Experts’ solutions to ensure year-round sales on your website

You have created an e-commerce website that is at the cutting edge of technology and with flawless ergonomics. But you are still wondering how to maintain your sales throughout the year and especially during the slowest periods. It’s not always easy to sort through the many opportunities the web has to offer. Especially when it comes to choosing a strategy at the right time. Here are 9 ideas to help you make the most of your online business, even outside the sales periods.

Getting started

In e-commerce, there are three ways to generate more sales for your business:

• The first is to attract more new customers. This is often the goal of start-ups or e-tailers who are diversifying into new business areas, for example:
• The second is to encourage buy-outs from existing customers: a strategy that is particularly suitable for businesses that have already had some success with their sales strategy. It should be noted that this type of strategy requires a large and segmented database if possible
• Thirdly, is to develop the value of the average customer’s shopping basket. This strategy really concerns all companies, regardless of their activity or how long they have been in the market.

It is therefore essential to know where your website’s weaknesses lie. And where you should take action to guarantee your sales over the year.

Generally, you will find it beneficial to act on all three areas simultaneously to ensure that you generate the best results. In this article, we will suggest tactics that can be applied to each of these objectives, and in some cases to several. Remember that any sales strategy, regardless of the medium, must be customer-focused. The goal here is to provide the best possible shopping experience, which is the only way to ensure year-round sales.

1. Taking advantage of retargeting opportunities

Retargeting is a practice that can help you attract qualified visitors to your site throughout the year. Or to convert leads more easily to the purchase of your products. And there are many possibilities: banners on social networks, specific Adwords campaigns, email reminders, etc.

But if it is difficult to find one’s way through all these possibilities, retargeting campaigns must imperatively be thought out within the sales funnel that you have built. They are a great way to support your strategies at every stage in order to get the best possible ROI. Do not hesitate to consult our articles that address the subject in more detail to help you in your implementation.

2. Acting on the factors limiting sales

Have you ever wondered what the obstacles to buying are for your targets? Often depending on the sector of activity, and also on what the competition is offering, these obstacles to buying are often linked to the buyer’s fear of making a mistake. This manifests itself in several ways: the buyer will avoid a purchase for fear of finding it cheaper elsewhere, or of regretting the purchase later, or even for fear of making a purchase on an unsafe site.

To overcome these natural concerns, and thus encourage the buyer in your direction, you can study the possibility of offering, for example

• Free shipping;
• A “satisfied or reimbursed” guarantee;
• Free returns or returns within an extended time limit (e.g. 1 month);
• Security badges for online payment;
• Several secure payment methods;
• The possibility of paying in several instalments without charge;
• Free trials;
• Sending samples, etc.

The possibilities are numerous, but they must obviously be adapted to your field of activity. Without creating too great a loss of income for your business and while remaining competitive with the competition. Once you have decided to offer these types of sales aids, don’t hesitate to make them visible on your pages, and not just on your home page or your FAQ.

3. Offering a chatbot on your website

Chatbots are a great way to reassure your visitors and help them find the right products for their needs. In addition, Chatbots are not only an advice tool, they also allow you to automatically welcome your visitors on your website and to create a faster engagement.

Some advantages of chatbots :

• Multi-channel integration (website, mobile app, or messenger) and assistance for users before, during, and after the purchase.
• Automation of the most frequent requests, allowing teams to focus on high-value-added missions.

In this article we explain the opportunity and challenges of the digitalization if the customer relationship.

4. Building an Upsell strategy

Upsell is really the winning technique to develop the average shopping basket for your e-commerce, but also to encourage loyal customers to repurchase. To develop such a strategy, you traditionally have two areas of implementation:

• The first concerns the features you will offer to the user during the purchase. For example, this could be to suggest products that are complementary to those they have put in their shopping cart, or even personalised guidance towards products likely to interest them following the pages they have consulted previously.
• The second area of development is more related to your loyalty strategy. You can offer personalised emails based on the purchase history of your customers. Or offer them a discount voucher when they write a review or a positive testimonial on your site.

But there are still many possibilities when it comes to Upsell strategies.

5. Work on product descriptions

E-commerce owners often forget the importance of their product descriptions. However, this content is at the heart of your lead generation and your natural referencing. In short, it’s best to work on your texts to include your key words and phrases in order to promote effective referencing. But also consider that, like all content on your site, your product descriptions are a great opportunity to capture the attention of your targets. By the way we explain in this article why SEO is so underused.

Therefore, give priority to arguments that address customer issues rather than offering purely technical descriptions that are somewhat boring for your visitors. In addition, avoid “copying” the product descriptions of your suppliers. Not only will you have too much chance of seeing this content elsewhere on the web (and even of Google considering your content as duplicated). But you will lose an opportunity to differentiate yourself from your main competitors.

6. Supporting customer developments

Reviews and customer opinions have proven their persuasive power on the web. These tools are increasingly important in the choice of Internet users and they can help boost your sales all year round.

So, don’t hesitate to invite your satisfied customers to share their experience on your site in order to convince new potential customers of the seriousness of your company and the quality of your products. What’s more, it’s additional quality content that you don’t have to generate yourself!

7. Focus on quality content

Quality content is really what will bring people to your website and keep them coming back. With continuous efforts in this area, you will be able to enjoy regular traffic. Even outside of sales periods or during the slower periods of your year.

So don’t hesitate to multiply the entry points for your e-commerce: your blog, but also social networks can help you attract new customers and reach new segments within your targets. But you must always offer quality content in line with your values and claims.

8. Create events on social networks

Social networks are an extraordinary asset for an SME that offers its products on the web. They offer extraordinary visibility, both in terms of advertising opportunities and the ease of sharing that they offer to Internet users and businesses. But we think less often about creating events, and wrongly so! Indeed, well-organised, attractive and coherent events will allow you to generate traffic on your site. Whatever the time of the year, while contributing to the visibility of your brand.

The easiest way to do this is to organise competitions, on Facebook for example. Very simple to organise, competitions only require a few prizes to be won and some creative and attractive communication to be successful on the internet.

9. Have a loyalty strategy

Las but not least, don’t forget that your existing customers are a great source of revenue for your business. Because not only do your satisfied customers bring you regular sales, but they can easily act as ambassadors for your brand or as influencers for your products. And that’s reason enough to make every effort to nurture those relationships and offer them exceptional service.

And to do this, the web offers great possibilities today to always keep a qualitative and personalized contact with your customers. So what can you put in place in this sense? Newsletters, exclusive discount coupons, exceptional customer service? Customer loyalty is an indispensable strategy!

Finally

Finally, remember that the sustainability of your sales throughout the year is often related to your brand awareness on the web. If your e-commerce business is just starting out on its market, you may feel that your priorities are elsewhere. Particularly in generating leads in the short term. However, this is precisely the time to invest in your brand and your company’s image. As it will become a major asset for your differentiation and commercial stability.

Powerlab can help you sell all year round. So don’t be shy and contact us, we will be glad to answer your questions, and help you to sell more.

In this article, we explain to you how to launch splendidly your digital activity with an e-commerce strategy.