8 Ideas to Help You Increase Your Online Business

Technology advancement is directly affecting the consumer behavior and smart marketing strategies must be formed by considering futuristic approach. I have seen most of the brands brainstorming on ideas that can facelift their online branding by implementing this approach. Some times online businesses fails to understand their target audiences and as a result they can not generate expected ROI. In this article I will cover such unique ideas which are still in development stage and will really help you to tailor your customer’s experience with innovative concepts for your online business.

How does going online benefit you?

We are living in a world of digitalization and it is necessary for everyone to build their internet presence. Every aspect of our lives, from working to shopping, is done online. How can one afford to lose this opportunity to grow their business? Building a brand online has a number of benefits. For instance,

• It helps in accessing a large number of customer base from around the world.
• The operating cost of the business is reduced significantly.
• Builds trust and credibility for your brand.
• It saves time, money, and easy availability for the customers.
• Increased sales and after sales services.
• It creates brand awareness with potential customers.
• It helps in building a relationship with the customer.
• Faster delivery of the products and feedback.

#1 Provide Tailored Shopping Recommendation based on Data Point analysis

If you have been following Amazon or Flipkart recently, you may as well have noticed the recommendation section after you login. This section presents products that you have previously viewed and products that have been frequently bought by customers looking for the search results you are currently entered. Provide recommendations which are based on your customer’s buying history and behavior.

Understand customer’s needs through their style graph which can largely determined by buying analysis. As a result, your eCommerce platform can present better recommendations and deeper discounts on products that really matters your audience. Promotional mails created in the right format and integrating well researched products can do the job.

#2 Personal Feel

These are the days of personalization and customization. Customers are already informed in what is best for them and where to get them from. However, they would be looking up to shopping sites to present something unique. Every shopping platform in the retail category sells sports shoes, but you can hope to make a difference only by bringing in special products. Be it local handicrafts of a region that are scarcely available for online customers or limited edition books, unique always make the cut. Think of ways in which you can appeal to the exclusive audience.

Goldbely is one of the best examples in this category. A Fancy Food Delivery startup, Goldbely has been able to come up with a unique service idea. This is perhaps the only service of its kind in USA that will be able to deliver customers Lou Malnati, Chicago signature deep dish pizza and Skyline Chile from Cincinnati to New York in a matter of hours! This is perfect for customers who have a craving for special foods. The success has been so impactful that Goldbely has recently acquired Intel Capital’s seed fund worth $3 million.

Also Read: 9 Breakthrough Tips to Grow Your Yoga Business from the Scratch

#3 Fast and Better User Experience can win half the battle

Whatever brand you may be, whatever products or service you may be selling, you are never far from competition. Many websites suffer from slow loading pages and the visitor is instantly encouraged to look for a different service provider/competing website. User experience has been voted to be the most important factor in visitor conversion and if your website isn’t fast enough, it automatically falls out. Now looking into the root, longer loading time is caused by bigger images, heavy graphics, complicated interface, heavy forms, and slow server speeds. However, it doesn’t also imply that bigger web pages need to be slow.

Taking instartlogic.com for instance, faster website performance is triggered by the use of Software-Defined Application Delivery (SDAD), front end optimization and faster content delivery frameworks. Complimenting services would include image trans coding, instant loading, flash/HTML streaming, DDoS Protection, Global Network Accelerator, PCI Compliance, etc. Accolades include the “Cool Vendor 2014” award by Gartner. They do offer guaranteed 20% faster solutions than any CDN.

#4 Offer Earning Opportunities

Every artist has a definitive mindset and will create products that are more or less similar. Appointing a team of designers with varied interests and different ways of thinking is the best way to come up with a well defined product line. However, there’s a limit to the number of artist you can appoint! For brands looking to get unique concepts, the world can be the workplace. There are many companies that bring in freelance talent and artists to give themselves a global edge. These freelancers are well paid for their work but the website too earns a lot of credibility and revenue by selling it back to the customers!

Tee Spring has successfully implemented this eco-system and achieved huge success. TeeSpring enable people to design and sell their own t-shirts and keep all the profit and as a result has a huge inventory of unique products to sell. Tee Spring is the only commerce for everyone platform unlocking earning opportunities for entrepreneur, artist or anyone across the globe and it’s a kind of workplace that every artist would love to contribute. Well, everyone is a winner here!

#5 Let Customers Bargain for the price

If you ever visited a roadside market in India, you must be acquainted with bargaining. Bargaining is a way of agreement upon price between both the customer and the seller. While the seller feels happy that he/she got the product at a satisfactory price, sellers do also keep their cut on the original price. The advantage? Well, every customer comes up with a different price. If your base selling price is 300 currencies, the customer might take it in 300 or even in 500 depending on his personality and paying capability. The seller is never at a loss but the customer is equally satisfied. Bargaining however is not a usual thing in the online marketplace. However, it can also be your brand’s competitive advantage in competitive market.

A striking example would be Green Toe which allows its customers to call their price inclusive of shipping and taxes. As a result, the site is popular among retailers and the one to match the customer price gets to sell his product. Unique, Indeed!

#6 Offer Personalized Promos

Some customers are more in favor of cash back on purchase than discounts. Some want their buy to be accompanied by a free accessory while others want an offer code on their whole cart. Offering such personalized promotional offers to customers can be a unique marketing advantage. While every customer asks for the least price, discounts can take several forms. Not everyone is comfortable with a “Buy 2, get 1 Free” offer. They might not need three products, but would rather pay a dollar extra for a single product if its suits the wallet.

Personalized promos can be a competitive advantage in upcoming time. If you check out Shopular, the personalized promotions have been helping in increasing the visitor conversion and ROI to a great extent. You would at once feel to have complete freedom on your purchase.

#7 Quick and Best Service can win the customers

The two differences between offline and online shops is the customer’s ability to get a first hand feel of the product and bringing it home and using immediately. A transaction is not complete until the product is safely delivered to the customer. In the era of “Cash on delivery”, this is in fact an important part of the customer experience. Today’s customers are willing to pay extra for fast delivery and high quality of service. On the other hand, any problem in the delivery process can bring quite a lot of discredit.

A good example would be Spoon Rocket, an online retail store specializing in fast food delivery process. The popularity of this platform has growth to an extent that it has been growing by 10% every week since its inception. Further, Spoon Rocket boasts of a 40% repeated customer rate! All of this has been made possible by a highly appreciable median delivery time of 6.5 minutes.

The retail business is not easy these days. Not only is the competition increasing but the customers are more informed and demanding. By providing unique and innovative services and facilities, you can not only beat your competitors but also built loyal customer base.

#8 Provide a discount to early subscribers

To make your business run when you are just starting out to get more customers. There are many market strategies that will allow you to do business in an effective way. One such way is to give discounts to early customers or first-time visitors. Giving discounts to early subscribers is the best way to boost your online business. If you are ready to offer discounts in the initial stages, it will surely work and increase the sales. You can opt for different ways to give discounts like through coupons, deals or in cash against the regular price. Another way is to give discounts to customers who pay through digital media or to the first ten customers.

Once prices are reduced, it puts the human psychology to work and nobody wants to miss out on the offers. Giving discounts may only for a limited number of customers but it will gain your business a large number of customers.

Over to you!

Are you one of this start-up and have implemented such innovative concept in your businesses? I would love to hear you!

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