, and our services should always be evolving to reflect those changes and the continuous improvements we are making. Regular intentional listening to our customers is critical no matter how long we have been in a role. Otherwise we risk becoming out of touch with the people responsible for our pay cheques.

Here are 5 tips that tells if you have a better customers service than your competition

#1: When You spend time talking to your customers.

You want to grow your ecommerce business faster? Spend time talking to potential customers.
Have you ever receive a message from an online shop that says,

 “We are aware of the issue and are currently working to resolve it.” (Sound familiar?)

This sucks.
The aim of talking to your customers is to solve their  problem and it hinges on communication. But talking to your customers is important for other reasons too: It can give you insight into their life and who they are, how they work, what blogs and newsletters they read, and what other products they use, where did they bought similar product the last time.
Spending time talking to your customers goes beyond getting customer feedback. It essentially is building a relationship that will last for years!

Look at it as if you are investing in a long term investment plan.

A piece of advice we get from reddit subreddit rule is this one,

"treat the customer like a human being."

It might sound challenging to treat each customer as an individual human with individual needs. The feedback you’re likely to get from many business leaders is that taking such an approach is “not scalable.”
A funny thing happens when you focus on unscalable activities like talking 1-on-1 with your customers: people notice. Your customers notice, and then they tell other folks about the awesome experience they had.

Of course, we aren’t the only ones trying to make customer communication more human. There are plenty of companies out there doing a great job. But when you are able to communicate in a personal way and treat your customers like real people, it is when you know your customer service is better than your competition.

#2: When Your Spend More Time with the Customer Than Your Competition.

Not only talking but actual meaningful time spent is an investment for your future. Building and maintaining a personal relationship with customers can be the catalyst to your business success. When you always try to find time every week to stay connected to your customers, that's when you know you have a better customer service than your competition. Using social media and answering their questions on an open platform helps promote other customers to engage in conversations.

The gist is to listen and respond to their questions and comments to let them know you are connected to them.

Teach your people/staff to use a combination of social media, support email, website chat, polling your user base,  actively reaching out to your most active users, focus groups, account managers, etc.
A sales job should mostly revolve on building rapport and eventually earning trust. When your customers trust you, you are actually looking forward for a possible lifetime connection than just a single transaction. Interacting with customers may also earn you future sales and direct referrals, along with their loyalty.

Remember that word of mouth is still one of the most effective marketing strategies in the industry, and once a satisfied client talks about how happy he was with your service, he is also encouraging more people to give you a shot. This is when you really know you have a better customer service than your competition.

#3: You Are Able To Monitor and Analyze How Your Consumers Buy Your Product.

Marketers and eShop owners have to be more relevant and targeted than ever. And customer information is key. Demographics, intent, sentiment, likes, and dislikes – the more you know, the more personal you can be. Monitoring gives you those insights into customers. This is where a shop analytics comes in handy for every body involve in ecommerce. Having an analytics feature in your webshop is a huge advantage for you. If your ecommerce system does not offer you this kind of feature, you might want to look for one that does.

Some specific ways you benefit from monitoring

• Keep track of product and feature requests: You need customer insights.
• Monitor launches: Your team works hard on launches; find out how your audiences are reacting and measure the reach.
• Benchmark against competitors’ products: You can’t beat the competition if you don’t know what they’re doing.
• Monitor specific demographics: If your market spans multiple languages or countries, filtering mentions by language and country can tell you a lot about how well you’re localizing your product.

When you are able to monitor and analyze how your customers are buying products, that is a sure indication you really have a better customer service than your competition.

#4: You Engage your customers in the design of your products.

The right consumer feedback can take your product from a flop to a major success. But remember, the key to engaging customers in the design process is soliciting input and feedback effectively.
Disagreements betweem creative director and managers happens almost every day, but there’s a simple way to settle any argument," said a CEO.

"We take it to the people.”

It is important to remember that even the smallest tweaks made in response to customer feedback can have a substantial impact on sales. While testing should be used to test different concepts, surveys can be more valuable when it comes to fine-tuning.

Here are 3 ways you allow your customers to be involve in the design of your product:

• Collaborating – this style gives the customers the greatest power to contribute their own ideas and select components for new products and the best known example of this approach is Open Source software development.
• Tinkering – is where customers make modifications to commercially available products, some of which are incorporated into later releases.
• Co-designing – a relatively small group of customers provides the majority of the new ideas and the bulk of the customers select which ones get implemented/developed.

Source
Additional resources

How Data Analytics Enhances Ecommerce Business Performance

5 Ways How to Genuinely Care For Your Customers

12 Key Causes of Customer Dissatisfaction That is Bad For You Business

In Conclusion

Customer service is an ever-changing landscape. But one thing is certain, and it is summed up in these phrase:

"treat the customer like a human being."

