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Unique Holiday Marketing Ideas for Ecommerce brands with Examples

Raksna Anand — Wed, 11 Oct 2023 09:30:32 +0000

Ho Ho Ho! The holiday season is upon us and it’s time for brands to wipe the dust off the box, get in it and think outside of that box to bring in some quality holiday traffic. Holiday marketing could be very different from marketing throughout the year. Brands need to get all in with their tricks and tactics to pull off a successful and profitable holiday season.

And this season, we come bearing holiday marketing ideas.

Why should brands focus on their Holiday Marketing this season?

This year, the global e-commerce holiday sales is set to hit 1.2 trillion dollars. (Salesforce)
The holiday season is one of the most profitable seasons for any business. This year, the global retail spending will rise by 4.5% during the holiday season. (Deloitte)
An average consumer is set to hit $1,430 on an average during the holidays. (Salesforce)

If consumers are ready to open their wallets and splurge admist inflation, e-commerce brands should use this opportunity to make the most of it.

Holiday Marketing Ideas brands should focus on

1. Spreading the spirit of Hope - Sephora

Sephora, the universal beauty brand, decided to spread ambition and joy in its holiday marketing campaign. This ad ‘Believe in your wish’ features people who are courageous enough to wish and say it out loud. It encourages people to be bold and positive. Brands that use the power of emotion in their ads seem to establish a unique connection with their audience.

2. Giving back to the Community - M&S

M&S launched the campaign “Gift of Giving” for the holiday season. M&S partnered with a giving back platform called Neighborly, which supports local community groups. As you can see in the video below, the ad features different ethnicities and races, and the importance of giving back during the holiday season. M&S, partnered with Neighborly, donated one million pounds to 1,000 local community groups during the holiday season. They announced that a chunk of the profits from the holiday sale would contribute to the one million that is being donated to the local community groups.

People often want to give back during these festive seasons, and M&S understood the assignment.

Anna Braithwaite, M&S Clothing & Home Marketing Director, said: “Through our campaign and product ranges we want to help make that possible; providing much needed funds to the incredible groups that light up our local communities and by doubling down to deliver the exceptional trusted value our customers want – as they seek out more considered, stylish and thoughtful gifts. There’a really is no better feeling than giving – and we hope this feel-good campaign puts a smile on our customers’ faces this festive season.” (Industry fashion)

3. Gamify the Shopping Experience - Target

Gamification is a strategy through which a brand can increase customer engagement and loyalty. The concept of gamification is to influence human behavior through games. Target leveraged this particular strategy in their holiday marketing, to drive traffic to their website. The strategy targeted millennial moms who are digitally connected and kids.

Target used Augmented Reality to further influence children to get involved in this game. When a kid adds a product to the wish list, the wish list is virtually sucked into a tube which is portrayed to be sent to Santa’s headquarters. This was a huge hit. The brand saw 75,000 installations of the app and 100,000 wish lists being created. The wish list was directly connected to the moms and they can be collaborated with the relatives. This particular campaign led to the creation of 9,200 new Target.com accounts. The average wish list consisted of 30 items worth $1,500. (adforce)

4. Hyper-personalise your products - Oreo

Oreo decided to bring in personalization by customizing their package. This allows users to go online and choose various colors that they want to be included in the package. Based on the colors they’ve selected, Oreo comes up with a suggestion of designs inspired by the graphic artists, Jeremyville and Timothy Goodman. Or the customers have the liberty to pick up the brush and design their own package.

Oreo also allowed customers to mix in the seasonal elements, such as a waving snowman, singing patridges, hugging penguins, and mustache presents donning bowler hats. This colorful experience could be ordered online. Oreo has a very large fan base and this particular campaign was a huge success among their audience. This was available only for a limited period of time during the holiday season. This created a sense of FOMO among the customers.

Customers also had the option to personalize heartfelt notes along with the packages. Some cliche Christmas phrases such as “joy” and “ho-ho” were also included in the elemental designs.This campaign was a huge hit.

5. Bringing in Excitement through Staged Techniques - Costco

Brands always face heavy competition during the holiday season. Bizarre techniques would be adopted by brands to gather the attention of the audience and convert. One such hilarious strategy used in holiday marketing by Costco was the “staged email leak”. Yes, that’s right. You heard it right. Costco actually staged an email leak where they sent Black Friday deals one month before Black Friday to their customer list through email. It was made obvious that it was staged and not an actual email. This still instilled a lot of curiosity and excitement among the customers.

Additional Holiday Marketing Ideas

Dress up your Homepage.
Offer Holiday special bundles and product variants.
Improve site search optimisation and product recommendations for the holidays.
Curate a personalized gift guide for your customers
Bring up products on sale front and up in the site search bar.
Gamify the experience with spin-the-wheel, floaters.
Retargeting with social media and email with special personalised coupon codes.
Provide personalisation on gift wrap options.
Display shipping countdown for the last date to be shipped.
Hyper-personalisation is the norm.
Show that you care about your customers and your community.
Provide shipping optionality.
Try to offer free shipping.
Cross-sell and Upsell through a branded tracking page.
Make returns policy easy and clear.

Wrapping Up

There’s no one strategy that fits everyone when it comes to holiday marketing. As a brand, you have to stand out of the crowd and know what works for you. Try analyzing data from the past. Try collecting data from five years back and create a sheet of what’s working for you and what isn’t working for you.

Consumer trends keep changing and it is important that brands adapt to those changes in order to survive in this heavily competitive space. There are so many new things that brands can do which include hyper-personalization, optimizing the post-purchase customer journey, providing an excellent customer support interface and so on. Identify the gaps in the customer journey that your brand needs to concentrate on and provide a full-on experience for the customers. Set the stage for retention by providing a seamless customer journey.

The holiday season is one of the seasons through which you can experience a lot of new traffic. Don’t go cold on your customers. Loop them in via loyalty programs or retention programs and turn them into lifetime customers.

The post Unique Holiday Marketing Ideas for Ecommerce brands with Examples appeared first on Lateshipment.com.

Holiday Schedule 2023: Marketing Calendar and Shipping Deadlines

Sashank Ravindranath — Fri, 08 Sep 2023 06:23:04 +0000

The holiday season is fast approaching, and for e-commerce businesses, this means it’s time to prepare for the busiest time of the year.

We’re still 2 months away from things getting really hectic but remember, early preparation is key to ensuring a smooth holiday season.

Thus, in this blog, we’ll explore why early preparation is necessary and in order to help you get started, provide you with a comprehensive holiday schedule in the form of a marketing calendar and information on shipping deadlines for the 2023 season.

Why An Early Preparation Holiday Season is Necessary

The holiday season is a time when shoppers are on a buying spree, looking to get the perfect gifts for their loved ones and deals for themselves. However, this great opportunity brings up a great challenge for businesses such as yours.

The holiday shopping rush can turn out to be overwhelming, leading to issues like shipping delays, inventory shortages, customer service overload, and so much more.
Building excitement and anticipation among your customers takes time. Early preparation allows you to create engaging content, run teaser campaigns, and build relationships with your audience.
The holiday season is not just busy but also very competitive. You need to have your marketing campaigns in place early in order to capture the attention of consumers and get ahead of competitors who are still planning their holiday campaigns.
The holiday season is a time when shipping carriers are straining their capacity due to experiencing high volumes of packages, which often leads to delays. This means that you need to plan accordingly to get your products shipped out for timely delivery.
Customers are more likely to make impulse purchases during the holidays, especially towards the last minute. For such customers, you need to be prepared by having their trending products in stock and ready to ship.

This is why starting your plans for the holiday season early is crucial:

Now that we understand the importance of early preparation, let’s dive into the details of the holiday marketing calendar and shipping deadlines for 2023.

Part 1: Holiday Marketing Calendar

Here’s a month-by-month breakdown of key holiday season dates and marketing strategies that work best each day so that you can implement them easily and maximize your sales.

October

While the holiday season officially kicks off with Thanksgiving at the end of November, shopping for the holiday season (yes, quite early) starts this month.

This is the time for you to execute fresh plans that you haven’t tried out before, watch out for what your competitors are planning (something that you’ve not thought of), etc, and set your plans in place for the holiday rush that will commence in less than two months.

The major event in October for retail and e-commerce is Halloween. Taking place on the 31st of the month, the spooky ancient Celtic festival is a time for customers to get creative and businesses to capitalize on.

Halloween - October 31

Popular trends – costumes, decorations, candy, and food

Expected consumer spending – around $100 per person

Effective marketing techniques – Halloween is no longer confined to a single day of trick-or-treating. It has expanded into a season that spans the entire month of October, with consumers engaging in various activities such as decorating, attending parties, and visiting haunted attractions.

For e-commerce businesses, this extended Halloween season provides ample opportunities for sales and engagement:

Create Halloween-themed marketing campaigns that resonate with your target audience. Use spooky visuals, themed emails, and social media content to set the mood.
Produce blog posts, videos, or infographics that offer Halloween tips, DIY ideas, and costume inspiration.
Run contests, giveaways, and user-generated content campaigns on social media. For example, encourage customers to share their Halloween preparations using your products with a dedicated hashtag.

Halloween presents a golden opportunity for e-commerce businesses to engage with customers and increase sales. With a well-planned marketing strategy, you can enjoy the fruits of ‘spooktacular sales’, it can bring.

November

Only 2 months for 2024, less than a month for Thanksgiving — November is the time when things get quite hectic at e-commerce workplaces as businesses come together to run things for a week full of shopping.

Key holiday events in November are collectively called The Cyber Weekend and include Thanksgiving, Black Friday, Small Business Saturday, and Cyber Monday.

Let’s start taking a look at them one by one.

Thanksgiving - November 23

Thanksgiving, traditionally a holiday for expressing gratitude and sharing a bountiful meal with loved ones, has evolved into a significant shopping event in recent years.

For e-commerce businesses, Thanksgiving presents a unique opportunity to engage with customers and kickstart the holiday shopping season.

