7 Ways You Are Killing Your B2C Ecommerce Sales

With the changing times, many of us look forward to starting our own business and take charge of our future. And the internet has made this goal easier and accessible than ever.  E-commerce is a great field to explore startup business. However, not everyone can chase the exciting online avenues for success.

Today, you need the internet for almost everything as it is the first port of call for the consumers. The growth of B2C e-commerce is incredible but it does not mean that all e-commerce businesses are making money consistently. 

The idea of starting an e-commerce company seems interesting but the industry is not all rainbows and unicorns. It can be very difficult to know the right way to start an ecommerce business and generate revenue. You might be ignoring some crucial everyday things that are not only harming your business but gradually killing it. 

Don't believe us? let's run a check and see if you are facing these issues with your website, orders, returns, promotions, customer services, payment, etc. 

Top 7 ways you are killing your B2C e-commerce sales and tips to avoid mistakes and increase your online revenue

Turn your cards around by realizing the e-commerce mistakes and ways to overcome them…!!

1. Not delivering Omni-channel experience to customers

There is an end number of touchpoints for customers like they can contact your customer support, visit your website, leave a message on social media pages, contact on live chat, etc. If you are not available on any of these channels, it will destroy the overall customer experience and will be dumped for your tech-savvy competitors.

The right strategy is to equip your  teams with the right technology and  to serve maximum customers across multiple channels and touchpoints. The first step is to identify the key channels that are most important for your customers. Then after, integrate and optimize the selected set of channels by adding personalized messages and offering one-on-one interactions. 

StoreHippo gives you various options to keep in touch via online chat, ticketing system integration, notification at various steps of ordering and much more. You can easily power up your communications and unify the experience of your customers with email, SMS, push, and web notifications.

2. Shopping cart abandonment

It is one of the major issues in an e-commerce business, even the top e-commerce players are unable to solve this problem. Most of the e-commerce giants witness huge losses due to abandonment of the shopping cart. This concern is very important because the customer has already completed the initial steps of sales funnel, and exits without placing the order. It happens due to various reasons but the most common reason is complicated checkout process. If the customers get confused while checking out, they are most likely to give up and exit without making a purchase. 

To avoid shopping cart abandonment, make the checkout process simple and do not ask the customers to set up an account before placing the order. Eliminate all obstacles in their way of placing the order and adding themselves to your email list. Try to engage with customers at key stages of their purchase journey to reduce the dropout possibilities. Finally, do not ever surprise your customers with any kind of unexpected fees or terms and conditions. 

StoreHippo provides a one-stop solution to deal with the problem of cart abandonment. You can recover up to 40% of incomplete checkouts with the inbuilt follow-up features. The detailed abandoned cart insights are provided to help the e-commerce businesses convert maximum orders. You can get details of customer, order, and complete customer behavior insights. The drip-mails are also used to take regular follow-up with the customers at selected time intervals. 

3. Not accepting the modern selling approach

Many of the B2C e-commerce business owners still believe in old school selling approaches that lack important insights about customer behavior and buying patterns. You already have a business plan, products, and a website but do you understand your target audience?  

One of the biggest mistakes of e-commerce business owners is not defining the target audience. In every B2C business, you need to keep your ideal customers in mind and then create a customer profile. It is important to conduct a thorough market research that involves:

• Learning the pain points of customers

• Knowing what adds value to their life

• Addressing how their problems can be solved by your product

• Identifying how they engage with your content and website

• Testing their resonance with the language of the website

This information will help you position the right set of products in front of the right people, and communicate why your products are suitable for them as compared to those of competitors. This data can help you thrive in a dynamic e-commerce environment.  

StoreHippo admin reporting helps you get insights into customer behaviour usings their footprints on your website. Also,  by adding Google analytics you can check various trends of traffic and sources. Using these you can create a better strategy for your business.

4. Product return and refund hassles

Many surveys have confirmed that over 63% of the consumers check the return policy before making the purchase and over 50% will shop more if the B2C e-commerce businesses offer hassle-free returns. It indicates that the consumers are very conscious about return and refund policies. When the product is returned due to any reason, the e-commerce business suffers a major loss in context to shipment expenses and online reputation.

These issues need to be addressed well because the refund and return process is a core part of customer service. It is important to design a strong returns policy and be transparent about all terms and conditions. Use simple language to make everyone understand the policy and outline clearly about the expectations from your side. Moreover, educate your customer support team about return policy. If a bad review about your complicated return process goes viral, or a customer takes an audio/video recording of bad customer service, it can damage the reputation of organization badly. 

5. Missing Brand identity

A strong brand identity is required to disseminate the right brand message in the market. For example, Nike is famous for its products but still, recognized well from its tagline – "Just Do It". The tagline of Nike is simple but very motivating for buyers. It is a big mistake that the quality of products is enough to get sold in the market. You also need an equally strong brand identity that resonates with your target audience.  

If your brand represents high quality, affordability, and trustworthiness, these values should be evident in your branding, marketing, and content.  A strong brand identity enhances customer loyalty and also increases brand awareness across the industry.  

6. Not conducting competitor analysis

E-commerce competition is already at war footing and surviving in it is not a cakewalk. In this competitive era, the same products and services can be offered by your competitors, and may be at a much lower cost. 

So, It becomes mandatory for every e-commerce company to differentiate so as to survive in the market. It is important to place major emphasis on the development of strategy to become one of the top e-commerce businesses in the industry. Also, keep a regular check on the promotional offers provided by competitors, find out the on-demand products, and remove outdated items from your website. And on top of everything, improve customer services to stay ahead of your competitors.  StoreHippo offers a powerful discount engine that helps you set up multi level discounts and promotions. Explore it to create a smart marketing policy.

7. Missing customer loyalty programs

Even with the excellent website design and promotions, the B2C e-commerce business is bound to struggle if the customer trust and loyalty are not maintained well. Customer loyalty remains one of the major challenges in the e-commerce industry because the buyer and seller don't know each other. It is important to ensure that the customer is satisfied with the whole purchase process, from ordering online to delivery. There are many online retailers selling the same product, but you need to identify your competitive advantage and nurture customer services.

To enhance the trust of customers, display social proof like reviews, testimonials, staff pictures, credibility badges, etc. Also, you can add live chat to provide a personalized feel to the online visitors. Creating blogs and loyalty programs also considerably builds trust.  StoreHippo offers tools and features to add reviews, offers a blog engine and helps in creating loyalty wallet wherein you can create points based reward for your customers.

Conclusion

Mistakes are a part of business growth. You just need to experience, learn and grow even better.

Online business is growing bigger every day and getting the biggest slice for your company requires a lot of effort, time and strategy. No doubt, the immense growth of B2B e-commerce market is a major motivation as you can earn tremendous business profitability. 

Always choose to take fruitful learning from your B2C e-commerce business mistakes and never commit them again. The actual return on investment starts coming only when the companies plan and execute diligently and leverage the opportunities. 

The verdict is pretty clear that selling online needs to be fuelled with the right set of strategies to boost e-commerce sales. Do it in the right way with StoreHippo and watch the expediting growth of your online store. A ready feature-rich e-commerce platform to power your online business is waiting for you. Know more about StoreHippo or Leave a comment to schedule a demo with StoreHippo experts.