Success in the ecommerce industry is hard-earned, as well as hard-measured. Traditionally, ecommerce success has been measured by revenue or market share. While these are definitely important, success can also be attributed to smaller, more subtle reasons. Your business doesn’t have to be at the top of its industry, raking in millions of dollars in revenue, to be considered “successful,” but it would surely be nice. After all, to see increased revenue, businesses have to set themselves up for it. Here are some ways we recommend to measure if your business is successful in the ecommerce industry. For struggling or new businesses, this can also serve as a roadmap to success.
Website Traffic
The first way we measure ecommerce success is by online store visibility. No matter what you’re selling, it does not matter unless your website experiences traffic. Easier said than done, right? Well, here are a few ways to improve your website traffic:
- Develop an effective marketing strategy that accurately represents your brand. What kind of impression do you want your business to make?
- Incorporate this strategy across all channels, including your website, social media platforms, newsletters, or any other way your business interacts with its customers.
- Invest in paid campaigns on Google and social media. This improves your SEO ranking and gets people clicking into your website.
- Speaking of social media, spend a lot of time developing these channels, as they are the primary forms of online interaction. If people are impressed with your Instagram ads, they will check out your web store.
- Adapt your marketing strategies as your business grows. It’s never a bad idea to shake things up.
Now that your business has these strategies in place to improve traffic, you must determine which channels are the best sources of traffic. This helps you know which channels deserve higher investment, need more work, or should be completely abandoned.
Website Accessibility
Another way to measure your online business’s ecommerce success is by its accessibility. For any online store that experiences traffic, this should be one of its top priorities. Fast load times, easy site navigation, and a simple path to purchase are simple features that make a world of difference to customers. Follow these tips to make your business’s online store more user-friendly:
- Compress all website images. Determining consistent image dimensions that are not too pixel dense and not too low quality are key to load webpages more quickly.
- Use Content Delivery Networks, or CDNs. These boost the response time of your website, potentially transforming its user experience.
- Eliminate redirect chains. Nothing is more annoying than constantly getting redirected to different pages. This not only slows your website down but greatly hinders its user experience.
Streamlining your website as much as possible not only keeps customers from shopping elsewhere, but improves your ecommerce success.
Shopping Cart Abandonment Rate
Speaking of shopping elsewhere, that is exactly what you don’t want your website visitors to do. A high shopping cart abandonment rate is essentially the opposite of ecommerce success, telling you more about how many potential customers your business loses than gains.
In 2019, the average cart abandonment rate was 77.13%. (Source: Barilliance)
To reduce this behavior, follow these steps to make customers as happy as possible.
- Do not require shoppers to make an account. Once they click the cart button and pull out their wallets, the last thing customers want to do is waste their time creating an account for their website that they may never use again. There are other ways to gather buying data that don’t make shoppers abandon their carts.
- Communicate transparent prices. Not revealing an item’s full price until payment can shock customers into abandoning their carts.
- Ensure customers that their financial and personal information is secure. This builds trust in your products and brand.
- Ask for feedback after purchase. This makes customers feel as if their voice is heard, gives your business valuable information, and makes great marketing material.
Following these customer-friendly steps helps reduce cart abandonments and promotes repeat customers, another great way to measure ecommerce success.
Retail Readiness
Your business cannot experience ecommerce success if it is not ready for it. While website traffic, accessibility, and a streamlined purchasing path are essential to success, nothing moves customers more than product content. Companies like Apple or Nike receive a large amount of traffic from marketing, but once customers go online, they are blown away by perfected product listings. Even if your company is not aiming to be like Apple or Nike, there are great things to learn from studying the greats.
- Product copy is a huge pillar of conversion. Your listings must master the less-is-more approach of giving customers all necessary information without using large amounts of off-putting text.
- Product imagery is just as, if not more, important than copy. The modern shopper doesn’t just want to see what a product looks like—they want to experience it through interactive mediums like augmented reality.
- Product videos engage shoppers more than static images. The best videos tell stories about product manufacturing or brand history.
- User-generated content, like product reviews or Q&A sections, is another great marketing tool that gives customers additional information and testimonials to help them make a purchasing decision. The last thing you want is a confused and frustrated shopper.
Is your business ready for ecommerce success? If you’ve followed our guide, then you’re on the right track. However, success is easier said than done. Some businesses lack the knowledge or expertise necessary to develop marketing strategies, streamline their website, or create compelling content. It is always a good idea invest content agencies, like Tulfa, to handle the creative workload.