Expected consumer spend – $6 Billion

Popular trends – Food, home goods, and apparel

Effective marketing techniques – With the evolution of holiday shopping, the Thanksgiving landscape has largely shifted from a day of just families coming together to becoming synonymous with early holiday shopping, thanks to the rise of Black Friday and Cyber Monday.

Here are some ideal marketing techniques that e-commerce businesses can come up with to have a great Thanksgiving sale:

Create Thanksgiving-themed content: Send out a big “thank you” to your customers by crafting out social media posts, personalized emails or messages to display your gratitude. This is also a great way to get into the spirit of the season and attract customers.
Mobile Shopping: With the rise of mobile devices, many consumers shop on their smartphones during Thanksgiving gatherings. Ensure your website is mobile-responsive, and consider mobile-specific promotions.
Thanksgiving Giveaways: Run Thanksgiving-themed giveaways or contests like free products, gift cards, or even a trip. This is a great way to generate excitement and engagement around your Thanksgiving sale.
Get into the spirit of Thanksgiving: You can also try spending the day with your local community and try giving back to them in order to associate your brand with the Holiday theme and etch your brand in your customers’ minds.

Black Friday - November 24

In this section, we’ll delve into Black Friday’s significance, average consumer spending, emerging trends, and effective marketing techniques for a successful Black Friday sale.

Expected consumer spend – Close to $10 Billion

Popular trends – Electronics, Apparel, Home goods, Toys

Effective marketing techniques – Over the years, Black Friday has transcended its brick-and-mortar origins and has become a global shopping extravaganza across e-commerce and the U.S. It’s characterized by doorbuster deals, massive discounts, and a shopping frenzy that lasts well beyond the traditional single day.

To have a successful Black Friday sale, e-commerce businesses can look forward to implementing the following marketing techniques:

Early Promotions: Start building excitement weeks in advance. Tease upcoming deals and exclusive Black Friday discounts to create anticipation.
Countdown Timers: Add countdown timers to your website and emails to create a sense of urgency. Highlight limited-time offers.
Personalization: Leverage data to provide personalized product recommendations and targeted offers based on customer preferences.
Post-Sale Engagement: Keep the momentum going with post-Black Friday promotions, ensuring that customers return for more holiday shopping.

With well-planned marketing strategies, you can ensure your Black Friday sale is not just successful but also a memorable shopping experience for your customers. So, gear up for the Black Friday shopping extravaganza and make it a win-win for your business and your potential shoppers.

Small Business Saturday - Saturday, 27th November

Small Business Saturday, a shopping holiday celebrated on the Saturday after Thanksgiving, is a day dedicated to supporting small businesses and local entrepreneurs. As an e-commerce business, you can capitalize on Small Business Saturday by aligning with the values of supporting independent sellers and having a successful sale.

Expected consumer spend – The average shopper spends around $150

Popular trends – Electronics, Apparel, Home goods, Toys

Effective marketing techniques – Looking to have a successful Small Business Saturday sale? Employ the following marketing techniques:

Embrace the “Small” Identity: If you’re a small business who is also relatively new to the e-commerce world, then this is your chance. Highlight your unique story, values, commitment to quality, etc, and position yourself as a small, independent venture.
Collaborative Giveaways: Partner with other small businesses for joint giveaways or promotions to expand your reach.
Email Marketing: Send targeted emails to your subscriber list, announce your participation in Small Business Saturday, display your promotions, and express appreciation for their support.

In short, Small Business Saturday offers e-commerce businesses an excellent opportunity to connect with consumers who value supporting small, independent ventures. If you’re a small business, it’s time to embrace your small business identity and offer compelling promotions. If you’re not, you can still capitalize on the holiday by supporting other small businesses and making an impact on your customers.

Cyber Monday - November 27

Cyber Monday, which follows the Thanksgiving weekend, is a digital shopping phenomenon known for exclusive online deals and discounts. For e-commerce businesses, it represents a golden opportunity to boost sales and engage tech-savvy shoppers.

Expected consumer spend – More than $11 Billion

Popular trends – Electronics, apparel, and home goods.

Effective marketing techniques – Cyber Monday marks the peak of the holiday shopping season. Thus, it is crucial for you to implement effective marketing strategies that capture their prospects’ attention and put your brand on the top of your customers’ minds compared to that of your competitors.

Here are some of the strategies that can come in handy:

Extended Cyber Monday: Cyber Monday is no longer a single holiday but is extended into a week-long event, allowing shoppers to take time and spend time with brands beyond one day. You too can take advantage of this situation and extend your product offerings and deals to cover for a week.
E-commerce store optimization: The competition will be huge on Cyber Monday — don’t let factors like slow loading times, bad UI/UX to cause your shoppers to drop off. Ensure your website is optimized for speed and ease of navigation. Remember, a user-friendly experience can significantly impact conversion rates.
The importance of social media: Social media is a powerful tool for businesses to promote their Cyber Monday sales. Make sure to promote your sales on all of their social media channels, and also run social media contests and giveaways to generate excitement.

By keeping these trends in mind, you can create a successful Cyber Monday sale that will boost their sales and grow their customer base.

December

Peak season is over, but for e-commerce businesses such as yours, it’s not yet time to sit back, relax, and write your Christmas lists. You still have just a couple more hurdles left to end the year on a successful note.

Close to 30 days in between to major shopping/ customer spending days of the holiday season. Goodbye Cyber Monday, Hello Christmas.

Christmas - December 25

Christmas, celebrated on December 25th worldwide, is a time of joy, celebration, and gift-giving.

For e-commerce businesses, it’s also a season of tremendous sales potential, thanks to shoppers’ decision to actively seek the perfect gifts for loved ones and themselves.

Expected consumer spend – Average spend of over $725 for men and $609 for women in the US

Popular trends – Toys, electronics, and apparel

Effective marketing techniques – Here are some ideal marketing techniques that e-commerce businesses can come up with to have a great Christmas sale and successfully culminate the holiday season:

Festive Visuals: Decorate your website and social media profiles with festive visuals, evoking the Christmas spirit.
Social Media Campaigns: Run Christmas-themed social media campaigns, contests, and giveaways. Encourage customers to share their holiday purchases using a dedicated hashtag.
Bundled Gift Sets: Create attractive bundled gift sets that offer savings and convenience for shoppers.
Last-Minute Shopping Promotions: As Christmas draws near, offer last-minute shopping deals and guaranteed delivery options to cater to procrastinating shoppers.
Post-Christmas Sales: Extend the holiday shopping season with post-Christmas sales to capture gift card redemptions and late shoppers.

In conclusion, Christmas is a season of joy and giving, making it the perfect time for e-commerce businesses to spur their customers to spend more. With well-planned marketing strategies, you can ensure that this Christmas becomes a season of success for your business.

New Year’s Eve - December 31

Almost done. We’ve now come to the ‘thank you note’ of the holiday season. New Year’s Eve — a time that is mostly for celebrations and parties but is also a great opportunity for e-commerce businesses to capitalize on customers looking to end the year with a bang and kickstart the new one.

Expected consumer spend – More than $100 on an average

Popular trends – Apparel, accessories, and alcohol

Effective marketing techniques – Here are some ideal marketing techniques that e-commerce businesses can come up with to have a successful New Year’s Eve sale:

Themed Marketing: Use New Year’s Eve themes and visuals in your marketing materials to set the mood.
Social Media Engagement: Utilize platforms like Instagram, Facebook, and Twitter to welcome your customers to the new year and make a great impact.
Last-Minute Deals: Conduct clearance sales for your older products as a way to attract last-minute shoppers who are still looking to make the most of great deals.

By keeping these trends in mind, e-commerce businesses can create a successful New Year’s Eve sale and end the year on a high note.

Adhering to the marketing calendar and implementing the strategies required is just one half of your holiday planning task.

There exists a bigger, much more important half that plays major roles in influencing your customers’ experiences, repeat shopping, and all the other factors that ensure that one time holiday shoppers become loyal customers. And that half is just about getting better at giving your customers what they want — hand over your customers’ parcels to them on time.

Part 2: Holiday Shipping Deadlines (FedEx and UPS)

As we mentioned, preparing yourself for great holiday sales is just halfway to the finish line. Getting your products into customers’ hands is a bigger challenge for e-commerce businesses during this busy season.

On the one hand, carriers are straining their capacity to ship out huge volumes of packages during the holiday rush. On the other hand, on-time deliveries and the overall post-purchase customer experience play a key differentiator for businesses. So know what steps you must take to get on the right track this holiday season.

To make things simpler for you, we’ve noted important holiday-season dates for UPS & FedEx and have presented them to you.

UPS Holiday Schedule

To help shippers plan their deliveries for the holidays accordingly, UPS releases their schedule, i.e., a calendar with information on when services will not be operated, special restrictions for certain services and geographical locations, etc.

Staying updated on this schedule can help e-commerce businesses such as yours follow shipping deadlines and send out deliveries on time.

Thanksgiving

November 23, 2023, Thursday: Thanksgiving (UPS Holiday) – No UPS pickup or delivery service. UPS Store locations are closed. UPS Express Critical service will be available. Call 1-800-714-8779 or visit upsexpresscritical.com.

November 24, 2023, Friday (the day after Thanksgiving) – Normal pickup and delivery service.

Christmas

December 24, 2023, Monday: Christmas Eve – Unlike last year, where services were operated with modifications, UPS this year will have their pick up and delivery service closed on Christmas Eve, with The UPS Store being opened only in select locations (check with your local store for specific hours of operation). UPS Express Critical service will be available.

December 25, 2023, Monday: Christmas Day (UPS Holiday) – No UPS pickup or delivery service. The UPS Store locations are closed. UPS Express Critical service will be available.

New Year

December 31, 2023, Sunday: New Year’s Eve – Similar to Christmas, UPS this year will have their pick up and delivery service closed on New Year’s Eve, with The UPS Store being opened only in select locations (check with your local store for specific hours of operation). UPS Express Critical service will be available.

January 1, 2024, Monday: New Year’s Day (UPS Holiday) – No UPS pickup or delivery service. UPS Store locations are closed. UPS Express Critical service will be available.

