5 Simple Ways To Increase And Improve Online Sales For Startups In 2021

Over the years, online E-Commerce websites have sprouted up out of nowhere, and more people are moving online to purchase services and products.

In fact, the latest growth forecast from eMarketer suggests that E-Commerce sales will increase to 16% in 2020, and they sure did, in fact, that prediction alone was 19% higher than the years before.

In addition, the COVID pandemic shifted E-Commerce in 2020 and in April 2020, there was a growth spurt of 146% in all online retailers...

So if you've got a business online, and would like to increase and improve online sales, now's the chance to dive deep into the information I've got to share with you that'll help you increase online sales fast!

Buckle up, and let's dive into these methods...

You Need To Define Your Target Market

Any online retailer has different demographics that use their website, and yours is no different.

Different people will prefer to receive information in different ways, such as how they'll receive information about your latest new product offerings, or that new E-Book that you've recently launched...

It turns out that there are more than one generation of people on the earth, surprise, surprise right?

By now, you should've set up Google Analytics on your website, if not, do that first, and come back in three months time - I'm just kidding...

But seriously, how can you define your target market and audience if you don't have any data about the people that visit your website?

Sure, you can define multiple target markets to improve online sales for your website, and that's fine, but ultimately, you're going to want to find out whether the target market that you've defined actually matches the users of your E-Commerce site.

Google Analytics is great for that, you'll be able to figure out segments of people on your website, and this is the cold, hard data about the market to try and improve online sales.

Understand your customers problems

Did you know that 72% of customers see that they have to explain their problem to multiple people within an organisation due to poor customer service?

And also, 39% of customers will actually completely avoid a company for two years if poor customer service is to blame.

Customer problems come in all shapes and sizes, so improving online sales is going to firstly come down to what kind of problems your customers have, and how you can improve and remove those problems entirely for them.

For example, if poor customer service is their problem, you need to look at improving customer service.

What about the UI on the website, if your website has a poor user experience, users aren't likely to come back, so nailing this is essential as well.

Offer A Money-Back Guarantee

If you've ever bought a product from a shop, chances are, you can return the item if it's faulty within a period of time...

The same is true for online E-Commerce, but what about if the product or service being offered is just fine, but the customer simply doesn't want it?

There's a whole load of reasons why a customer might want their money back, and offering a money-back guarantee is sure to improve online sales for your website.

How?

Because you're being completely transparent, honest and open about what you're offering and at the end of the day, if your customers aren't happy with what you've sold them, they're ever going to return.

Uptime Robot does a great job at offering a money-back guarantee, and it's for a 30 day period, extremely useful if you're not happy with the service, you can get your money back.

Offering a service? Consider offering a free trial

If you're offering a service, such as an online membership where the customer has to pay a monthly subscription, then a free trial to gain access to the service might be beneficial.

There are risks involved with offering free trials though, and it might cost you, the business owner, website owner more money upfront because some people will opt for a free trial, and then simply leave after the trial ends.

Take a look at Oh Dear, a service for monitoring your website, they offer a free trial, and it's quite generous, trials only really work for software, and won't work for products.

Remove Customer Fears To Improve Online Sales

A recent study found that 84% of online households named at least one concern then had about online privacy and security risks.

If you've ever been to a website to purchase something, you've probably (without realising) instinctively been looking for key elements to remove the fears of browsing and eventually, buying from that website.

What do I mean by this?

Let's look at the obvious questions you ask yourself when you're browsing a website to purchase something:

• Does this website have a refund and returns policy?
• Is there a valid SSL on the site, is it secure?
• What's the company number, how do I contact the website?
• What kind of product reviews are there?

Sound familiar?

That's because these are the types of fears that customers have when they're browsing your E-Commerce website, and if you want to improve online sales, you're going to need to remove those fears from potential customers.

How?

It's easier than you might think...

Just let them know. Add some visuals, make it obvious that you've got a returns and refund policy in place, and display those customer reviews and testimonials.

Have A Simple Buying Process For Products

You've got about 15 seconds to capture a customer's attention and keep them engaged before they leave and go to another website according to CrazyEgg.

Crafting a simple buying process is going to be essential to improving online sales for your website, and ensuring that you take away any unnecessary friction is vital.

You need to give customers the opportunity to browse for products for sure, but don't bombard them with many different options, the more options and the more loopholes that customers have to jump through, the fewer online sales you're likely to make.

Furthermore, it's probably a great idea to give potential customers the opportunity to save their payment details...

Why?

Because in doing so, it'll be easier for them to purchase later and this removes a friction point which in turn improves your online sales.

Make Sure To Follow Up After Sales

According to an article by Marketing Donut, they've found that it takes at least five continuous follow up efforts after an initial sale before a customer will say yes.

This means that even if customers don't respond to your first follow up email after a sale, they're still building trust with you and by the fifth follow up, they're likely to be inclined to give feedback or purchase something else.

Following up just to check to see if your customers had any problems is always a nice thing, and from my own experience on the domain monitor, I've found that customers actually can provide some constructive feedback, and yours can as well!

This helps because feedback is how you're going to improve online sales and make purchasing additional products and/or services much easier in the future.

Conclusion

Whether you're a startup building a brand, a blog, an E-Commerce website or are looking at offering SaaS (Software as a service) to your customers, ensuring that you're actively improving and increasing online sales is important to business success.

With the advice I've shared with you in this article, hopefully you'll have enough to take away and get to work at both optimising and improving those sales!