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New Year’s resolutions tend to follow a predictable pattern. Mainly, they concern self-betterment, whether through subtraction (i.e., cutting out bad habits or hurdles to success) or addition (i.e., incorporating positive processes into your daily life). It’s a predictable pattern because it works.
What if you were to take those self-betterment resolutions and apply them to your e-commerce business. Like personal growth, professional and entrepreneurial growth requires balancing those two elements: subtracting things that aren’t working and adding new processes that drive conversion, boost sales, and promote customer loyalty.
While New Year’s Day might have come and gone, it’s not too late to get 2022 started on the right foot. Here are three of the best ways to revamp your e-commerce business this year.
Optimize Your Site to Reduce Shopping Cart Abandonment
Shopping cart abandonment rates remain a thorn in the side of many e-commerce retailers. While some shopping cart abandonment is expected, rates that routinely hover above 75% are cause for action.
To tackle abandonment, it pays to understand consumer reasoning. According to the Baymard Institute, 49% of respondents cited high costs (shipping, tax, handling, etc.), 24% blamed account requirement, 19% mentioned slow delivery, and 18% pointed to a lengthy checkout process. These are invaluable insights.
Consider optimizing your site to reduce shopping cart abandonment by incorporating progress indicators into the checkout process, removing account requirements (or establishing a guest checkout option), and – crucially – partnering with a logistics company that can deliver quick, inexpensive delivery.
Which leads to the next point…
Try “Last Block” Logistics Solutions
As the stats above make clear, customers want fast delivery that isn’t prohibitively expensive. Moreover, more consumers cite sustainability as a key concern when shopping online.
For sustainable, fast last mile delivery logistics solutions, forget last mile entirely – and think “last block.” Consider partnering with a decentralized fulfillment and logistics network situated in several urban centers. For example, REEF, a wide-reaching network of “micro-fulfillment centers,” leverages a hyper-local logistics model to fulfill on-demand or same-day deliveries using zero-emission vehicles.
By partnering with a last-block fulfillment network, you can get your product to customers quickly – and advertise sustainable practices in your brand.
Be Everywhere
“Be everywhere” may seem like a hollow platitude at first glance – but it’s a valuable frame of mind for e-commerce entrepreneurs.
What does “everywhere” mean? It means ranking several of your product pages highly on Google through shrewd SEO practices. It means leveraging Facebook’s wide reach to connect with new customers. It means buying sticky banner ads on relevant sites. And it means wielding the full force of a suite of social media sites (Instagram, Twitter, Pinterest, etc.) to expand your sphere of influence.
The goal here is to drive more people to your site so that the above two tips – an optimized checkout process and convenient last-block logistics solutions – can help guide customers across the finish line.
Let’s start 2022 on the right foot. Whether you’re a seasoned e-commerce retailer or you’ve just started selling products online, use these tips to acquire, retain and impress customers this year.
