With a rise in the number of start-ups and internet plans, it is only natural that the number of e-commerce start-ups in the country is increasing by the minute. However, running an e-commerce business isn’t easy; it takes a lot to run an e-commerce website successfully. A normal e-commerce business takes about three years to break even and because of a variety of factors, most e-commerce companies in the country are currently running in losses.
Here are a few tips to make your e-commerce company one of the most successful ones in business:
1. Market research is crucial
It is important to do market research before introducing a new website in the list of already available e-commerce sites. You need to figure out what problem you’re trying to solve through your product and what the USP of your e-commerce site is. Also, you need to decide upon your target group and use marketing techniques based on your target audience.
For instance, if you’re catering to Tier-III cities, you need to break a lot of stereotypes and mindsets to actually make your website acceptable to the people because people aren’t very open to the idea of buying stuff online.
2. The website needs to be dynamic
Because the only point of contact between your customers and the products is your website; you need to make sure that your website is dynamic and packed with information for the customers to refer to. To make your website more productive, you could display some feedback and USP of your product/service so that the decision-making process for the customer is simplified.
3. Design and performance of the website go hand in hand
You cannot have a boring, standard design and expect customers to be hooked to your website. Similarly, you cannot have brilliant designs and a low-performing website that has bugs and a bad display. Impressions can turn into conversions only when the website design appeals to the audience and performs well as the website is their only mode of communication.
If you have to choose between the two, give a higher preference to the performance of the website.
4. The customers won’t find your website on their own
You can’t build a fantastic website and hope for the customers to find the website on their own. Try and promote it on the various social media platforms available for greater visibility. Also, to create more awareness tap different forms of mass communication like e-mails, SMS-es, tie-ups etc.
Because your website is new and has competition, you need to make sure there is enough marketing done to create awareness about it.
5. Apps are the way to go
In India, almost 30% of the e-commerce sales are via the app downloaded on your customer’s phone. You need to keep the growth of mobile data and tablets in mind while working on the algorithms of your website without which your whole e-commerce business could go for a toss. While developing an app for the phone, make sure it is user-friendly, doesn’t consume too much data and is available across all platforms- iOS, Android and Windows for a greater market share. Setting up your shop on app like Xiaohongshu is also a good idea.
6. Strong customer service
An e-commerce business might be unreliable on various fronts- delayed delivery, misplacement of product, refunds, returns, etc which is why it is very essential to have a strong customer service department that caters to the needs of your customers 24×7. Only if your customers are satisfied will they come back for repeat purchases.