FedEx Holiday Schedule

Similar to UPS, FedEx announces their holiday service schedule YoY to help businesses that ship plan their dates accordingly and avoid shipping delays.

If you’re a business that uses FedEx for your shipping needs and isn’t much worried about service delays on the assumption that you can claim refunds via FedEx’s Money-back guarantee policy, know that from December 13, 2022, to January 2, 2023, the FedEx money-back guarantee will be temporarily suspended for select FedEx Express services for U.S. domestic and U.S. export shipments. Thus, make shipping on time your priority to avoid a bad customer experience and unnecessary costs.

Thanksgiving

November 22, 2023, Wednesday (the day before Thanksgiving) – FedEx Ground, FedEx Home Delivery, FedEx SmartPost, FedEx Freight, FedEx Trade Networks, and FedEx Custom Critical will be open. Early on-call pickups in some areas for FedEx Express. FedEx Office locations will close by 6 PM.

November 23, 2023, Thursday (Thanksgiving) – Only FedEx Custom Critical will be open. All other services will be closed for Thanksgiving. FedEx Trade Networks is subject to availability.

November 24, 2023, Friday (the day after Thanksgiving) – FedEx Ground, FedEx Home Delivery, FedEx SmartPost, FedEx Trade Networks, and FedEx Custom Critical will be open. Only FedEx Freight will be closed. Early on-call and dropbox pickups in some areas for FedEx Express. FedEx Office locations will open by 7 AM or at their regular time.

November 25, 2023, Saturday – FedEx Home Delivery, FedEx SmartPost, FedEx Trade Networks, FedEx Office, and FedEx Custom Critical will be open. FedEx Ground and FedEx Freight will be closed. Early on-call pickups in some areas for FedEx Express.

November 26, 2023, Sunday – Only FedEx Trade Networks, FedEx Office, and FedEx Custom Critical will be open. FedEx Express, FedEx Ground, FedEx Freight, and FedEx SmartPost will be closed. FedEx Home Delivery will be made only in Sunday-eligible stations.

Christmas

December 16, 2023, Saturday – FedEx Express, FedEx Home Delivery, FedEx Office, FedEx Trade Networks, and FedEx Custom Critical will be open. FedEx Ground and FedEx Freight will be closed. No pickups, but deliveries will be made as usual via FedEx SmartPost.

December 17, 2023, Sunday – Only FedEx Office, FedEx Custom Critical, and FedEx Trade Networks will be open. FedEx Express, FedEx Home Delivery, FedEx SmartPost, and FedEx Freight will be closed. FedEx Home Delivery will be made to Sunday-eligible stations.

December 18, 2023, Monday to December 21, 2023, Thursday – All services will be open.

December 22, 2023, Friday – All services will be open with Early station, on-call pickups, and dropbox closings in some areas for FedEx Express. FedEx Freight will be working on a modified schedule with its pickup and delivery options. For example, parcels picked up today will resume on December 27 and be delivered on December 28.

December 23, 2023, Saturday – FedEx Express, FedEx Home Delivery, FedEx Trade Networks, and FedEx Custom Critical will be open. FedEx Ground and FedEx Freight will be closed. No pickups, but deliveries will be made as usual via FedEx SmartPost. FedEx Office locations will have modified hours the day before the holiday, with some locations closing early. Please contact your local FedEx Office location for details.

December 24, 2023, Sunday (Christmas Eve) – Only FedEx Custom Critical will be open. Almost all other services will be closed for Christmas Eve. Sunday residential delivery will not be available to all destinations except for stations that deliver on Sundays, which are open. FedEx Office locations will have modified hours, with some FedEx Office locations closed. Please contact your local FedEx Office location for details.

December 25, 2023, Monday (Christmas) – Only FedEx Custom Critical will be open. All other services will be closed for Christmas. FedEx Trade Networks is subject to availability.

December 26, 2023, Tuesday – All services will be open. Parcels picked up by FedEx Freight on December 22 will be delivered today.

New Year

December 27, 2023, Wednesday, and December 28, 2023, Thursday – All services will be open.

December 29, 2023, Friday – FedEx Ground, FedEx Home Delivery, FedEx SmartPost, FedEx Office, FedEx Trade Networks, and FedEx Custom Critical will be open. FedEx Freight will only be open with for pre-arranged pick-up and delivery shipments. Freight shipments picked up today will resume on January 3 and will be delivered on January 4. Early on-call and drop box pickups in some areas.

December 30, 2023, Saturday – FedEx Express, FedEx Home Delivery, FedEx Office, FedEx Trade Networks, and FedEx Custom Critical will be open. FedEx Ground and FedEx Freight will be closed. No pickups, but deliveries will be made as usual via FedEx SmartPost. Early station, on-call pickups, and dropbox closings in some areas for FedEx Express.

December 31, 2023, Sunday (New Year’s Eve) – Only FedEx Custom Critical will be open. Almost all other services will be closed for New Year’s Eve. Sunday residential delivery will not be available to all destinations except for stations that deliver on Sundays, which are open. FedEx Office locations will have modified hours, with some FedEx Office locations closed. Please contact your local FedEx Office location for details.

January 1, 2024, Monday (New Year) – Only FedEx Custom Critical will be open. All other services will be closed for the New Year. FedEx Trade Networks is subject to availability.

January 2, 2024, Tuesday – All services will be open.

Bottom Line

Following the Holiday calendar can help you with your marketing campaigns by giving you data like important shipping dates, popular products on particular days, effective short-term marketing techniques, and sales data.

Similarly, following the schedule of services and operations from shipping carriers like FedEx and UPS can help you plan your shipping game in advance and not succumb to sky-rocketing surcharges.

That’s not all! Planning for the holiday season is a huge task that requires you to tick all the boxes and have everything ready in place to manage the upcoming rush and whatnot.

One area that most businesses unwillingly ignore is the post-purchase phase, which holds incredible value in boosting retention rates and revenue. To help you tick that box as well, we’ve come up with a downloadable guide that you can make use of. Follow the strategies in the guide and not just cover but dominate your post-purchase customer experience for this holiday season.

The post Holiday Schedule 2023: Marketing Calendar and Shipping Deadlines appeared first on Lateshipment.com.

How Businesses Can Use Emerging Technology To Extract Value From Social Media

Sashank Ravindranath — Tue, 30 May 2023 08:45:50 +0000

While the COVID-19 pandemic did slow the economy down amidst a lot of problems, it also led to an e-commerce surge and accelerated digital transformation by 5 years. What was considered futuristic is now being experienced in the present and businesses who haven’t implemented them are considered outdated. This is because, with growing advancements, comes increasing competition that keeps brands on their toes to constantly adapt to this ever-changing playing field.

Even if your products are the best in the market with minimal competition, there are things that are needed from your end to make your products reach your target audience. And one such channel that can be the best choice for you in the current scenario is your social media game. But if you’re wondering “There are a lot of options like email and SMS marketing, why particularly focus on social media?” Here are some stats that should convince you.

Now that it’s clear why social media is important, let’s move on to how businesses can use social media not just for the sake of it but for its utmost potential. This is where the impact of digital transformation comes into play. With technological advancements happening throughout the e-commerce space, there are also several up-and-coming innovations in social media that businesses can take up to stay competitive. Here are some of them that are currently in the trend.

5 Ways Businesses Can Use Emerging Technology To Extract Value From Social Media

Businesses can leverage emerging technologies to extract value from social media in several ways:

1. Social Listening and Sentiment Analysis

In general terms, social listening is an extension of brand monitoring (where you can keep track of every social mention of your brand), along with each and every necessary social media conversation that includes products that you sell and competing brands.

Primarily insights from social listening are used to identify trends, customer pain points, and sentiment analysis on similar topics, all of which can be used to make data-driven decisions for improvement.

Sentiment analysis is a subset of social listening. While social listening monitors related mentions, sentiment analysis gives insights into the emotions surrounding those mentions and helps you pick the right context for your customers’ conversations.

For example, by understanding customer sentiments, trends, and feedback, you can work on identifying customer needs, improving products and services, and enhancing the overall customer experience.

If you’re wondering where to start, there are several social listening tools such as Hootsuite that you can make use of to do the research on your behalf.

2. Social Media Advertising

Social media ads are a really straightforward but great way for businesses to reach their target audience with relevant messages. With proper research and techniques, ads can be your most efficient option to generate leads, drive sales, and increase brand awareness.

But advertising isn’t just posting about your brand on social media, it has several depths to it that make it relevant. To help you understand things better, let’s look at the two trending forms of social media advertising for now.

Influencer Marketing: The lockdown phase was a blessing in disguise for a lot of individuals who began their careers as ‘content creators’, spending time on social media doing what they enjoy the most. With a fanbase growing for them, they grew into influencers relevant to particular industries. By collaborating with influencers, businesses can reach a wider audience, increase brand awareness, and drive customer engagement.

Personalized Marketing: With insights such as customer preferences, behavior, and interests, you can send out personalized messaging that caters to specific customers. With recent technological advancements and increased customer expectations, you have no option but to embrace personalization in your social media marketing tactics. Advertising campaigns that are tailored to the right customers help you create individualized experiences and spur more sales.

3. Social Commerce

Not just for advertising purposes, recent integrations have enabled social commerce, where shoppers can not just view but browse and shop directly from social media platforms.

Social commerce retail earnings are predicted to reach nearly $80 billion by 2025 in the U.S.

With shoppers spending a lot of time on social media for their personal stuff or for looking at brands, social commerce can be seen as the best option for businesses to enable seamless shopping experiences (where shoppers can directly purchase from social media sites without having to visit your website).

Not just direct selling, social commerce also enables:

Social sharing – Leverage user-generated content to drive conversions and sales
Customer engagement – Easy support interactions and insights into brand content performance, etc.

4. Chatbots

Social media has come a long way from just content sharing to AI-powered chatbots to engage with their customers across platforms like Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, and WhatsApp.

The purpose of these chatbots covers three essential parts of your business’ needs — customer service, customer engagement, and social media marketing. But using conventional techniques is just the bare minimum. With the help of automation, you can extend the capabilities of chatbots by a huge margin.