5 Ways Ecommerce Retailers Add Huge Value to Customers?

Much has been written about adding value to customers. But so few have really grasp what is to be done to do that! And those that understood what it takes to add value to their customers have taken their ecommerce business to a whole new level. While many, for some reason or another are languishing in in-action, or perhaps hopelessness!

Why is it Important to Add Value To Your Customers?

Added value is fundamental to any business. The value of a product or services to customer is what drives every transaction. It has been proven for a long time that customers are willing to pay more for a finished product than raw materials because a business has added value to the raw materials. Below is a comment made by a customer who just bought a computer and offer insight to his choice.

...just bought a new computer. I shopped around for the machine I wanted and found a couple deals at similar prices, but I went with the highest priced option I found. I bought from Costco because I value their customer service and return policies more than the lower price others can offer. That differentiation allows Costco to charge a customer like me higher than market price for the same physical product.

This comment aptly describe what adding value to customers meant.

The Aim of Adding Value To Your Customers

The aim of adding value is to generate sales without cutting your margin of profit.  Retailers should think of innovative ways on how else they can offer value to their customers. A sure-fire way that retailers can do this is to provide a service that shoppers cannot get elsewhere and are willing to pay a premium for.

How Can Ecommerce Retailers Add Value to Their Customers:

#1. Offer Better Experience Than Your Competitors

Truth of the matter is that online shoppers are much more likely to shop with you again and become loyal customers if you offer a better experience than your competitors. If customers think they receive more value shopping with you, they are most likely to buy from you again.

Train your new and old staff to deliver a customer service that is better than your competition.

Retailers can effectively reward the loyalty of frequent shoppers and encourage repeat purchases through inviting shoppers to join a loyalty program. Some of the ways you can reward your customers is to "Offer click-and-collect and pre-purchasing". Things like these can often make the difference between whether a consumer shops with your or a competitor. Give away free items with multiple purchases. Buy one, get one free is a tried and tested method of encouraging short-term repeat sales. Don't overuse this tactic, though, or people might start to question the quality and value of the goods.

#2. Represent Your Expertise

One of the best way to representing your expertise is to produce contents that shoppers may be searching for and will find useful, such as such as how to guides and step-by-step video tutorials. Publishing contents in relevant to your niche provides an excellent opportunity for you to reach people on a wider scale.
Providing a way for customers and visitors to seek your expertise right in your website is another innovation that you can do to represent your brand. Provide expert advice to shoppers through interactive customer support via multiple channel. Social media channels has become a really good venue for consumers who will often look to source opinion before making a purchase.

Shoppers prefer to buy from real people rather than faceless companies.

The rise of social media and the internet have only made this truer. Customers really value it when retailers offer them expert advice. For instance, a fashion retailer could offer customers free appointments with personal stylists to help them pick out garments that flatter their figure and are within their budget.

#3. Cultivate Exclusivity Atmosphere

eRetailers can use exclusivity to reward loyal shoppers by offering them first refusal on new products before they are made available for the public to buy. This can simply be done by organizing a special shopping events in-store or giving online shoppers exclusive access to special products or deals online. Or a limited offer for an up-coming for members-only event.

Many shoppers are willing to pay a premium for items that they can’t buy elsewhere. This offers stores an opportunity to attract customers by offering limited edition products, such as a pair of shoes designed by a local designer or a signed copy of a book. Exclusivity is an excellent way to add value to customers.

#4. Make Shopping With You A Convenient One

Have you ever wonder why convenience stores are sprouting just about everywhere overnight? We all know that convenience stores charge a little more than other stores, but people are willing to pay the difference. Why is that? Convenience! Because in people's mind, going to a convenient store means that they can get a hand on a product faster. Same is true with online shoppers!

People want to have an easy-access-as-they-can to a product on your website!

Online retailers must consider how they can make the shopping experience as convenient as possible. For instance, offering free or next-day delivery options or in-store pickup service, gives shoppers the convenience to decide how they would like orders to be delivered and by when. Equally, making a wide range of payment methods available can give shoppers more flexibility when making purchases and can put to rest any concerns that shoppers may have about entering their bank details on the web.

#5. Ask For Honest Feedback To Identify Areas of Improvement

Consumers are let down by the experience that online retailers deliver, all too often. The color is not the same, quality is questionable, shipping took so long, etc. And most of the time, something as simple as a product being out of stock, a mobile website not working, or a store being in disrepair can take some of the shine off the consumer’s experience.
To avoid disappointing shoppers and potentially losing a sale – or worse a customer. It is absolutely vital that retailers pay close attention to the experience that they offer across all channels. Ask for customer's honest opinion to better identify areas of improvement.  If aiming to exceed expectations is unrealistic, at least fulfill up to par of the expectation. Retailers can adopt this approach to benchmark the experience that they offer to their customers by acting as secret shoppers themselves to assess the level of service offered by their competitors and identify areas for improvement.
Additional resources:

85% Of Customers Turn Away At Checkout. Why?

