CURLY AND CANDID

Running an e-commerce business takes a decent bit of time and effort. You’ll have a lot to look after, which could take up most of your day. Then there’s trying to grow your e-commerce business, which can often feel overwhelming. Trying to juggle everything might seem impossible.

It isn’t. You’ll just need to take the right steps, and some of these could help a lot more than you’d think. Once you put the effort into them, you’ll see more and more results. Some of them can help more than others, making them worth focusing on.

Five of these are great to start off with. They’ll have an impact faster than you might think, and you’ll see more and more growth.

Grow Your eCommerce Business: 5 Steps to Take

1. Implement Automation

You’ll have countless tasks to handle when you’re running your e-commerce business. It often feels like it never ends, and there’s always more and more to do. As you grow your e-commerce business, you’ll usually have more and more to do. Thankfully, it doesn’t have to be that way.

By introducing automation, you take much time and effort out of running your business. At a minimum, you’ll eliminate the need to do time-consuming duties. It’s just a matter of overseeing what the automation tools pump out and ensuring it’s correct. With it, you’ll save a lot of time, and even money.

2. Outsource Key Areas – 5 Great Steps to Grow Your eCommerce Business

While automation is great for specific tasks, you can’t automate everything. That doesn’t mean there aren’t ways to make certain areas less time-consuming and expensive. Outsourcing key areas can bring your costs down while ensuring high-quality work.

There are countless areas you can outsource, like marketing. Choosing fulfillment services that take care of your product deliveries saves you time and effort. If it’s an area you can’t automate, you could consider outsourcing it. The cost and time savings could fuel your growth more than you’d think.

3. Provide Great Customer Service

When most people think of customer service, they picture face-to-face interactions with their customers. While these can play a large role, they’re far from the only way to deal with great customer service. In fact, you’ll often need to put more time and effort into it as an e-commerce company.

There are multiple ways to do this, like interacting with customers over the phone and through email. Make sure your customer service skills are top-notch. If they’re not, outsourcing this part of your operations could be worth it. It’ll even make running your business easier.

4. Start Upselling & Cross-Selling – 5 Great Steps to Grow Your eCommerce Business

You’ll naturally need to start making more money as you grow your e-commerce business. While this usually means getting new customers, that’s only part of the equation. It’s also worth trying to increase your revenue with your existing customers. There are plenty of ways you can do this that work quite well.

Upselling and cross-selling are the most notable of these. They usually take place when your customers are already about to buy something. They’re the process of encouraging your customers to buy products related to what they’re already buying. It could be easier than you’d think, and it’s worth the effort.

5. Consider Content Marketing

You’ll need to invest in marketing if you want to grow your e-commerce business. That doesn’t mean investing in every marketing strategy you can think of. Some could give you better results than others, making them worth investing in. Content marketing is one of the more notable of these.

It’s creating and distributing content related to your products that interests, engages, and informs your target customers. While you’ll have to make sure this content is relevant and high-quality, it’ll be worth the time and effort you put into it. You’ve no reason not to invest in it.

Grow Your eCommerce Business: Wrapping Up

Trying to grow your e-commerce business often feels overwhelming. You’ll already have a lot on your plate, and you might feel like you can’t juggle much more. Thankfully, this shouldn’t have to be a problem. It could end up being easier than you’d think as long as you take the right steps.

Some steps could even take you a lot of time and stress out of the process. You’ll grow your business a lot more than you’d think without needing to put overwhelming work into it.

Studies show that almost 90% of UK consumers consider brand reputation a driving factor for making purchasing decisions. As a business owner, it’s critical to understand the influence of branding and be proactive in protecting and improving your brand image. This informative guide’ll highlight some effective strategies to enhance your reputation today. 

Effective Strategies To Enhance Your Brand Reputation – Understand what Matters to your Target Customers

One of the best ways to boost brand reputation is to invest time and effort into getting to know your customers. Building strong relationships, using market research and engaging with clients can help you understand what customers want and what matters most to your target buyers. Over 80% of consumers now prefer to buy from brands that share their values. 

Encouraging customers to leave feedback and using research techniques, such as focus groups and surveys, can help you build an accurate picture of what motivates shoppers and customers to make decisions. Perhaps your customers favour buying products made at home, or they want to shop for sustainable products, for example. Use data and feedback to modify the way you operate.

You could look into partnering with companies that specialise in sustainable solutions like innovative cell tabs made in the UK if you work in the battery industry, or start using eco-friendly materials if you make and sell clothing, household appliances or products for the retail, healthcare or automotive industries. Adapt your strategy and the decisions you make based on your brand objectives and values and the needs and preferences of your target customer. 

Prioritise Customer Service to Build Your Reputation

A Forbes study suggests that a staggering 96% of customers would consider leaving a business due to poor customer service. Bad service is not only frustrating for customers but also affects their impression of brands and businesses.

Even if somebody loves the product, they may think twice about buying it again or choosing the same retailer if they receive substandard customer service. If you run a company, it’s essential to prioritise customer service and support and go the extra mile to optimise consumer experience. Use feedback to identify pain points, listen to what customers say, and learn from outstanding examples of customer care and service. 

High, consistent levels of customer service can set you apart and encourage consumer loyalty. This is key, as research shows that repeat customers spend an average of 67% more than new clients. 

Define and Share Your Values – Effective Strategies To Enhance Your Brand Reputation

Company values are more important to customers than ever. As a business owner, it’s beneficial to define and share your values and allow clients to get to know the human side of the business. Think about corporate social responsibility, look after your customers and invest time and energy into team morale and creating positive working relationships. Update customers with news about fundraising or new partnerships with charities or local causes and offer opportunities for employees and customers to get involved. You could ask them to nominate the charity of the month, for example. 

Brand reputation matters to almost every customer. If you own a business, it’s beneficial to be proactive in protecting and enhancing your reputation. Focusing on key areas, such as getting to know customers, understanding their preferences and values, sharing your core company values and prioritising customer service, will help you attract new clients and encourage customer loyalty.