Let’s start with the most persistent problem of an e-commerce business, post-purchase issues, and customer queries around their order status. With over 40% of support tickets created around the post-purchase, it is understandable that customers are worried about their orders going haywire during the shipping and delivery phase.

But it doesn’t have to be that way. Instead of waiting for your customers to take the first step, you can take a proactive approach to engage with them regarding their order details from time to time. This simple action just stands to provide multiple benefits for your business by improving customer relationships and brand loyalty while reducing costs and the time taken.

5. Virtual Reality (VR) and Augmented Reality (AR)

Thanks to technological development over the past few years, VR and AR, classic science-fiction tools can be experienced today, in our lifetime. With fierce competition from multiple directors, e-commerce brands too couldn’t stay far from such technology and have started to use VR and AR primarily in advertising to create immersive experiences that can help businesses connect with customers in new ways.

Virtual product try-on tools and augmented previews can be extremely beneficial for the apparel and accessories industry to convince customers who are sitting on the fence over the doubt of the product working out for them to go for the buy,
Brands can partner with social media applications like Instagram to create filters that users can use for fun in their content. This can really boost your efforts to spread the word about your brand and increase engagement rates.

Overall, integrating VR and AR into social media platforms helps in engaging users, driving conversions, and providing unique and interactive shopping experiences.

Final Word

With growing technology, social media will continue to evolve. To keep up with the ever-changing conditions, you will need to adapt your strategies in order to consistently stay ahead of the curve.

In conclusion, by using techniques such as social listening, sentiment analysis, social media advertising, social commerce, VR and AR, etc, you can extract valuable insights, enhance customer engagement, optimize marketing efforts, reach new markets, and drive business growth in the digital landscape.

The post How Businesses Can Use Emerging Technology To Extract Value From Social Media appeared first on Lateshipment.com.

How To Sell Online: The Secret To E-commerce Video Marketing

Sashank Ravindranath — Fri, 10 Mar 2023 09:45:17 +0000

In today’s e-commerce space, video marketing has turned out to be one of the most important forms of content to promote products. This is primarily due to its ability to reach a larger group of target audiences and attract them.

According to SearchEngineWatch, videos help persuade 73% of people to buy a product or service.

This specialty has led to e-commerce stores quickly turning to video to grow their businesses. Thus, e-commerce merchants are put in a position to adapt to new trends and learn new secrets to video marketing. So, if you’re a retailer looking to learn how to effectively use videos to sell online, then you’re in the right place. Read through.

Keep It Super Simple (KISS) should be your mantra

The secret to e-commerce video marketing is to keep it simple. This is enough to improve your ability when it comes to increasing the likelihood of a customer converting. The basics of your video marketing must be to educate your customers about your brand and products and simplify the shopping experience.

This is true both for brand-new businesses and those who have been in business for years. Just having a product isn’t enough to make people buy it—you have to let them know what it’s all about, how it works, and why they should buy it. And then you have to convince them that it’s worth their money!

So how do you get people interested in your products and make sure your marketing game stands out from the competition? This is where e-commerce video marketing comes in!

Here are some ways you can implement your KISS motto into the different kinds you put out.

Gain a huge headstart with your launch videos

When a customer is shopping on your site, they may need some help figuring out which product is right for them. In such cases, a ‘product launch’ video can help in guiding them through the process. Such videos work great both for products that are recently introduced in the market as well as the ones that are yet to be launched.

The best ploy for a product launch video is to cover all the details about the product like the looks, features, etc to ensure that your customers know what they’re into and won’t get disappointed. Also, a launch video for an upcoming product helps to increase visitors’ curiosity and motivates them to check out your offerings.

Tactically follow up with ‘how to’ videos

Let’s say your product launch video has served its purpose in convincing your customers to make their purchases. Now, it’s your time to quickly follow up with videos explaining how to use your product.

Also known as ‘product explainer’ videos, your how-to videos, works best when displayed on your product pages or post-purchase emails that are sent to engage customers as they’re awaiting their orders and build relationships with them.

Ensure that your videos act in teaching your customers how they can put your product to the best use. Include a lot of attention to detail in order to maximize the self-serve shopping experience and as a result, reduce customer support requests. Ultimately, all of this can help in making your customers feel comfortable enough to make their purchase from you again in the future.

If you want to make how-to videos that are catchy, entertaining, and informative, it’s important that you use good video editing software to add some music, special effects, sound effects, and even subtitles to your presentation or product demo.

You can also use a video compressor to compress the file before uploading it online or in social media. The most popular formats are .flv, .mov, and mp4, which can be compressed by an mp4 compressor for easy storage without losing quality.

Include User-Generated Content (UGC) in your e-commerce video marketing mix

Providing quality products and a great experience is not rocket science anymore! All you have to do is ask your customers how you can improve your product/service.

A great way to do this is by getting testimonials from satisfied customers.

The next time when collecting feedback, ask them if they would be willing to share their experience in the form of a video (in conversation with one of your experts or simply explaining the product themselves).

Such content from actual users can help you achieve a larger target audience through positive WoM.

Finally, be effective with the video marketing campaign and improve for the future

Here are some tips on how to be effective in an e-commerce video marketing campaign:

Plan your content ahead: Before starting the creation process, you need to have a fixed plan for your content. Decide what you want to convey, what message you want to send, and what video you want to create. This makes sure the video aligns with your brand image and values.

Choose the right platform: There are many video hosting platforms available, but it’s essential to choose the right one for your needs. YouTube and Vimeo are two popular options, but you can also host your videos directly on your website, social media channels, or even in live using streaming apps such as Streamlabs, which let you stream directly from your computer and also offer analytics tools that let you see who’s watching and what they’re watching so you know what content people like most. There are also good Streamlabs Alternatives such as OBS, VEED, and Screen-o-matic.

Keep it short and engaging: People have short attention spans, so keep your videos short and to the point. The first few seconds of your video are crucial, so make sure you grab the viewer’s attention right away.

Highlight the benefits: When creating a video to sell a product or service, focus on the benefits rather than the features. Show the viewer how the product or service can improve their life or solve an existing problem.

Include a call to action: At the end of your video, include a clear call to action, such as “Buy Now” or “Learn More.” This encourages the viewer to take action and can help increase sales.

Optimize for search: To ensure your videos reach a broader audience, optimize them for search engines. Use relevant keywords in the title, description, and tags.

Have an A/B testing approach: Analyze your video’s performance and adjust your strategy accordingly. Look at metrics such as views, engagement, and conversions to see what’s working and what’s not.

By following these tips, you can create effective e-commerce video marketing that will help you reach a broader audience and increase sales.

Conclusion

Think of videos as one more tool to help you make the sale, not just one more thing that gets in the way. If you can break down complex sales procedures into easily digestible chunks, you put your customers at ease and greatly increase the chances that they’ll follow through with their purchase. Once that happens, it will be much easier to rely on a well-conceived video marketing campaign to find more customers who need your product or service.

This is a guest post by Cris Mark Baroro

Cris Mark Baroro is a Search Engine Optimization Specialist from VEED.io, a free online all-in-one video editing platform. He is also a writer, programmer, and QA system specialist – who loves just technology.

The post How To Sell Online: The Secret To E-commerce Video Marketing appeared first on Lateshipment.com.

7 Tips for Using Videos to Increase E-commerce Sales

Sashank Ravindranath — Mon, 23 Jan 2023 14:11:06 +0000

With new e-commerce stores springing up around the internet every other day, the competition is getting more fierce than ever. The challenge is to not only attract customers but be able to make them repeat purchases from the store. With this in mind, all the e-commerce companies are utilizing every possible way to gain shoppers. Every day, a new marketing scheme is adopted so that the store can highlight itself among a sea of competitors.

Different media is brought into effective action such as audio excerpts or photos on social media. However, one medium that has been at the forefront as a marketing tool in the current year seems to be video advertising.

There are a few tips and tricks that any e-commerce store can adopt to captivate the attention of customers by using videos. We will explore some of these tricks in this post.

1. Add Different Kinds of Videos to your Lead Capture Page

Only using one kind of video on the landing page is not enough to captivate the attention of the viewer. Testimonials through videos are an effective form of communication as they show that your product is tried and tested.

Although the testimonials might work as a review many times, the product’s technical information can be missing from it. Therefore, it is essential to have tutorials on your product page that can show the customers how to effectively use it.

Along with tutorials, it is also helpful to have videos that highlight the main features of the product. For example, if the store sells hair pieces, it would be a good addition to have a video that shows multiple ways in which the hair pieces can be donned.

2. Use Videos That Strike a Connection

The advantage that videos have over pictures is that they can contain more information and use transitions to make the information more digestible. – Brad Anderson, Founder of Fruition

Apart from that, videos are an excellent form of storytelling. As a consequence, the products can be used to tell stories about people who we know.

For instance, if customers watch a popular tennis player using a racquet from a certain brand, it makes them value the brand more. The story of these players can be used in the video advertising by the brand as well to reiterate the fact that success is closely associated with their brand. Buying this brand can thus give customers a sense of self-satisfaction.

3. Tell Your Business' Story Through a Video

All e-commerce stores try to introduce themselves by having an introductory page that narrates their story but not many choose video as their story-telling form.

An introductory video captures the attention of the customer as they would be interested in the story while also getting to know more about the mission and values of the company.

One of the best examples of a similar video can be the Lego story which details the humble beginnings of Lego stores and how they have expanded their business worldwide. This video can be included in the subscription newsletters as well as in the announcements on social media.

Here’s how Schur does this on their website’s hero section.

4. Ensure the Video Is of the Highest Quality

No matter how good the content of the video is, a low-quality video can put off a customer and would want them to exit the page. Therefore, it is important that along with focusing on the content, the technicalities should not be overlooked. A good video must have sharp quality and should be positioned in a way that the user does not have to scroll much to see it.

It is important that there is a dedicated professional team who shoots these videos and that the content of these videos goes through multiple drafts before the scripting is finalized. In such cases, the amount of effort that went into creating the video would be visible from the final advertisement. – Lisa Johnson, Ecommerce Expert at Geeks Health

5. Use User-Generated Videos

The advertisements with models can be a good way to bring attention to the product, but there might be hesitant buyers who are not convinced enough by ads to buy the product.

