It’s really hard to know that after all the struggles here and there to get your e-commerce business running, you are still not making the best of sales that you should be making. Trust me, it can be very frustrating. This is the time you feel that your business should be paying off but it’s just not the case.

Investigation

Well, if you are going through this right now, it means there is something wrong somewhere that you will need to investigate. There are a few questions you would have to ask yourself to help you investigate.

1. Is my e-commerce website one of the best that there is, in terms of navigation, finding items, easy access, and organization?
2. Are the hot commodities in the market now, part of my list?
3. Do I have the best courier services for making deliveries?
4. How do my customer services attend to my customers?

If you can find the right answers to these questions, you might as well be on your way to finding out why you are not making enough sales. The answers to these questions are the many reasons why many e-commerce sites like yours are not making the right amount of sales.

Solution

After finding out where the problem is, be it website branding, lack of moving goods, poor courier services or customer services, below are the steps you should take in terms of

1.      Website built and branding

The reason why most people shop online is that, they want to avoid queues, because it’s fast, convenient, there are varieties and good prices.

If I were a customer, and I visited your e-commerce site, and, had problems finding what I needed, couldn’t find details about the items I want to buy, and the organisation was poor and all that, do you think I will come back again if I need something. I may not even buy from you because you are no different from the supermarket near me. Appearance is very important as it gives the first impression about your website. So, you might want to

1. Find a good but simple name that can be easily typed, easy to pronounce and very catchy. Remember that your name is the gateway to your website and the more easily people get along with it, the more your website will come to their mind when they want to buy online.

2. Find a professional website developer to work on your website. It might be expensive but, of what use will it be having a cheap website that no one will visit. Remember, a good website is not one with flashy graphics here and there. It’s one that gives people what they want. Convenience, easy access, simple flow of activity and clear view.

3. Make efforts to promote your website. There are many ways that you can promote your website. Starting from, and very importantly SEO (search engine optimization) which makes it easy for people to find your website on Google, MSN, Yahoo, social media marketing and brand development.

SEO might be a little expensive if you are starting up, but you can always start with social media marketing as that one is cheaper. But if you have the power, combine them both.

2.      Products offered on your website.

What kind of products is available on your website? Are you the manufacturer of the products or you are a distributor? Or, a market place where people places their products for sale?

If you were a distributor, make sure that the products that everybody is looking for are part of your list. It’s not that hard to find out which product is selling really fast at a particular time. You just have to look around. Currently, phones, laptops, and fashion wares are doing very well online; make sure you have them listed.

If you were a manufacturer, you would want to consider alternatives like product differentiation, pricing, and satisfaction. Perhaps you are not the only manufacturer of that product, so you would have to make the consumer want to come to you.

3.      Courier services

Most e-commerce websites owners especially start-ups, usually think it’s cheaper and easier to run your own courier services. After all, is it not just picking the products and sending to the customer when there is an order? Well, that is truly the way it should be but, maybe you should ask the giants like eBay, Amazon, and Walmart why they opt for professional courier services.

Partnering with a professional courier service provider will enable you to deliver on time, avoid damages to orders due to unprofessional handling,  avoid customs troubles and also give you enough time to focus on your e-commerce site. You can read more about the benefits of e-commerce courier service partnership

It’s recommended that you partner with a good courier services provider, if not for anything, for the fact that, delivery is what they do and delivery is part of what you do, so they are always going to be better than you.

4.      Customer service

This is one place you don’t want to play around with. There should be no compromise of any form in customer services. This is where people get to know the true character of your business in general and if they get the wrong impression, it’s going to be very hard to correct.

Make sure that you have the best professionals behind your customer care desks. People, who can keep it simple yet professional, people who understand the needs of the customers and people who are well equipped with the right information to solve the problems of customers.

When you have made sure of all of the above, customers will have little choices than to choose you at any time. This is because your site will look very attractive, you would have a very simple name that customers can easily type, you would have the products they are looking for, you always deliver on time and undamaged, and they get the best of customer services from your customer service personnel.

It’s only after this that you will get the sales growth that your business deserves. On top of that, it would no longer be hard to increase sales with strategies like discounts, sales promotions, and special offers.