Starting a business is one thing — but making it profitable is quite another.

And if you want to build a thriving eCommerce brand that’s strong, competitive, and successful enough to live on, you’re on a whole different playing field.

That’s not to say it’s impossible. In fact, some of the most successful eCommerce brands make $39,000 in revenue during their first month and up to $6.5 million after just five years. Some make far more.

Their secret? A great sales strategy. And thankfully, it’s one that anyone can build.

We’re exploring 15 of the most tried-and-true strategies for boosting eCommerce sales, all based on credible research and case studies from around the world.

Let’s dive in.

Increase your eCommerce sales in 15 steps

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Whether you’re struggling with flagging sales, looking to scale up, or trying to get your feet off the ground, it’s never a bad time to implement new strategies for revenue growth.

Here’s how to boost your eCommerce sales with 15 simple tips.

1. Know the audience

If you don’t know your audience, you don’t know your business. Understanding the people who search, shop, and buy your products is a great step towards fixing this.

Start by creating personas around separate segments of your target market. You’ll want to assign fictional names, target ages, and potential motivations for wanting your product, as well as other information relevant to the category.

As you design your personas, ask yourself:

• What products do customers expect from my business?
• Do they have expectations for my tone, customer service, or shipping?
• Are they looking to spend a set amount or just score a deal?

This leads to the next point:

2. Up your prices

You may feel you charge enough for your products, but odds are that’s not the case. Many new business owners undersell themselves in an attempt to be competitive in the marketplace — but not only is this insufficient, it’s a profit-destroying strategy as well.

Imagine you raised the rate of an $8 product to $10. Over the course of one year, you sell 1,000 units, making $200 more than before. That’s a 20% increase in revenue lost by misplaced modesty.

Case in point: don’t be shy about setting a solid rate for your products. You owe it to yourself and your brand.

3. List clear costs

Now that prices are up, be sure you remain transparent about all costs, fees, and expenses. Companies that list their prices upfront experience a measurable boost in sales, and up to 20% more purchase interest when production costs are explained.

You may want to:

• Have a pricing page directly on the website
• Include accessible documents that detail production costs
• Set templated bills and invoices that concisely list all expenses

Speaking of clear costs, you may also want to:

4. Jump to free shipping

These days, free shipping is more of a rule rather than an exception. Roughly 65% of all ecommerce stores offer free shipping, although 66% of customers expect the perk for their patronage.

The cost of free shipping may look steep at first, but the results are well worth it. Free shipping accounts for a 10% to 20% increase in overall product sales — no small number.

Don’t forget that speed is a key feature of free shipping. Even if you don’t charge customers for one-week delivery, you’ll lose out to competitors offering three-day delivery.

5. Try a bundling strategy

For eCommerce purposes, packaging-related projects together are known as bundling. This is an excellent way to increase order value, encourage additional sales, and ultimately make more money from each conversion.

There are several types of bundling strategies to try:

• Creating holiday bundles with seasonal goods
• Packaging trial items to encourage future sales
• Including fast-selling items with slower products to move inventory

Remember that bundles should cost slightly less than each product sold separately. If not, customers might look elsewhere for their mixing and matching needs. Lastly, don’t hesitate to focus on product prioritization and encourage your product team to use prioritization software to ensure optimal bundle combinations and maximize sales potential.

6. Remarket where possible

Frankly, customers are more likely to trust your brand if they see it across various channels. 

Let’s look at it this way. The average conversion rate of online ads is just 2%. Remarketing ads? A full 51%. 

Remarketing strategies do well on platforms like Facebook and Google Ads, especially when paired with effective conversion rate optimization tools that monitor customer segments across a wide variety of channels. Be sure to A/B test as you go to optimize your remarketing ads.

Speaking of marketing strategies for SMBs, you may also want to:

7. Leverage content marketing

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Content is king, even in a post-inbound world. If you don’t already have a strategy in place for attracting organic searches, now is the best time to make one.

You have several options to choose from:

• Write a blog with dense interlinking and natural SEO
• Work alongside influencers to create content and promote your product
• Create comparison posts that hash out your product versus competitors

Content marketing also works well alongside integrated strategies like social media, another critical component of boosting sales.

8. Flesh out social media

Social media is a slept-on strategy for the modern eCommerce business. Only 30% of brands are currently selling through Instagram, Facebook, or Pinterest, although 12% more want to try it out.

There are more than 96 million social commerce buyers in 2022, producing $36.62 billion in sales in 2021. Needless to say, it’s time to get on the bandwagon.