12 Key Causes of Customer Dissatisfaction That is Bad For You Business

Smart Ways To Improve Customer Retention For Your Ecommerce

In conclusion

Delivering customer service that is better than your competition. Rewarding loyal shoppers by offering them first refusal on new products before they are made available for the public. Providing a way for customers and visitors to seek your expertise. Making sure the shopping experience is as convenient as possible. And asking for honest opinion on how to be better. These are legit added values that your customer will want to benefit and may just be the springboard that launches you into an ecommerce success.

Top 5 Trends in The Global eCommerce Market to Look Out For

We have compiled the latest industry data to create a global eCommerce market ranking that compares markets across a number of key, weighted criteria. We are going to look at the top ecommerce retailers in the world and what country has the most shoppers online. Some of the results will come as no surprise – it’s hard to de-emphasise the sheer scale of the markets in the USA and China. However, there are other important criteria that allow markets such as UK, India and Mexico to perform well in the ranking.
Let’s get started!

#1. The Top 5 ranked world eRetailers

Global ecommerce market sales amounted to nearly 3.5 trillion dollars worldwide in 2019. The top 5 ecommerce store took the bulk of that revenue, proving ecommerce is an increasingly lucrative option for businesses. According to this article from forbes, out of the top five world e-retailers ranked by online sales, three are from the US and two are from China.
Amazon.com in the US and JD in China are on the top of the list generating the highest global net sale.
Jd.com, operated by Beijing Jingdong 360 Du E-Commerce, Ltd., is an online store with nationally-focused sales.
Apple.com, though internationally-focused, generates its e-commerce net sales primarily in the United States as well as in Greater China and Japan.
Suning.com, operated by Nanjing Suning E-Commerce Co., Ltd., is an online store with nationally-focused sales.
Walmart.com with an online revenue of $14 bn is the second largest e-commerce retailer in the United States.

Special mention to the following:

• Dell Technologies
• Vipshop Holdings a China Web Only Mass Merchant
• Otto Group a Germany Catalog/Call Center Mass Merchant
• Gome Electrical Appliances another China Retail Chain Mass Merchant
• Macy’s

#2 The Top 5 eCommerce sale per shopper

While the top 5 online retailers where coming from US and China, the global ecommerce market sale per shopper tells a different story. Except for the USA, which took the top spot as the top ecommerce market in terms of revenue per shopper, Europe took spot 2 to 5 with Norway trailing the US with $1719 online purchase per shopper. Followed closely by the UK with $1639 per shopper, Denmark came in fourth with $1383 revenue per shopper, and Austria with $1249 per.

#3. The Top 5 largest eCommerce market

As part of general research for a cross-border strategy, it is important for retailers and retailer brands to have knowledge of the world’s largest eCommerce markets.
As expected, the first and second spot is taken by China and USA respectively. They came up with $636 billion and $504 billion in total revenue, while Japan nested itself in the third place in the largest ecommerce market in the world with $104 billion in revenue. To round up the top 5 are UK and Germany with $86 billion and $70 billion respectively. As you may notice, the gap between the 2nd and 3rd spot is gigantic. Giving us an idea where potential sale will be coming from for brand retailers!

#4. Top 5 markets by total number of online shoppers

While China taking the top spot for the total number of online shoppers in the global ecommerce market, India made a surprising appearance. Indian took  the second place. Considering the population of these two countries, it appears just about right that they too have the highest number of online shoppers. The gap though form #1 to #2 spot is glaring with China having 1 billion online shoppers, which the number 2 India only having 360 million online shoppers. USA took the third spot. The more surprising one was Indonesia landing the 4th spot for a country with the highest number of online shoppers! While Japan round up the top 5.

#5. The Top 5 high-growth region in the world of ecommerce

The high-growth region of Southeast Asia represents a huge opportunity for international brands. This exciting region is home to over 350 million online shoppers in 2019. Southeast Asia has not yet been saturated by international retail players in the global ecommerce market.
India takes the top spot as the highest growing country in the world with a 20% ecommerce growth. Followed by Malaysia and Indonesia with 18% adn 17% respectively. Rounding up the 4th and 5th slot are Philippines and Vietnam with 15% and 13% ecommerce growth, respectively.

Resource credit to World Retailers Congress for releasing the Global Ecommerce Market Ranking
Additional Free Ecommerce Resource:

20 Best Ecommerce Suppliers for Your Online Store

Most Profitable Ecommerce Business Niches To Try in 2020 and Beyond

20 Most Profitable Ecommerce Business Niches To Try in 2020 Part 2

Ecommerce Cheat Sheet: Your Online Store Improvement List for 2020

Why More and More Ecommerce Websites Fail to Break Through

85% Of Customers Turn Away At Checkout. Why?

