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How to Make Your Online Shops More Competitive?

  According to digital, there are over 12 million stores on the Internet today, and the number continues to rise. When people shop online, there are over millions of choices for them. The competition is fierce. So how to flaunt your store? Here are some improvement ideas that will help you get discovered and boost sales.

 1. Optimize Products

• Niche Products

  On top of all the optimizing methods, the product itself is the cornerstone. It should be trending while of course, high quality.

  Staying on top of current trends will help you tailor product selection and adjust designs whenever a new trend arises. Current trends could vary with current affairs, seasons, and festivals. And if you do dropship, given transportation and fulfillment time, you need to plan two months in advance. So that you can have enough time to arrange and test the product type and its design.

  For example, if you want to grasp opportunities on Christmas, the sweater is a common idea that comes to most business owners' minds. And for the design, putting pets with their names is a great idea, which makes your audience narrowed while your product is more competitive.

  You could also search trends on Google, Amazon, eCommerce platform search bars, and hot sale list from competitors. Or even draw inspiration from hot TV shows, magazines, and hot spots brought by stars or celebrities. One obvious example is that, shirts in the recently hot hit I Think You Should Leave’s second season become popular among its audience.

  After you’ve explored trending products, the next step is to order product samples to make sure of the quality. You’ll shoot two birds with one stone when you get your samples. You’ll be confident about the quality of products you’ll offer to your customers. Besides, you can also use your samples to create unique product photos.

•  Products Photos
  Stats show that customers presented with high-quality product photos are 3 times more likely to buy. Professional images not only make your brand trustworthy but also make products look higher quality. Presenting multiple angels of products could make buyers fully imagine the item and details. Hence, customers are more likely to buy.
  Apart from brand-generated images, customer photos, as social proof, are also favored by consumers. Seeing real people enjoying and approving products helps buyers in their decision-making process. So you could encourage customers to write reviews and pick some photos in your product display.
  

 2. Utilize Strong Branding

  One of the best ways to be competitive is to be more memorable. Be clever with your branding. Choose a memorable business name, create a unique logo, colors, and taglines.

  Develop a strong brand voice, and use it for all when creating your website. Carry that voice onto your social media profiles, and allow customers and potential customers to get to know your brand as a person. Once that relationship has been established, you’ll be found more favorable than your competitors.

 3. Create Store Style

  People won’t remember ordinary guys. So store. In addition to the brand story, creating store style is another way to get remembered.

  But you have to notice that, when you aim at everything, you will aim at nothing. As a result, you could narrow your audience to figure out your style. For example, when you want to sell custom T-shirts, you could choose custom pets T-shirts for pets lovers. So your store can be designed for people who like pets. You could also decorate your store and release products with one certain style, like dark, humor and etc. Or you could even trick your models, like making them present goods with rabbit headgear.  

  When it comes to store style, we have to mention web design. You can either pay a pretty penny to a web designer or take it upon yourself to learn to code. Alternatively, you can just get a ready-made template and customize it to your needs. Fortunately, there are thousands of great eCommerce templates on the web provided by sites like TemplateMonster, TonyTemplates, Apollotheme, and others that have clean designs, intuitive layouts, and follow the latest web design trends.

4. Provide Popular Payment Options

  According to a recent study by Baymard Institute, 17% of online shoppers abandon their carts because they don’t trust the website with their credit card information. Displaying reputable trustmarks- seals, logos, and icons of systems that are used to protect the customer is a way to reassure buyers that it’s safe to shop with you.

  Paypal reigns as the payment solution, but there are other popular options to consider, such as Stripe, Wepay, Due, Payoneer, and so on. Offer a wide variety of popular payment options for your customers so they can always easily make a purchase. Additionally, consider adding the payment logo at your checkout, which could add a little security for customers and therefore increase the conversion rate.

5. Specialize Package

  One of the common points you could notice from luxury brands, like Chanel, Louis Vuitton, is that they all provide exquisite packages. People are visual creatures. They seek beautiful things. And the package is no exception. 

  Put care and thought into your packaging. Make people feel like they are receiving a gift, rather than an order. The special experience when customers open a brightly colored box with unexpected free samples will become an amazing moment in your customer service. They will not want your competitor's plastic bag and bubble wrap if they get used to your luxury treatment. For example, simply adding a card into the package, printing your logo, and appreciating, would make their experience different. 

6. Provide After-sale Service

  Buying a product online with a limited return policy is risky. The customer can’t see the item in person, so they have to hope that the product is actually as described. With the possibility that the product can’t be up to their standard, they may need a backup option. If you do not provide this, they may abandon your store. After-sale service could build buyer trust. Here are some tips for your after-sale service.

• Create a policies page on your site to describe the exact terms and conditions of acceptable returns and money-back guarantee claims. Your customers will appreciate the transparency of the page when trying to understand their orders.
• Create a support team. Answering inquiries quickly could make customers at ease and offset the bad impact of an unsatisfied order. They will find you responsible and understand some minor errors.

7. Offer Incentives

  No one would not like promotion. Whether it’s a pop-up discount or a promotional email, sellers should actively reach out to buyers with different types of incentives to make purchases. Here we will only list two incentives that are easy to be ignored. For more promotion methods, you may check this. 

• Badges

  According to the study by the Consumer Insights team of Microsoft Canada, people have an attention span of just around 8 seconds. When people land at your store, you only have 8’s to show them what to buy. Badges, therefore, are a great way to attract attention. You could use them to highlight best sellers or new arrivals and then guide them further into exploring your products. Besides, badges could narrow people’s options, so that they won’t be drowning in the product's sea and act quickly.

Sarah Marie Design Studio uses badges to highlight new product designs.

• Order Confirm Email

  Email, with a high ROI, is a common tool that sellers use. Apart from basic email, one email that must be mentioned here is the order confirmation email. Order confirmation emails have an average open rate of astonishing 114.3%, and a click-through rate almost 5x bigger than bulk emails, which explains the big open rate and high engagement. That makes transaction emails the perfect place to up-sell and cross-sell. Custom your order confirmation email and recommend goods here to lift conversion.

8. Set up a Loyalty Program

  A loyalty program, also known as a reward points program, is one of the most powerful tools available to merchants for building customer relationships and increasing conversions. People love getting rewards when they shop, even if the rewards are something small. If every purchase generates some type of long-term effect, they’ll want to keep making purchases with you. If you give away birthday gifts or discounts, hold “members only” sales, or offer exclusive products to members, everyone will want to become a member. Even if your system is the online equivalent of a punch card loyalty system where people get something small for free with every tenth order, you’re still in a position to give them more than your competitors are giving them.

Conclusion

  The most important rule of eCommerce is 'never stop optimizing', cause you could always do better. Go to implement the strategies outlined in this article. Every small improvement will make a difference.

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