In the last few decades, the e-commerce industry has grown in popularity. During the peak of the pandemic in 2020, e-retail sales exceeded a staggering $4.2 trillion mark worldwide.  In fact, it might even be safe to say that e-commerce has changed the landscape of businesses, posing a threat to traditional stores that were not wise and fast enough to adapt to the emerging trend. 

While the advances are quite significant, e-commerce still leaves so much room for growth. The ever-evolving technology means there are bound to change that entrepreneurs and business owners need to keep up with. If you are one of the millions who run an online store, you will want to be up to date with the latest trends and developments if you want to maximize profitability and ensure that your business will grow and thrive in the long run.

This means striving to understand the different aspects of e-commerce. As an entrepreneur, it is important that you do not stop learning. We’ve prepared some of the essential facts that you don’t know about e-commerce.

E-commerce is Not that Different from Traditional Stores

An eCommerce store and a traditional shop share many similarities. The fundamentals of a brick-and-mortar store is still applied in its online counterpart. This includes giving visitors a great first impression, whether one is talking about a physical store or an online shop.

An e-commerce store still needs to conduct a thorough market research to get to know its target customers, competitors, and the latest industry trends. While traditional retail businesses sell their goods in person, they still use the same promotional tactics and marketing channels as most online shops. This includes social media, email marketing, and paid advertising.

Another marketing tactic that both business methods share is the use of incentives in promoting their products. Discounts, giveaways, and limited-time offers are effective in attracting customers.

Market Research and Customer Persona Are Important

A business can only do so much without a strong and loyal customer base. However, this can only be maximized if you take the time to delve deep into your chosen market and get to know your audience. Conducting market research cannot be stressed enough. It will tell you where you sit in the market, what you need to do in order to stand out from the competition, and how you will incorporate the current trends to your own strategy.

A good market research will also reveal your customers. To fully take advantage of this knowledge, you must be able to create a customer profile of your usual customers in order to better provide them with a good customer experience, identify their pain points, and position your product offers in a way that is highly valuable to them.

 A customer persona will serve as your guide in many aspects of and business strategy, from launching new products and pricing to promoting and marketing them. You will need to consider the following important traits when you create a customer persona:

Demographics

This will include information like age and gender. It is important to know these things about your prospects so you will whether your products will suit them and how you will be able to sell it to them. You can label and categorize your products in your online shop through these demographics, too. For example, you can create specific product pages for men and women apparel.

Location

If you are selling from a specific region, it might be a good idea to include this bit in your customer profile. You can also use this information to tailor your product offers according to their location. For example, if you are selling worldwide, people in Australia will experience summer during December. This means they won’t be able to relate with your winter product lines. It is better to customize the products they will be seeing in your shop according to where they are in the world.

Education

Your marketing strategy is more effective if you are able to match the academic level of your typical customers. People with different educational background will often have different incomes, which means they will demand for different types of offers and promotional messages.

Interests and Personal Beliefs

Getting into your customers’ heads is important if you want your strategy to be effective. You should know their motivations, fears, and challenges. What do they want and need? What keeps them awake at night? What keeps them going? Knowing all of these will help you set a great value proposition that is hard to resist.

When you are running ads on Google or Facebook, gender and age can be used to better define your target audience. The same can be said about location, education, and interests. You can choose to show your ads to people of specific age group, for example. You can also opt to target women only for particular products. This way, your ads will become more effective as you are only targeting the most relevant audiences.

Creating Compelling Product Descriptions is a Must

While many people are visual, product descriptions are still an integral part of every online shop experience. putting up detailed product descriptions will help your customers make a sound purchasing decision. This is even more relevant because online products cannot be examined physically. Customers often rely on product descriptions to determine whether it is the right fit for them or not.

Here are some tips that you should keep in mind when creating product descriptions:

•   It has to be original and faithfully describe the item with technical specifications and all.
•   For products that need it, a detailed instruction is quite useful.
•   While it is important that you describe the products properly, you should also make sure that the benefits are laid out.

Producing Informative and Entertaining Content is an Advantage

Many consumers take the time to do a product research first before deciding to purchase. That is why most online businesses create blogs and produce informative, educational, and entertaining content. After all, it is always better to educate first and sell later. Nowadays, traditional advertising is losing its touch. Customers will want to get to know a brand first and learn about its product offers before they can completely put their trust into it.

Your content should include product demos, benefits, and features. You should also make sure to discover the problems faced by your target audience and create content that help them come up with solutions. They will appreciate it if they can get value out of your content. Even on days where they do not plan of buying from you, seeing and reading your content will always keep your brand on the top of their minds. This means they will think of you first once they are ready to buy.

Social Media Can Supplement Your E-Commerce Shop

Everyone, it seems, is on social media. You will be missing out a lot if you have not established a social media presence at this day and age. Social media platforms like Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, TikTok, and more are great sources of online traffic.

Promoting your products on your social channels will allow you to link back to your online store and take advantage of increased traffic to convert as many customers as possible. Investing in the best Instagram growth service such as Mr Insta vs will be excellent. However, Kicksta is known to be the best in its services by providing organic real Instagram followers to your account which will be great in promoting your products and building a brand for your business. These organic Instagram followers will be your prospective loyal customers as well. A lot of consumers use social media as some kind of research tool, too. They look up brands they are not sure of to see their product offers and read product reviews.

 Another way to utilize the power of social media is to integrate social media buttons into your shop. You can put a social media button next to your product so customers can click and share it on their own social channels, which will be a good way to market your products without actually paying for it. This will help a lot if solidifying your brand identity and enhance brand recognition.

 Retargeting is a Good Way to Capture Missed Opportunities

 Yes, you have driven thousands of visitors into your online store. Yes, they explored your product pages and added items into their carts. But you find that a lot of them abandoned their carts without proceeding to checkout. Some might give up and call it a day.

 Smart online businesses will turn this into a golden opportunity. You can do the same. Retargeting your shop visitors can be a very effective marketing tactic. You can do this by sending them a follow up email if they are already a subscriber, telling them they have products waiting in their cart and now may be the right time to buy them as you are offering a limited offer of 30% discount.

 You can also run retargeting ads on Google or Facebook to recapture visitors who did not convert into paying customers.

 Providing an Exceptional Customer Experience is Beneficial

The beauty of an e-commerce store is that it can operate 24/7. This means you need to provide customer support round the clock, too. People do not choose a time to shop online, or they could be anywhere in the world and will not be sharing the same time zone as you. You have to be prepared to answer their questions and assist them with their concerns.

 This is where chat bots will come in. Automating responses to frequently asked questions can save you a lot of time and effort. Plus, you will be able to be present at all times to aid customer experience and satisfaction.

 Final Thoughts

 What we have listed as essential things might not be totally unknown to you. However, they are important enough for you to keep in mind if you want your online business not only to grow but also to thrive in an ever-competitive world. They will help you make sure that you are always considering the essential elements that can make or break an ecommerce shop.