Do you know that more than 8 out of 10 online customers turns away at checkout page?
According to research done by baymard, 69% of all e-commerce visitors abandon their shopping cart just before they hit that checkout button. The items are in the cart ready for payment, but for some valid reason, majority of them just leave their cart at the checkout counter.
And it gets worse from here on. According to the same study, of the 30% left, half of them are abandoned at the checkout stage or in the payment process. Which means only 15% of users who initiate purchase end up actually paying. That's a staggering 85% of customers turning away at checkout!

Checkout the most important but neglected part of webshops

We all know that the checkout stage is the most important and yet can be the most neglected part of your funnel. Users who made it all the way down to the bottom of your funnel eating up your ad spend and nurture efforts are the most painful to lose, don't you agree?

Speed, simplicity and reliability is what users look for in a payment page. Anytime, on any device. This means constantly optimizing your payment page’s performance and paying close attention to what everyone else is doing. Neglecting your payment page will cost you in the long run. Says involve.

An easy payment process makes or breaks a sales conversion. It is the final stage of every customer journey that began on product searching. But without them completing the purchase is the ecommerce website developer’s fault as much as the website owner.

The #1 culprit for customers turning away at checkout is website usability issues.

Usability is all about making things easier to use. A website should do all the work and present visitors only with the things they’re looking for. Usability is also about the experience people have using your website, so attention to detail matters, as do the presentation and feel of the page from copy to payment completion.

Here are five usability issues that turns off customers

-Tiny Clickable Hyperlinks and buttons.

Hyperlinks and buttons are designed to be clicked. So, it would serve your website well to make them stand out and easy to recognized. The gist is for everything to be easy to use.

-Bad Way to Use Pagination

Pagination is meant to help your customers and users find their way around your contents nothing more. I have seen websites that breaks down their articles to tiny bits. This is a bad way to do use pagination.

-Bad checkout design.

A well-designed checkout can greatly improve the customer experience, building trust and increasing sales. Meanwhile, a badly-designed checkout can create confusion and distraction, causing your customers to abandon their carts well before the finish line.

-Misplaced calls-to-action.

If the user doesn’t see a CTA how likely is he to click it? Buttons that are too small or are lost in the noise of graphics and text are what lead to "Button Blindness". No one has the time to find one to click.

-Difficult to get in touch with site owners

User engagement is important if you want to build loyal customers. Quickly answering people’s questions and fixing their problems doesn’t just mean that you have good customer service – it means you care, and your customers and visitors will appreciate it.

Below are bonus usability issues that makes customers turn away at checkout. Fix them and you'll see a spike on your sales!

-No Search contents or products functionality.

Our usability studies show that more than half of all users are search-dominant, about a fifth of the users are link-dominant, and the rest exhibit mixed behavior. The search-dominant users will usually go straight for the search button when they enter a website: they are not interested in looking around the site; they are task-focused and want to find specific information as fast as possible.

Source

-Old Permalinks pointing nowhere.

Avoid the dreaded "Page not found!" message. Most online customers are frustrated when they click on a link in your store and they get that "page not found" message! Audit your website for old and deleted pages.

-To many fields in the registration forms.

I hate this personally. Why do people have to invest time and effort to register, and then they have to invest even more time and effort in future to remember what user name and password they used? Keep your registration from to the minimum field.

-Too many things to do in the checkout process. 

Just like the long registration above, check out pages does not have to be long and some times a 5 page process.
Offer a smoother and easy payment process with an easy payment option that will ensure quick conversions. At Shoptech.media, we have reduced our payment processing page to just one in all our ecommerce website development. All the customer needs to make a complete purchase is readily reachable.

-Sneaky fees at the shipping process.

Hidden costs are one of the primary reason your visitors leave without purchasing, ranking first in both probability and impact. 25% of customers specifically cited shipping costs as the primary reason driving them away.
The best course of action is to state all costs from the outset.

-Lack of personal touch . 

Be personal. By the time the users gets to the bottom of your funnel, you will have more than enough information to do so.  Check out the difference between the two following sentence!

“Your order is ready to be shipped”
“Your Italian shirt will be shipped on Friday, Josh!”

The first one is boring and passive. While the second one is customer-centric! This is where things at in 2020 customer centric payment pages.

More Ecommerce Resource you may want to check:

5 Ways How to Genuinely Care For Your Customers

12 Key Causes of Customer Dissatisfaction That is Bad For You Business

Smart Ways To Improve Customer Retention For Your Ecommerce

6 Time-Tested Ecommerce Marketing Strategy That Works Everytime

In Conclusion

The checkout process is the most important part of an ecommerce. Spend more time improving and honing it. Follow the checklist above and audit your online business!