Nonetheless, if they see a user’s video on the internet who goes through the process of unpacking and trying the product then it would make the prospective customer know the product as a person to whom they can relate. It would also give them social proof of how the product looks without studio lights and editing. All of these can cement the decision of a skeptical buyer.

6. Live Stream Important Events of the Company

Got a new product to launch? Live-stream the event.

Research proves that customers are three times more likely to watch live videos than pre-recorded ones. As it leads to better sales, instead of quietly putting a new product on the website, it is a better idea to create hype for the product before it is launched. A well-streamed event will pique the interest of prospective customers while also giving them vital information about it.

With all the leading social media websites offering live-stream options, there is not much effort that has to be done to have a live session.

Live streaming can also be more personalized as many consumers can have their questions answered during the session. – Miriam Domer, Content Marketer at Legal Finders.

7. Add Videos to Your Content Mix

It is not necessary to treat videos as separate entities.

Video advertisements can be embedded in other forms of marketing. They can be shown on social media in sponsored posts, other websites, or marketing emails. Rather than adding extremely lengthy text in an email, it is advantageous to add a video that covers all the topics.

A message from the CEO could also be included in the welcome emails to explain the mission of the company. In a nutshell, different forms of advertising can be mixed as distinct customers are attracted to contrary kinds of marketing.

Conclusion

According to the research, 76% of e-commerce stores report more traffic due to video. The statistics alone show that the video-advertisement industry is worth billions which are testament to the fact that many business owners have seen videos as a way to attract potential clients.

With all the video content that is present on the internet, it might be overwhelming for e-commerce stores to get attention through basic marketing. Therefore, it is recommended to use the above-mentioned tricks and cover a wide range of topics through their videos. If e-commerce can utilize video marketing properly, their sales would be impacted along with brand awareness and website traffic.

This is a guest post by Kruti Shah.

Kruti Shah is a content writer and marketer at The Marketing Drama. She loves to write about insights on current trends in Technology, Business, and Marketing. In her free time, she loves baking and watching Netflix. You can connect with her on Linkedin.

The post 7 Tips for Using Videos to Increase E-commerce Sales appeared first on Lateshipment.com.

10 Eye-catching Ways to Gain Attention to Your E-commerce Store

Sashank Ravindranath — Tue, 21 Jun 2022 07:57:23 +0000

Just a couple of decades ago, the concept of having your own E-commerce store was considered fanciful, even a dream. How would it work? What would such a store provide? How will the store handle all of the sales, the purchases, and even the logistics of the goods? It was a pipe dream for some, and many at the time believed it to be just impossible. However, with the progression in technology and innovation, this has no longer been the case.

With so many E-Commerce stores sprouting up, brick-and-mortars would be left behind in the dust. However, it begs the question; if I were to open my E-commerce store, what would I need to do to ensure that potential customers are willing to go through my store? How do I set them apart from the rest?

Here are some ways which would certainly boost your rankings and give your competition a run for their money:

1. DYOR – Do your Research and Sell the Latest Products

By following the herd and offering the same products to the same class of customers, you will not be able to differentiate between yourself and the others.

You have to find out what the customer wants!

Do your research, find out what kinds of products have a higher selling potential, where you would be able to outsource them from, distinguish your products from theirs by offering the latest variants, and ensure that you are ahead of the curve by upgrading your industry research and discovering the latest trends.

Do not forget to add as many product details as possible so that the users have a clear idea of what they will get.

One of our best strategies to capture and keep our audience’s attention is to highlight our newest products. For example, in our online store, we highlight new arrivals at the top, above the rest of the store. – Matt Weidle, Business Development Manager at Buyer’s Guide; a website that helps people make smarter buying decisions

Doing this in an e-commerce store creates a sense of urgency in being the first thing a customer sees. Additionally, returning customers seeing any new product will see our continued momentum and may be excited to see what else we have to offer.

2. Breakout of the Traditional Mindset

It takes hardly a second nowadays for a potential customer to decide whether they should approach the website or move ahead to another one.

E-commerce stores nowadays need to be sharp, bright, and interactive, and there should always be something that sparks the interest of the consumer. If you are dealing with a B2B model, then the traditional model may work, but when you are targeting individual customers, every impression matters.

Suggestions? Keep it quirky, keep it interesting, but do not stray too far from the current trends.

Like in any other situation, beauty attracts the eye, so to gain a customer, you must first start with basic principles of graphics and layout. As a founder, to increase traffic to our website, we used texture, movement, continuity, and consistency in the design, such as the texture, space, and styles. – Tanner Arnold, President & CEO at Revelation Machinery

Because of this, the design is uniform and much easier to read. The contrast provides an object or design with visible weight.

To minimize cluttered design, you must examine and limit the use of many aspects such as color, style, and font so that it is readable and it is connected to your main theme.

Another aspect is the unity and harmony of the elements when they are combined. The design’s elements must collaborate and agree on its meaning, topic, feeling, or atmosphere.

3. Advertisement Placement is Crucial

So, you find a product that you like. Great!

But, when you click on the link, you are transported to, you guessed it, yet another advert offering products you do not need.

What is the point? Are you interested in earning just from the ad revenue or from the actual products you are offering?

Make sure your e-commerce store is set up so that customers can buy without being bombarded with advertisements.

Secondly, try to obtain ads that are relevant to you and your customers! What is the point in offering the customer a pair of shoes when they are looking for the best restaurants to eat at?

4. Improve the Site Navigation

Keeping the previous point in mind, always pay attention to how easy it is for you i.e., your customers, to navigate throughout the site.

It is extremely easy to run checks, and the easier it is for your customer to move through from point A to point B, the greater their customer satisfaction.

Customer satisfaction is king, and this is one metric that would determine your long-term profitability. In short, do not let the customer scroll through the entire website for the information they need; let the information and its access come directly to them.

Whether it is through a search bar that runs algorithms to predict what the customer needs, or logging in with previous information using cookies to recover past purchases to suggest newer ones, it helps them navigate the site with ease.

Audiences stay longer when the landing pages are crisp and provide easy navigation. Make sure that your landing page describes what you offer.

People don’t solely use computers, because there are so many different gadgets to stay in the loop 24/7. To increase the number of customers of the specific platform, adaptive design should be considered. That’s how one will manage to make a site available to a wider audience. – Veronica Miller, Digital Marketing & Growth Director at VPNoverview

5. Establish a Brand Unique to You

Your online presence is extremely important in gaining traffic.

What is online presence, you ask?

Your message and the values that you portray to the rest of the customers and all those who visit the site. There can be many ways through which a brand can be built; including engaging graphic designs, smart advertisements, building a strong following on social media, and quality customer service, even though building a logo reflects a critical part of the identity.

Most importantly, it is the consistency through which the customer will remain engaged and, over time, will remember the name and the brand’s message whenever they think of a particular product or service. Create a positive space within their hearts, and they will remember you for a long time.

If you want to offer your customers an enhanced experience while they visit your eCommerce store, ensure your online store is designed with an attractive template. Adding enriching color schemes can grab the visitors’ attention and compel them to opt for buying products. – Jay Ehrenfeld, Chief Marketing Officer at EZContacts

6. Associate your Band with Philanthropy

Many customers find the products they like, fill up their e-shopping carts, and leave them as they are for a later purchase.

At times they even forget they had even filled them up in the first place, and this can lead to a potential sale that was lost. So why not add a philanthropic angle into the mix? There are many e-commerce sites and stores that are connected with welfare organizations and NGOs, but they do not portray this on their sites.

Well, they should! By doing so and encouraging the customer to purchase the product so that it can be connected to their philanthropic action of the day, customers will always be more likely to purchase from you than from another organization with a similar product.

7. Automation is your Best Friend

There is a lot of software that can be integrated with your E-Commerce platform to connect with the customer even when they are not active on your platform.

Some of the automation software are as follows:

Customer Relationship Management tools such as HubSpot power your customer support, sales, and marketing with easy-to-use features like live chat, meeting scheduling, and email tracking.
Automation Tools to trigger the workflows, which will help with communication with the customers.
Use email marketing automation tools to trigger emails to your customers.
There are plenty of invoicing and accounting tools available as well, for managing the store’s numbers and sales.
Tracking and rewarding your customers will increase their retention rates by offering them points based on their level of activity on your portal and store. Adding a gift and or even free delivery can help to engage the customer for the future even further.

To help them decide better, we make the whole shopping experience easier. We provide them with the specifications of every product and color availability, so they can picture out which product will suit them and not be disappointed with their orders. – Ellie Shippey, Digital Marketing Specialist at Lumina, an e-commerce store and leading innovative equipment, cosmetics storage, and lighting seller

8. Feedback, Feedback, and Feedback

There are multiple points throughout the entire process where the customer can be prompted to give some sort of feedback to you.

From the time the goods are in the cart, to the actual point where the customer purchases the goods, to when they can receive them, and after the delivery, the post-usage experience.

Engaging the customer at various points, allows the store to generate data throughout this time. For example, to encourage reviews, you can set up the automated mail flows after a certain period, where honest feedback and links can help guide them to where they would be able to post their reviews.

The importance of client reviews cannot be overemphasized.

Consider that almost 88% of buyers use reviews to make purchasing decisions and will not purchase a product if it lacks positive ratings. Potential clients want the same excellent outcomes that past satisfied customers have had.

9. Target with Product Recommendations

The product recommendations are an extremely useful addition to any e-commerce store.

If you are going to be a first-time visitor to a website, the use of cookies would start collecting data from your movements throughout the pages and screens.

Initially, it would use the data from other customers and provide “Best Sellers” from the store to gauge what kind of interest you show.

By creating an account, the homepage would start building personalized advice based on previous visits. This can be extremely useful in finding out what the current trends are and what kinds of products are coming into and moving out of fashion.

By optimizing the marketing strategies, the right kinds of products will always be recommended to recurring customers.

