This year most eCommerce stores are already preparing for the Q4 and holidays since the delivery times for the products are still long. Companies are stalking up with products in hopes that they will be able to sell them.
There are multiple reasons why this year is terrifying – the economic market is currently unstable, the delivery times for the companies are incredibly long, and the marketing costs are going up.
Companies have started optimizing their conversion rates and average order values. But how?
We will look at ways you can best prepare for this year’s Q4 to optimize your profits and get the most out of Q4!
Changes on your website
One of the most important aspects of cost optimization is having a well-optimized website for the best conversions and average order value. Simple to say, but harder to do. Especially if adding new features to your website takes a long time.
Besides having a website with a fast loading time and a simple interface so that your customers easily navigate to your checkout page, there are smaller up-sell methods that will boost your sale.
The first one is adding sufficient numbers of testimonials to your website. Social proof is one of the best ways to persuade your visitors to trust the website and the quality of your products. Usually, testimonials are shown under the product’s primary information, but in the end, it all depends on the type of website.
Another simple way to optimize the number of conversions is by showing trust icons and icons of all the available payment methods your site supports. Usually, these icons are shown above and below the footer – and sometimes under the “Add to cart” button on the product page.
Having your site fully prepared with testimonials and trust icons that affect the conversion rate, you should consider adding frequently asked questions to various parts of your site – on the product page, checkout page, and even as a separate subpage. The reason for adding frequently asked questions is that your visitors do not have to send you an email or find other ways to contact you; they can just find the answer on the page and buy the product the same day.
These are the main ways of optimizing your conversion rates. But what about optimizing your average order value?
This is done by offering Up-Selling and Cross-Selling products on various parts of your website. One well-known example is when you have an additional offer under the “Add to cart” button, where it says: “People usually both these two products together”. Most of the time, 2-3 different products are shown that are complimentary to the one the visitor is currently looking at.
Additionally, you can show Up-Sell products or services on the cart and checkout page. These are usually cheaper products/services, like gift wrapping, priority shipping, a surprise gift,…
Be personal
Having a personal touch with your customers is extremely important as you not only grow your brand, but in the flood of various online shops, you need to stand out and be remembered. And how better can you do that by being more personal than your competitors?
So, how to do it? Ecommerce companies use emails and text messages to stay connected with their customers. Emails have been used for ages, but text messages have become helpful because some companies offer a simple way to integrate text messages into websites with all the necessary settings available at the touch of a button.
Being more personal just means sending relevant information to your customers – if they bought a product from a specific category, send them information about the special offer only from their category. Add their names into the conversation, remind them what they bought and ask them to leave a review.
Keep your customers informed about what you do and keep them engaged with your company. The best way to be personal is to stay in touch with your customers!
Test different marketing channels
What marketing channels do most eCommerce companies use? Emails, Facebook Messenger,… What else? Have you tried text messages? What about sending a coupon code via regular post?
Because most Ecommerce companies use only emails to keep in touch with their customers, we will mainly focus on why they do not use only emails as a marketing channel.
Emails have an open rate lower than 20% and a CTR lower than 3%. Recipients need to be segmented and receive only emails suited to them. Only this way can you achieve a solid open rate. Have you considered using text messages to stay in touch with customers?
Text messages have an open rate of 93% within the first 3 minutes of receiving them. Overall, their open rate is 99%, and their click-through rate is up to 40%. You can not even compare emails and text messages.
So, why have you not started using text messages as a marketing channel?
In the article “Different uses of text messages in Marketing,” you can find examples of how you can integrate text messages into your marketing campaigns.
Still not convinced? Check out some statistical insights in what text messages can do for your business: Interesting text message statistics in Ecommerce.
The main point is that testing new channels and even returning to old ones can give you better results than sticking to what you have already used for years. Innovation is critical when it comes to eCommerce.
Test different marketing platforms
Just like with marketing channels, you should test out various new platforms that offer marketing your products. For years this has been done on Google and Facebook.
In the past years, we have seen an increase in new possibilities, where you can advertise your products and services. One of them is YouTube, currently known for its low prices to promote its videos.
Another relatively new platform (at the time of the writing), TikTok, as a new social platform, is showing great potential as a new leading platform for marketing.
Let us not forget advertising on LinkedIn, Xing, Pinterest, and many other websites with millions of daily visitors.
But how many of the above-mentioned marketing platforms have you tested, and which one does it suit your needs with the appropriate demographics? No matter the answer, testing and comparing the results is the only way to honestly know the answer.
Recover abandoned carts
Although this could be mentioned under the title “Changes on your website”, as it is related to the conversion rate and average order value, this is such an important subject that we decided to mention it separately.
An abandoned cart is when a visitor adds products to the shopping cart, gets to the checkout, and abandons the cart. So, you spent marketing money to get the visitor on the site, and he was interested in buying the product. But something got in the way.
Recovering that visitor for a low cost can greatly increase the number of daily orders and significantly impact your Return on ad spend.
A typical return of investment for text messages is 2400%, which we at CartBoss calculated based on a large number of user statistics. This means that text messages will generate new daily orders on autopilot.
Recovering abandoned carts with text messages is a solution developed by CartBoss. It has everything already prepared and ready for you to start recovering abandoned visitors in minutes.
