How to Boost Online Sales Year-Round

By Baillee Perkins
May 30, 2018
Learn how to boost your sales year round with ShippingEasy!

Offering a promotion can be a good way to attract new customers, but it doesn’t guarantee sales. With so many small businesses choosing eCommerce, it’s important to stand out to keep your customers coming back during the holiday season and beyond. Providing a user-friendly website, offering free shipping where available, and providing good customer service will give your business the advantage it needs, making every day a holiday. 

Secure and Simplify Your Site

According to Statista, last year, cart abandonment rose to almost 70%. Reasons for cart abandonment include extra costs and a complicated checkout process. With marketplaces like Amazon providing customers with one-click checkouts, it’s important to streamline your store’s checkout process. Enabling payment options such as PayPal and Apple Pay where applicable prevent your customers from having to get their card, leaving less potential for cart abandonment. For more information on what payment and cart methods are available for your store, we recommend reaching out to your marketplace directly. 

Another reason for cart abandonment is that the customer didn’t trust the site they were visiting. If possible, give your customers the option to check out as a guest instead of creating an account. Be transparent about shipping estimates and costs throughout the entire checkout instead of only listing them on the last screen before customers complete their purchase. 

Listen to your cart and follow it over to our blog! Cut down on cart abandonment by reading Lose Fewer Sales by Using Cart Abandonment Emails. 

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Offer Free Shipping

Offering promotions and deals doesn’t guarantee sales. However, if your store can offer year-round free shipping with planned promotions and deals, it can help with your cart abandonment. As we mentioned earlier, one of the reasons for cart abandonment is unforeseen additional shipping costs. Advertising your free shipping in your promotions as well as stating it clearly on your website and throughout a customer’s checkout experience will show your customers that your site is trustworthy. 

If you can’t offer free shipping for every item on your website, create free shipping for a specific dollar amount. For example, free shipping off orders of $50 or more. If your store has sales, promote this alongside your deals and clearly on your website as well so that customers don’t feel the free shipping policy wasn’t clear. 

Utilize Social Media

Social media sites like Facebook, Instagram, and TikTok give small business owners a way to promote your sales, promotions, and products in a unique way, Making business profiles on these sites gives you the chance to speak with your customers, both new and old, in real-time. Don’t be afraid to be creative! Use different holidays throughout the year to highlight specific products and deals. Record videos with your staff to show your customers who they’re supporting through their orders. Build polls to see what kinds of products and content your customers would like to see to boost your engagement. Maintaining relationships with your customers will help your business to stand out. 

Feeling social? Check out User Generated Content Strategy: Encouraging Customers to Share the Love. 

Learn more

Provide Good Customer Service

Reaching out to a business’s customer service team is sometimes stressful. The reasons can range from asking about the status of an order to asking for a refund for an incorrect order. If your customers have to reach out to your business, providing excellent customer service can completely transform an interaction from negative to positive. 

If your business receives a high volume of questions, create an FAQ section on your website to potentially answer some of the more commonly asked questions you’ve answered. If you aren’t able to immediately respond to contact forms and/or email, have an automatic response that will send to your customer thanking them for reaching out and for their patience to let them know you’ve received their message. Be personalized in your responses so that your customers know they’re speaking with a real person. Most of your customers will appreciate all of the efforts you’ve placed into your customer service, especially during the busier times of the year.

Conclusion

While the holiday season is the busiest time of the year, keeping sales up year-round is important. Note where your site can be more user-friendly by adding multiple payment methods and fewer pages between your customers and their final checkout where possible. Give your customers the option for free shipping and the ability to check out as a guest where you can. Get creative on social media to promote your products and connect with your customers directly. Focus on customer service so that during the holiday season, you can ease your customers’ stress. Taking the time to boost your sales will keep things merry and bright year-round. 

Our gift to you is another blog! For more year-round business ideas, check out Post Holiday Shipping Considerations.

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Baillee Perkins

Baillee Perkins is a writer of shipping by day and pop culture by night, so her Google search history is an actual nightmare.

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