We recommend experimenting with different product recommendation tactics on various pages to find which ones are the most engaging for your target audience. You might find that sharing your best-selling things on the homepage isn’t getting you the conversions you want, and that recommending recently seen items or a personalized selection of products based on past browsing habits gets you more conversions. – Luke Lee, Founder of PalaLeather

10. Multiple Payment Methods

With so many payment alternatives available today, keeping track of all the ways customers can meet their payment responsibilities to online businesses can be tough.

Some of the most popular (and up-and-coming) options for shoppers to pay for goods and services online include:

Most common methods of payment, including debit and credit cards (like Visa, MasterCard, and Discover)
Buy Now, Pay Later Options (like Instalments and PayPal Credit)
Cryptocurrencies (like Bitcoin, Litecoin, Ethereum, and Solana)
Digital Wallets (like Venmo, PayPal, and Apple Pay)

Many online business owners believe that selecting a single payment gateway or payment provider is all they need to do to get their e-commerce store up and running.

E-commerce success, in my opinion, requires a variety of payment choices. For starters, it helps to broaden geographical reach, which leads to a better client experience. Customers would not be left out if one of their payment options failed. It enables the buyer to explore many options and select the easiest payment option. Multiple payment methods, in my opinion, provide for a more pleasant experience and boost online sales. – Kenny Kline, President & Financial Lead at BarBend

Summary

This list is by no means exhaustive.

There are more ways than you can imagine through which a new or existing e-commerce store would be able to build and grow beyond its comfort zone and move ahead of the curve in gaining and retaining new and old customers.

The time to create your own space in the e-commerce industry is now.

With constantly evolving strategies and techniques, these points will be extremely crucial in taking your store to the next level.

So, what are you waiting for?

Time waits for no one, and neither should you!

Go ahead and build your new empire by following these techniques for growing your e-commerce stores and taking them to greater heights!

This is a guest post by Kruti Shah

Kruti Shah is a content writer and marketer at The Marketing Drama. She loves to write about insights into current trends in Technology, Business, and Marketing. In her free time, she loves baking and watching Netflix. You can connect with her on LinkedIn.

The post 10 Eye-catching Ways to Gain Attention to Your E-commerce Store appeared first on Lateshipment.com.

[eCommerce 2021] 10 Expert Tips to Boost Your Website’s Engagement

Ian — Wed, 05 May 2021 09:40:56 +0000

New small business owners find it difficult to understand why their eCommerce businesses grow slowly. While there are numerous contributing, website engagement is among the most overlooked aspects.

Not only does website engagement keep your new visitors interested in learning about your company, but it also helps retain existing customers. Thus, optimizing the sales cycle.

During the course of this article, you’ll learn ten expert tips to boost your eCommerce store’s website engagement. From driving traffic to keeping your existing customers happy, we’ll look at each tip in detail. Let’s get started.

1. Design a Responsive Website

Responsive web design refers to a modern design approach that ensures a website’s pages adjust well on various screen sizes.

“Mobile devices have been consistently generating over half of the website traffic in the past five years.” – Statista.

Therefore, having a responsive website can’t be compromised. For that, you need to choose your theme wisely.

If you use a Content Management System (CMS), such as WordPress or Joomla, ensure that your chosen theme is responsive. As third-party developers can contribute to making website themes for these platforms, they won’t all be fluid.

The more convenient option is to utilize a website builder that guarantees mobile responsiveness, like the Zyro eCommerce builder. With this platform, you’ll get access to more than 80 responsive and attractive website templates, allowing you to focus on growth, rather than the minute details of your site on every different screen format.

2. Have a Clear Website Structure

Website structure refers to your website’s presentation. The four types of site structure include hierarchical, sequential, matrix, and database.

For eCommerce websites, the hierarchical model is the most suitable option. This tree structure starts from the big umbrella that narrows down to more specific topics. Thus, you can display parent product categories and utilize a drop-down menu to contain the child categories.

The best practice for this is to keep the hierarchical structure under three levels. Not only does the simple structure ease your potential customer journey, but it also helps Google index your site faster.

3. Run Social Media Ad Campaigns

Starting a social media ad campaign allows you to display advertisements for your eCommerce store on various social media platforms. It’s among the excellent strategies to help increase your online store’s traffic, as there are 4.2 billion social media users globally.

Here are some ad campaign programs from three of the most popular social media platforms, Facebook, Instagram, and Tiktok:

Facebook Ads – This service can automatically generate retargeting ads that feature the goods your visitors saw on your product page. It also lets you customize the advertising targeting options, like gender and age, to get your ads personalized.
Instagram Ads – Sign up for Instagram Ads from your business account and choose the various ad forms the platform offers, including photos, carousels, Instagram Stories, and IGTV.
TikTok Ads – Despite its limited availability, TikTok Ads has been spreading its wings across 20 countries, including the USA. Signing up for the service, you’ll be able to display pre-roll and in-feed ads, promote hashtag challenges, and create branded effects.

On a side note, define your target audience before deciding on a platform, as each social media has its own demographics.

4. Apply Cross-Selling and Upselling Techniques

Cross-selling is about offering more shopping options to complement what your potential buyers have on their carts. In comparison, upselling pretty much involves suggesting a better, more expensive option of the same product.

When done right, these strategies help increase your sales and reinforce your relationship with your customers. That said, let’s see how you can put these techniques into action:

Keep it easy – Being too promotional backfires. Keep the sales flow smooth by only referring to products or services that align with the customer’s needs
Offer benefits – Rewards, such as discounts and free shipping, motivate your potential customers to close the deal
Conduct follow-ups – Check-in on your past customers to find out if they’re happy with the purchase. This is to show that your company cares about its customers

5. Boost User-Generated Content

User-generated content (UGC) refers to any content, such as reviews, photos, and testimonials, created by general users rather than affiliates or influencers.

“For eCommerce websites, UGC is vital as 87% of customers read local businesses’ online reviews before making a purchase.” – Brightlocal.

Besides proving your shop’s credibility, letting users add content encourages customers to have their say, thus improving your site’s engagement. When they do, don’t forget to leave a response so they’ll feel appreciated.

6. Personalize the Content

eCommerce content personalization is about integrating personal experiences along the customer journey by delivering relevant content based on users’ data, including purchase behavior, browsing patterns, and visited pages.

“91% of online shoppers are more likely to buy from a company with relevant offers.” – Accenture

As personalizing each customer’s experience can be challenging, utilize an e-commerce personalization tool to help with the process. Here’s what such tool can help you with:

Product recommendations. By looking at past searches and purchase history, an eCommerce personalization tool can generate relevant item suggestions
Dynamic pricing. This feature allows adjusting a product’s pricing based on changing market demand and tailoring different product pricing for different audiences
Personalized navigation. This practice is about prioritizing particular website pages for certain audience groups
Abandoned cart retargeting. Suppose an item has been in a visitor’s cart for too long, an e-commerce personalization tool will remind the potential buyer to proceed with the checkout process

7. Upload High-Quality Images

Your target customers can’t see or touch your products in real life before actually purchasing them. To make a decision, they rely heavily on your product images. That’s why having excellent product photography is essential for eCommerce websites.

Suppose you’re afraid the high-quality product photos will slow down your website. In that case, don’t forget to compress before uploading them. For this, use a lossless compression tool, like TinyPNG, as it can cut the image’s size without reducing its quality.

8. Offer Discounts and Sales Promotions

Offering promotions might seem like an ineffective way to generate interest. However, well-organized discount and sales promotion campaigns are excellent for attracting traffic, engaging new audiences, and driving sales quickly.

However, these practices aren’t for everyone. When conducted too often, discounts can diminish your product and service’s value. Read the tips below to structure effective discount and sales promotion campaigns:

Welcome new visitors with special offers – whether it’s a shopping coupon or a 15% discount for their first purchase, it won’t be a problem
Apply early-bird discounts for new products – this practice creates a feeling of scarcity about your goods, triggering purchases
Promote seasonal products with special gifts – suppose you launch Chinese New Year attire collections. In that case, a small hong bao pocket can be a great gift for each purchase of the collection
Reward loyal customers with personalized promotions – establishing a loyalty club is a great way to organize this program. For that, let’s dive deep into a loyalty program on the next tip.

9. Create a Loyalty Program

A customer loyalty program refers to a structured marketing solution focused on rewarding a customer who has engaged with a company repeatedly. Apart from improving relationships, implementing a reward program can encourage your customers to keep coming back to you.

When setting up a customer loyalty program, remember these four tips:

Give out free products – suppose your customers have spent a certain amount on your brand, you can probably send across for them to try

Set a timeframe – your loyalty members should be able to attain their rewards within three to six months after joining the program. This is to make sure they don’t lose their interests

Give birthday surprises – preparing a birthday treat for your loyal customers can be a pleasant and personalized reward. Not only does it show that your company cares about its customers, but it also keeps them happy.

10. Add CTAs Strategically

A call-to-action includes any phrase that encourages your eCommerce site’s visitors to take specific actions. Apart from driving more conversions, compelling CTAs can also serve as navigation that guides your potential customers through the marketing funnel.

To strategically place your CTAs, refrain from being too aggressive. For example, some shoppers may feel intimidated by a Buy Now button. In this case, use Add to Cart or Save as Favorite instead.

Also, emphasize the button with colors or boxes. That way, your CTA will catch your visitors’ attention and won’t get overlooked.

Conclusion

You’ve learned ten tips for boosting your website engagement. By implementing them, you’ll save your eCommerce website from getting stale. Additionally, responsiveness is the first thing you should take care of when developing your website. Make sure you don’t baffle your visitors with confusing navigation and website structure. Finally, good luck with your new eCommerce store!

This is a guest post by Lydia Steele

The post [eCommerce 2021] 10 Expert Tips to Boost Your Website’s Engagement appeared first on Lateshipment.com.

[eCommerce 2021] Social Commerce for Businesses

Ian — Thu, 29 Apr 2021 09:35:46 +0000

Running an eCommerce business is hectic, no doubt. However, there are certain aspects that make it interesting. One such being the relatively new but growing trend of social commerce.

eCommerce business owners can greatly benefit from this trend. All you need to do is to increase your brand visibility and build an effective social commerce campaign.

