So, you have crossed the first hurdle of setting up an eCommerce store and running it efficiently? This isn’t the full cycle of online business because you need more and more loyal customers to do repeated shopping from your store. Selling of a product coupled with better customer service is the key to increase the probability of repeat shopping from your store. But there are many features and technique which can enhance your sale by retaining old customer and attaining new customers for your store. In this competitive world, where finding a new customer and retaining them requires lot of hard work and money. But there are some of the techniques which can be done efficiently and cost you very less and in return heavily increases your customer base and brand loyalty. Let’s discuss some of those here:
Search Engine Optimization:
This is the backbone of internet marketing, it helps your customer to find your store and products on the internet without you having to invest lot of money and time. For this you can hire an expert web design agency to do it for you. Through SEO your product and store have a fair bit of change to come in good place in google search results, which subsequently redirects a potential buyer to your store and leads to a sale.This also increases brand visibility.
Customer Segmentation.
This feature leverage you to provide more personal shopping experience to your customer. With this you can segmentize your customers by demographics like gender,age and location, or by their shopping behavior based on their browsed history whether they have placed product in their shopping cart or bought on your store. You can also categorize first-time visitors and target them with special offers to convert them into buyers.
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Targeted promotion and merchandising.
Customer is more likely to purchase if you make shopping experience personal to them. For this you need to display special content, promotions and pricing targeted to a certain customer segment. To increase order value proper product suggestion should be done to the customer based on his previous browsed history. This can be enhanced by integrating existing customer segment list with email-marketing campaign.
Custom coupon.
You can customize your campaign by specifying customer segments, products, categories or times. This can be programmed by unique set of codes that you can export for offline distribution, email, newsletters and more. Coupon usage can be managed and monitored by detailed reports.
Product suggestion tools.
This can be integrated in your website to foster up-sell, cross-sell. While suggesting products to your customer or visitor it should be very carefully examined that what was the customer’s browsing history and behaviour in your website. Complementary items can also be displayed to the shoppers to give them various options while shopping.
Rating and Reviews.
This is the tool which is very important to create viral buzz in the market and also increases the credibility of the brand among shoppers without spending lot of money. A real and unbiased reviews builds shoppers confidence over the website about its services, product and price. Customer feels more comfortable with the favorable reviews in the website even some bad ones can’t resist him to become a loyal customer of your store.
Customer reward points.
To increase customer loyalty it is imperative to incentivize and set point values for various customer actions, such as when shoppers register on your site, do shopping, write product reviews, sign up to receive your newsletter, or refer friends. You can create different point values for your valuable customer segments. These reward points can be redeemed by customer at any point of time.
Automated email reminders.
This method should be used very carefully by doing this you may spam some of your valuable customers. So, only registered users who agreed to receive your promotional mails. Through this you can inform your customers about the sales, new arrivals, best offers for them. This technique helps to get loyal customers who do repeat shopping at your store.
Gift Cards.
You can offer physical or virtual gift cards to the returning customers.You can specify the expiry date of the card, customers can check their card balances before purchasing and while checkout can use other payment methods to subsidize their purchase.
Store Credit.
This is a technique to retain a customer. When a customer returns product to the store then you can offer him store credit that they can apply towards future purchases. You can issue a refund for the returned items directly to customer’s accounts. That way, customers can easily purchase new items from your store and reduces the chance to lose a sale.
Wish List.
Wish lists enable customers to keep track of their most searched items and return to your site to purchase them quickly and easily. This list is very likely to be shared by the customer to his family and friends which in turn may give you new customers. Additionally, you can use this lists to learn about your customer’s’ preferences and send them targeted promotions to increase conversions. So, these features can easily enhance your brand loyalty and in turn can boost your online store sales. But to integrate various features in your store I would suggest you to hire a professional web design agency.