eCommerce Best Practices to Increase Revenue (2021)

As the “new normal” has affected every part of our lives, it has touched online shopping, too. Many customers are now forced online to shop for items they might otherwise browse a physical store for. We constantly coach our clients with great tips to grow their online stores. Here are some eCommerce best practices to increase revenue in 2021.

eCommerce best practices you should know

The following best practices should be apart of a company’s priority list to focus on this year- and possibly beyond.

Fast loading website

In 2021, one best practice tip we offer our e-commerce clients is to have a fast loading website. This directly correlates to conversion rates, customer satisfaction, and potential sales revenue.

According to statistics, a customer expects a page to load in under 2 seconds. The faster the page loads, the better the overall user experience. And if customers have a great user experience, they are more than likely to make a purchase.

The speed of page load also has an impact on search rankings, which can affect how much traffic an e-commerce website receives at the top of the funnel. Furthermore, since Google has shifted towards a mobile-first approach to search crawling, it is vital that your mobile website is fast.

A few tools we use to judge a website’s loading time are Google PageSpeed Insights, GTmetrix, and Pingdom. All three tools offer a simple scale to “grade” your website’s speed. Additionally, they offer other high-level details on how to remedy issues. This can get complex in the understanding, thus we encourage clients to seek professionals who know how to speak the lingo, examine individual site issues, and correct any problems found.

Product descriptions

We often describe a common paradigm with e-commerce shops. Most products do not require 3-5 paragraphs of text in order to influence a sale (unless it’s a product with specifications.) Most times the images sell the product. But Google doesn’t see as well as they can read. This is the amount of text necessary for Google to index the product page well. Otherwise, they consider it “thin content.”

Where do you find the balance of having the right description length that satisfies Google’s taste but does not deter customers?

One solution we suggest to our clients is humanizing the brand’s story and product line. The goal is to make the brand and products hyper relatable to consumer needs. Hiring a skilled copywriter can help solve this paradigm. Take, for example, Shopify’s breakdown of enticing the customer with benefits. They referred to Method Home’s product descriptions which skillfully tell a story of why their customers need their products, and how their products solve their customer’s problems.

Covid shipping delays & returns

On almost every retail site consumers are blasted with warnings of shipping delays due to Covid-19. This warning is appropriate. It is the challenge of the business to figure out how to ease the frustration of potential shipping delays. In 2021, all shipping carriers have raised their rates due to more demand and shorter staff. How does your firm leverage this precaution to increase revenue?

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‘I rather a customer be completely happy with their purchase. And in return, they offer the highest form of marketing- word of mouth advertising.’

Returns are an important discussion topic as well. Currently, many online businesses are not accepting returns as a precaution of Covid. We understand the health and safety concern, however, we think the brands that do not restrict returns will be the winners in the long term. In the short run, it solidifies sales in a shrinking market but can hurt brands in the long run. Olatokunbo Owokoniran is the owner of a luxury online clothing boutique based in Chicago, Black & Posh. She has not imposed item returns during Covid as she agrees this does not foster consumer trust.

“For my business, I rather a customer be completely happy with their purchase. And in return, they offer the highest form of marketing- word of mouth advertising,” explains Owokoniran. She further drives the point, “They also return as I have built trust with them and their referrals.”

Email marketing

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‘Email is like a big to-do list anyone can add to.’

Email marketing can be considered a dinosaur tactic, but it still tops eCommerce best practices lists every year. The reason why… it works!

With social media platforms and search owning most of the share of consumer traffic, businesses should be not left without a platform to own communications with their customers. Email is one of the oldest and best methods for direct customer communication. It is like a big to-do list anyone can add to. It’s always attached to most consumers. It’s in users’ pockets, and they check it often. Shouldn’t your brand add to the list, perhaps?

In Summary

We hope these tips can help your e-commerce marketing strategies post 2020. We perform a technical audit of your website in order to help drastically improve speed. Our creative content whisperers can create product descriptions that engage, inform, and most importantly, humanize your brand. We advise our clients to forecast beyond a shortage of sales in the short-term but opt for long-term success regarding shipping and returns. And finally, we strongly encourage email marketing as a best practice. Campaigns deserve proper nurturing, content creation, spam box avoidance, healthy open rates, and growth.

If your company seeks strategic planning to deploy some of the eCommerce best practices we’ve described above, contact us for a consultation.

Photo by PhotoMIX Company from Pexels.