But before that, let’s talk about social commerce in more detail.

What is Social Commerce?

Social commerce is the use of social media websites like Facebook, Instagram, and Pinterest for marketing and sales purposes.

Social commerce campaigns aim to boost social interactions such as retweets, likes, link clicks, and shares and to drive sales.

Social commerce is the use of social media websites like Facebook, Instagram, and Pinterest for marketing and sales purposes.

The Benefits of Social Commerce to eCommerce Businesses

If you craft an effective social commerce campaign, you will achieve the following goals:

Reach a wide audience
Improve brand awareness
Increase sales
Build customer loyalty

The Best Social Media Platforms for Social Commerce

There are three platforms that work perfectly for social commerce:

Instagram. This social media network has more than one billion users. It allows you to create a business account and sell your products directly from the app.

Facebook provides a set of tools necessary to design an effective social commerce campaign. If you create a Facebook Shop and build a smart Chatbot Messenger, you will engage your target audience and double your sales.

Pinterest is not as popular as Facebook and Instagram. But still, it provides great marketing opportunities for eCommerce businesses. You can use it to improve your brand discoverability and direct new visitors to your website.

Basically, any social media platform can be used for social commerce. If you want to maximize your efforts, you should choose a platform that is popular amongst your customers. For instance, if your target audience is millennial vegans, the best platform for you is Instagram. Or, if your target audience is Baby Boomers, Facebook is the best choice for you.

Social Commerce Best Practices

The vast majority of modern businesses leverage social commerce. Let’s take a look at the best examples.

Swatch

Swatch uses gamification to engage users and create buzz around a new product launch. The company has recently announced the start of a game “M.I.Q The Secret Mission” on Instagram to present Swatch X 007 Tribute Collection.

Every second day, Swatch publishes a new post and asks followers to complete a new task like “to find a part of a secret code.” In such a way, the brand motivates users to check new posts and visit the company’s website while also attracting more interest in new products.

Under Armour

Under Armour has more than 10.9 million followers on Facebook and for a good reason. This sports equipment company creates content that resonates with the target audience while also reflects the brand’s values.

Take a look at the following post – it was shared almost 2K times. It’s a great example of how one social media post can help the company to reach more customers than a paid ad.

Forever 21

If you don’t know how to use Instagram shopping features, take a look at Forever 21’s Instagram account – it’s a great example to follow.

Forever21 runs one of the most successful user-generated content strategies among fashion brands. The company encourages customers to share their photos and tag @forever21 for the chance to be featured. It motivates customers to buy more clothes and share more photos, which helps Forever21 increase reach and engagement.

4 Tips on How to Leverage Social Commerce for Your eCommerce Business

Finally, let’s talk about what steps you should take to build an effective social commerce campaign this holiday season.

1. Focus on quality

If you want to grab the attention of picky social media users, you should create high-quality content. All your photos and videos must have a high resolution. All your posts must include relevant, meaningful captions.

Why is content quality so important? Customers associate content quality with product quality. Therefore, if the quality of your content is not excellent, your prospective customers will doubt the quality of your products and the trustworthiness of your brand.

If you are not an expert in content creation, consider getting writing help. Check top rated sites and find professional writers who know how to craft outstanding social media posts.

2. Start a social media challenge

Modern users like to participate in different social media challenges. And today, when most people get bored in the houses because of the pandemic, social media challenges are getting even more popular. So why don’t you start a social media challenge to draw users’ attention to your brand?

The idea of a social media challenge should be relevant to your brand and appeal to your target audience.

Also, your challenge must have a name and a memorable hashtag. The use of hashtags will allow you to track posts created by your followers and analyze the effectiveness of your campaign.

3. Create Interactive Content

If ordinary social media posts don’t help you achieve the desired results, try to create interactive content. Invite your followers to participate in fun quizzes, polls, and Q&A sessions on Facebook and Instagram Stories.

The more users will interact with your content, the more likely they will buy from you. So use your creativity skills to come up with engaging content ideas. If you feel like you need help with this task, check the TopEssayWriting review, and find creative writers and content creators who can help you.

4. Collaborate with influencers

Social commerce goes hand in hand with influencer marketing. So if you want to get your brand noticed, reach out to the top influencers in your niche and offer them to promote your product.

Just keep in mind that top influencers get dozens of collaboration requests every day but accept only the best offers that include something more than just a paycheck. If you want to partner with influencers, you should provide a special reward, for instance, tickets to a big industry event or participation in an ambassadorship program.

In Conclusion

2021 has been a tough year, so far. And today, people are anticipating the rest of the year more than ever. They are ready to start shopping and enjoy the vibes while still staying at home or social distancing. And you should take this fact into account and adjust your marketing strategy.

Today is the perfect moment to start a social commerce campaign for boosting sales. Use this article for inspiration and create social media content that will take your eCommerce business to the next level.

This article is a contribution by Leona Henryson

About the author: Leona Henryson is a freelance blogger and marketing specialist at TopWritersReview, a website for top college writers’ reviews. She is constantly looking for new ways to improve customer experience and help businesses reach out to their target audience.

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[eCommerce 2021] 6 Trends That You Need to Watch out For

Sashank Ravindranath — Fri, 02 Apr 2021 07:23:02 +0000

Everybody loves memes…

It really helps us take a breather from the pressures of work and cool off for a moment. And the best part, it’s a different joke that cracks us up every time!

Every week there’s a new meme trending online – From Bernie Sanders to a ship stuck in the Suez Canal.

eCommerce works exactly the same way. Now and then there come new trends that shape the industry for the future.

But you might wonder why we’re talking about change now?

Well, that’s because 2020 (the year of the pandemic) has drastically accelerated these changes, ergo leaving a lasting impact on businesses in the longer run.

Let’s not waste any more time and dive right into the eCommerce trends for 2021 and how they can help you improve your online business in terms of sales, CX, and customer loyalty – to thrive in 2021!

eCommerce is Growing (Higher, Further, Faster)

Like we mentioned earlier, the COVID-19 pandemic has largely accelerated the shift to eCommerce, and guess what? It’s still growing and doesn’t seem to be slowing down even as the world returns to normalcy.

Amidst the wave of digital transformation and innovation in retail, eCommerce sales grew an astounding 30% in 2020, a number expected to grow in 2021 and in the years to come.

This makes it clear that customers who ordered from an online store for the first time in 2020, don’t plan on going back to a physical store anytime soon.

Take away – Despite the surge in online orders, it is practically difficult for SMBs like yours to compete with companies such as Amazon and Walmart, which have established dominance over the eCommerce market.

But that doesn’t mean you just sit around and wait for things to happen your way! You can start by growing your online presence by enlisting yourself in eCommerce marketplaces of your niche (take advantage of the high traffic reach).

However, you must keep in mind that entirely relying on these marketplaces can limit your brand’s growth (as you don’t own the customer data).

A good ploy would be to just sell limited products on such marketplaces and drive visitors to your site by intriguing their curiosity.

Hybrid (Omnichannel) Marketing is the Future Now

In this IoT era, growing eCommerce brands can follow the footsteps of companies like Amazon and give customers what they want – a seamless shopping experience no matter what channel they’re on.

And how you can do that, you ask?

Hybrid marketing (also known as omnichannel marketing) can enable businesses like yours to do just that.

Take away – With hybrid (omnichannel) selling becoming the norm, you can make use of public cloud platforms, which help you to collect customer data across all platforms.

You can then make use of headless eCommerce services that enable brands to improve their customer experience and communicate with customers across multiple channels.

Start with the data you have on your customers and create ideal customer personas to guide each customer’s personalized content and platform.

91% of consumers are more likely to shop with brands that provide relevant offers and recommendations. – Data from Accenture

For example, you can display a social media advertisement for a user who has just browsed your website and send out retargeting emails to a customer who has abandoned their cart.

You can also focus on the channels where your customers go the most and sell to them there.

The Battle for Speed (⚡) is Done!

The massive surge in eCommerce has also led to advancements in shipping & delivery as well.

The pre-COVID trend of same-day delivery is done! Customers no longer eye faster delivery but are now into flexible delivery options.

If you are uncertain about how you plan to do that, worry not!

We’ve got the right solution for you 😉I

Take away – While the impact of COVID-19 still in place, businesses are still recovering from the supply-chain restrictions.

With smaller inventory and a higher no. of orders, businesses can effectively capitalize on the “2-3 day delivery” trend to keep customers satisfied.

On the other hand, customers waiting in anticipation for their orders would lose their peace of mind, if say anything was to happen to their package.

They feel that is the responsibility of the business to mitigate their anxiety and keep them informed of their package status.

And businesses can do just that by making use of last-mile technologies and enable real-time package tracking, to have an edge moving into 2021.

Stellar Customer Support = Enhanced Overall Shopping Experience

Despite everything that happened in the past year, one thing that your customers expect to have little or no room for error would be your customer service.

A recent survey shows that post-COVID-19, 59% of consumers will care even more about the customer experience than they did “before” when deciding to buy.

That gives businesses of today, all the more reason to invest in great customer service to remain competitive.

Take away – Customer service’s future will be to provide omnichannel customer support – anytime, across channels.

Omnichannel customer support – Not just live chat, brands need to connect with their customers on platforms they prefer, be it social channels or emails, or even SMS.

Customer support will also influence sales – A great customer service will not just help you survive but will play the key differentiator between you and your competitor as

75% of the customers say they will shop with and recommend a brand they trust rather than a brand i.e hot and trendy.
On the other hand, 80% of consumers will switch to another company after just one poor customer experience

Therefore, businesses will have to keep in mind to provide an excellent personalized customer support experience if they want to develop loyalty and add value to customer retention.

Sustainability Will Be given Higher Priority

Sustainability is no longer a USP of select brands to attain popularity. Green consumerism is slowly becoming the norm as 65% of buyers say they will buy from brands that advocate sustainability.

Take away – Today’s consumers don’t just desire transparency in what they buy but expect it.