Be sure to:

• Publish regular content and partner with influencers
• Create long-form and short-form ads to test for conversions
• Lean on personalization strategies to enhance customer relationships

9. Improve customer service

Ecommerce brands follow the 80/20 rule: 80% of sales will come from 20% of customers, and vice versa. Thus, retaining high-value customers with excellent customer service isn’t just optional — it’s necessary.

You have a lot of options to choose from here. Live chatbots are perfect for managing FAQs or directing traffic, while simultaneously lifting revenue by 6%. A live rep, on the other hand, increases customer trust and supplies human answers as necessary.

Facebook Messenger is another decent option for brands just starting out. Just remember: the slower you answer, the fewer leads will make it across the finish line.

A strong customer service team is also one of the best strategies for reducing chargeback fraud in eCommerce as it gives customers a quick way to settle refund disputes.

10. Optimize landing pages

The average conversion rate of a landing page is 9.7% or one out of every ten leads. If you’re not creating at least one or two landing pages for your highest selling products, you might be letting 10% more sales slide out the door.

Getting started doesn’t have to be hard:

• Keyword research quickly investigates customer intent
• Marketing videos highlight and show off your product
• Online tools build pages and create great content

11. Automate where possible

If you’re not already using automation, you’re already behind. Ecommerce brands using automation workflows see double the revenue growth, higher profits, and nine times higher deal averages than brands that don’t.

You can use automation workflows to encourage sales at any stage of the funnel. Web push notifications, for example, can be sent after specific actions or events to increase conversions and interactivity. Emails, on the other hand, can be sent with personalized, dynamic content to boost browsing time or provide post-purchase information.

There are plenty of online services that can help you automate workflows at scale.

12. Consider SMS tools

There are so many reasons to love SMS. It’s fast, it’s affordable, and most importantly, it’s profitable for sales.

A whopping 99% of SMS messages are read immediately, followed by a 45% response rate and a 19% clickthrough rate. Plus, nearly half of all sales go to vendors that respond first, a problem that is easily circumnavigated by texting. 

Just remember that SMS should be used sparingly to increase sales. Lean on it too heavily, and customers may become annoyed with the cadence and frequency of your messages.

13. Lean into site popups

The popup is an unsung hero of the eCommerce world.

When used correctly, that is.

Although some popups can generate up to 30% of a company’s annual revenue, they can also be infuriating for buyers just looking to browse. If you’ve ever been hit by an immediate popup while just moving your cursor from one place to another, you know how it feels.

Rather than implementing a ham-fisted strategy, try leveraging thoughtfully crafted popups that only appear after a certain percentage of scroll time (or three browsing minutes). You might want to use colorful font and imagery to capture attention or use gamified elements to encourage interest.

14. Build an omnichannel strategy

The equation is simple: the more channels you own, the more money you’ll make.

For the unfamiliar, channels refer to platforms that are owned and managed by your business. Your website, social media profiles, and emails are all examples of this.

Channels are worth their weight in gold. Studies have shown that eCommerce revenue increases 38% with the addition of one channel, 120% with the second, and 190% with a third. If you’re not leveraging more than just your website, you could be missing out on nearly two times the potential revenue.

Just make sure that each of your designated channels is high quality, cohesive, and responsive. Bad channels will hurt your profits more than none at all.

15. Rely on email marketing

Your email list is marketing gold. It’s a full-bodied list of customers who genuinely love your product and brand, most of which are interested in future sales and transactions.

For eCommerce brands, leveraging email is one of the most powerful things you could do to increase profits. Every $1 spent on campaigns results in $40 of growth — a whopping 400% ROI from nothing but an on-brand message.

You have several strategies to pull from:

• Initial welcome emails (51.94% conversion rate)
• Cart abandonment emails (33.89% conversion rate)
• Birthday discount emails (10.57% conversion rate)

Any of these will increase your conversions and encourage clients to browse through products, boosting your sales and customer rapport in the process.

Don’t forget to partner with an email automation solution to manage campaigns at scale.

Watch your sales skyrocket one step at a time

Image source: https://unsplash.com/photos/hpjSkU2UYSU

Building a flywheel of eCommerce revenue is more time-consuming than it is complicated. As long as you’re willing to do the work, seek outside guidance, and partner with providers that have your best interests in mind, success will be within grasp.

So what’s next? You decide. Pick a single technique to implement, combine a few to maximize growth, or go ham with a holistic strategy carried out across multiple channels.

Either way, you’re guaranteed to see improvements — just take it one small step at a time.

Bio:

Laura Cerbauske is an experienced digital marketing and SEO specialist at Omnisend – an Ecommerce Marketing Automation platform. When not blogging, she likes to read about SEO, digital marketing and eCommerce trends, technology, and personal productivity. Follow on Linkedin