Not just in your products, they want sustainability to be your mantra across manufacturing, packing, and even transportation.

You can start by

Rolling out a one-off sustainable product
Reducing the amount of packaging waste, and
Informing your customers on how they can recycle your product after use.

You can also align your brand with an NGO that advocates for a cause such as sustainability or cruelty-free or partner with an influencer who advocates ethical buying.

The Post-purchase Phase Will Be the Deciding (X) Factor

Businesses get 6-8 touchpoints in the post-purchase to interact with customers and engage with them. These critical touchpoints are opportunities to strengthen customer relationships, build trust, and brand loyalty.

However, when you do not pay heed to your customers at this stage, you leave them at the mercy of your shipping carrier. Which in turn widens the CX gap between you and your customers, resulting in far more serious consequences.

And if you think these are just trivial, you must understand that the post-purchase phase takes up 50% of the overall order experience.

Take away – There are just 3 common areas that you need to pay attention to in order to take control of your post-purchase experience and plug the existing gaps.

Keep customers in the loop about orders in transit (more than just sending tracking numbers!)
Be the first to learn about every delivery issue (and act on it!)
Grab every (post-purchase) opportunity to engage with customers. Earns both additional revenue and loyalty!

Provide Outstanding Post-purchase Experiences with Lateshipment.com

For businesses like yours, we at LateShipment.com, have built the world’s only logistics cloud tool that helps you reduce shipping costs by up to 20% and provide stellar post-post purchase experiences to customers at scale – focussing steadfastly on the last mile, typically the most opaque part of the logistics chain.

With our Delivery Experience Management (DEM) Platform, you can effortlessly:

> Track parcels in real-time – Monitor your outbound & inbound shipments across multiple shipping carriers on a centralized window, in real-time

> Receive predictive delay alerts – Pay attention to daily deliveries with predictive delay alerts and more on a purpose-built dashboard for support reps.

> Resolve delivery issues proactively– Proactively communicate with customers to prevent them from having bad experiences due to delivery failures.

> Send out delivery status notifications – Send custom or automated delivery status notifications to your customers for events like “shipped,” “attempted,” & “delivered.”

Not just that, LateShipment.com additionally helps you:

> Provide branded order tracking – Build fully customizable order tracking pages for your customers to improve brand recall and sales.

> Receive delivery experience feedback – Gather feedback from customers about their delivery experience. Measure and optimize shipping operations.

Conclusion

With some of its effects still reeling in, 2020 will be a year that nobody will forget, especially people in the eCommerce industry. Stepping into 2021 and almost crossing the first quarter, these trends which have passed on from 2020 are still making waves in the current year.

Taking advantage of these trends would make 2021 memorable — but for the positive reasons.

When applied, these strategies will surely positively impact your sales, CX, and customer loyalty.

The post [eCommerce 2021] 6 Trends That You Need to Watch out For appeared first on Lateshipment.com.

SEO for eCommerce: Top Challenges to Be Wary Of [2020]

Ian — Thu, 01 Oct 2020 08:51:49 +0000

Anyone with a website wants search engines to rank it above all others. eCommerce website owners are no exception.

But eCommerce websites are different because they face additional difficulties in getting listed.

Here are the top challenges you are likely to face with search engine optimization (SEO) for your eCommerce site.

Once you develop an appreciation of these challenges, you can begin implementing eCommerce SEO strategies that make a difference.

1. eCommerce Websites Have Duplicate Content Copied from Vendor Descriptions

“Too many pages with too little original content.“

That has been my opening line in all my SEO-related presentations to eCommerce businesses.

Isn’t it surprising that an amateur blog with 50 articles can have more original content on it than an eCommerce website with 100,000 product pages?

This is because the information on product pages is either:

irrelevant to the targeted search keyphrase (e.g. shipping charges, out-of-stock notice) or
a regurgitation of the content provided by the manufacturer; a copy of which is available on every other website that sells the same product.

The former prevents search engines from deciphering the theme of the page, while the latter makes it difficult for search engines to be able to rate one page as better than another page with identical information.

Take Away: You need to have original content on each page of your eCommerce website.

2. eCommerce Websites Have Duplicate Content Across Several Pages

As if the SEO disadvantage arising from content that is available all over the Internet were not enough, many eCommerce websites also repeat content on multiple pages of their own website.

Here is an example: You have information about the XFC-10 green home widget on its product page. But you also have it on the category page for “widgets.”

You also have it on the page that carries all items tagged “household widgets.”

To top that, if your content management system (CMS) creates pages such as “recently purchased widgets,” “top-selling widgets,” and the like, the XFC-10 green home widget could be mentioned there too.

Take Away: Use technology such as JavaScript, AJAX, CSS, and iframes to hide duplicate content, or use the canonical tag in your HTML.

3. Affiliate Websites Copy Content from eCommerce Websites

Several eCommerce merchants use affiliates to help them attract new customers. Properly executed, this is a good idea.

But affiliate websites will often copy the content on your website. And some of them may be better than you at SEO.

This might lead search engines to believe that these affiliates are the creators of the content, while you have merely copied it.

In this way, even content originally developed by you may not help your SEO efforts.

Take Away: Proceed with your affiliate strategy, but make sure that you have a well-optimized website before you take on affiliates.

4. Your eCommerce Software May Not Be Search-Engine Friendly

Your software may create filenames and URLs by joining all components of the product description.

In addition, they may store a lot of other tagging and categorization information. For example, here is a URL:

http://www.YourEcommerceSite.com/Schumacher-SC-600A-SpeedCharge-Frequency-Battery/dp/B000H94F6E/ref=sr_1_3?ie=UTF8&qid=1317318150&sr=8-3

Unless you are on this website, you will not find favor with search engines if you have such unfriendly URLs. A better URL for the same product would be:

http://www.YourEcommerceSite.com/Schumacher-SC-600A-SpeedCharge-Frequency-Battery

This is easier said than done with most commonly available eCommerce software.

The only way to implement this would be through manual intervention.

Nothing wrong with manual intervention, except that eCommerce businesses often do not consider SEO to be a high priority task.

Take Away: Before selecting your eCommerce software, make sure that it is search engine friendly.

5. Auto-Generated Page Titles Are Usually Not Optimal

eCommerce software usually copies the complete product name into the title of the page.

The page title is the single most important element of on-page SEO and hence cannot be taken lightly.

How many people are really going to visit a search engine and type:“10k White Gold Princess Square Mystic Topaz Gemstone Earring Studs (8mm, 6.10 cttw)”?

Something like: “White Gold Princess Earring Studs might make more sense”.

But just like in the case of URLs, implementing this will involve manual intervention. And that can be expensive and time consuming.

Take Away: Do not take your page titles lightly.

6. All Things Being Equal, Big eCommerce Brands Dominate Search

Since most eCommerce websites ignore the invaluable pointers in this article, it will naturally be the bigger brands that will bubble up in search results. This is because they gain from the large number of organic links their visitors will naturally create for them.

Take Away: The Internet creates a level playing field. A small player can fight big brands. But you must create points of differentiation. SEO could be a major differentiator for a small eCommerce business.

7. SEO for eCommerce Is Often a Low Priority

In my experience, most eCommerce businesses pay scant attention to SEO at the planning stage.

They consider SEO only when it is too late; thereby trying quick-fix solutions.

There is no such thing as quick-fix SEO.

Paying for traffic only eats into profit margins. That coupled with the ever-intensifying price wars makes survival difficult.

Take Away: Start your SEO journey on day one. If you are already beyond that, start optimizing your eCommerce website at the earliest.

8. Unmoderated User-Generated Content Can Lower Search Rankings

Some eCommerce merchants consider user-generated content to be a no-cost solution for relevant original content.

That is why they enable user reviews, wish lists, discussion forums, comments, and the like.

While this is good in principle, you can be sure that these tools will be abused by spammers.

In the absence of high-quality moderation, user-generated content can actually lower your rankings.

How do you expect a search engine to react when it finds links to Viagra or porn websites in the comments on your baby products eCommerce website?

Take Away: User-generated content is a great source of free content, but only if moderated.

Make Your SEO Effective

To succeed in eCommerce SEO, you should follow these 7 steps:

Write original and unique content.
Use technology such as JavaScript, AJAX, CSS, and iframes to hide duplicate content, or use the canonical tag in your HTML.
Proceed with your affiliate strategy, but make sure that you have a well-optimized website before you take on affiliates.
Before selecting your eCommerce software, make sure that it is search-engine friendly.
Give importance to page titles.
The Internet creates a level playing field. A small player can fight big brands. But you must create points of differentiation. SEO could be a major differentiator for a small eCommerce business.
Start your SEO journey on day one. If you are already beyond that, start optimizing your eCommerce website at the earliest.

It’s not as difficult as it may seem, but you should pay more attention to your website in order to avoid typical mistakes and rank in search results.

Remember that it’s harder to optimize eCommerce websites but focused efforts can help you succeed with eCommerce SEO.

Good luck!

A Little about LateShipment.com

LateShipment.com is the world’s only logistics cloud tool that helps businesses of every size reduce shipping costs by up to 20% and provide memorable delivery experiences to customers at scale.

At LateShipment.com, our focus has remained steadfastly on the last mile, typically the part of the logistics chain that is the most opaque.

LateShipment.com allows you to have your monthly shipping invoices automatically audited for 50+ shipping carrier service failures and claims refunds on your behalf. The claimed amount is directly deposited into your account. This can save you up to 20% on your overall shipping spend.

Our automated shipping refunds solution:

Audits your monthly shipping invoices
Submits refund claims to your carrier(s) on your behalf
Deposits the refunded amount directly into your account

That’s not all!

LateShipment.com’s Delivery Experience Management platform helps you craft outstanding post-purchase experiences and build long-lasting customer relationships.

Our groundbreaking post-purchase solutions help businesses effortlessly bridge the post-purchase CX gap and discover new ways to delight and retain customers.

How good is that?

The best part is, it takes less than 2 minutes to see LateShipment.com in action without any change to your existing workflow.

The value we add to businesses is most evident when experienced first-hand. Try LateShipment.com now.

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