E-commerce is on the rise and has been steadily growing over the course of the last ten years. Much of this growth can be attributed to many behavioural economic factors including consumer spending habits and online purchasing trust levels. People feel more and more comfortable purchasing goods, or even services, online due to the rise of convenient drop shipping and social interactions.
But there is another major driver towards the increase in e-commerce sales over the past few years – online marketing techniques. Creative techniques and exciting marketing implementations have created an arena of e-commerce juggernauts, as well as profitable entrepreneurial start-ups. Simple user buying methods implemented every single day allow for the industry to continue to grow and prosper in a world where attention spans are shorter than online transactions.
If you’re interested in growing your online business, regardless of what your selling, here are a few of the niche marketing stunts that you wouldn’t believe actually work.
The Triggers that Drive Sales
Dynamic Shopping Carts – Static websites are becoming a thing of the past, and if you truly want to compete on the e-commerce platform, the proper use of your shopping cart and checkout process is a good place to start. First and foremost, buying confidence is a large contributor to online sales, in addition to convenience and user-experience. Amazon may have an excellent selection of products, but people continue to come back for the service and experience Amazon provides. The checkout process is seamless and integrated into the shopping experience, where the consumer can see what they are buying while they continue to shop. In addition, Amazon stores PayPal and bank account information on servers protected by high-end, sophisticated encryption codes. As a user, you feel a level of safety as well as convenience that brings forth a call to action. There are many third-party plug-in software products for beginners or companies on a budget that provide many of the features Amazon provides and may help you build your user-base through great shopping cart design and functionality features.
BOGOF offers – The classical buy one, get one free is a great way to attract new customers to your website. Often companies spend so much money and time building user-bases with online marketing techniques and advertisements that drive traffic, but lack the essential call to action for users to become buyers. Particularly with the launch of new products, “Buy One, Get One Free,” is a great way to drive sales and create interest. The best way to set this up on e-commerce is offering the deal ahead of time – in order to drive people to the site for a given reason. This will increase the conversion time and send people happily on their way. Use social media, online advertising, and great branding slogans to attract customers with BOGOF offers. Although profit margins may be low, increasing the price of one and offering another for free will still drive people to buy and provide favourable margins. This is a technique many large retail stores and e-commerce companies use when selling products holding off cash flows and bogging down inventories.
Offer Dynamic Pricing or Multi-Level Pricing Structures – Dan Ariely, a well-known professor of behavioural economics, has conducted many studies on irrational behavior and buying habits of consumers around the world. One of his most famous discussions is his TED talk on what makes consumers do certain things. He did a study with an online newspaper subscription site where the company had three choices for subscriptions with three different price levels. The basic was $19.99; the intermediate was $29.99, and the all-inclusive premium was also $29.99. Later he found out the premium was priced on accident at $29.99 and should have been $39.99, even though the differences between the intermediate and premium subscription were minimal. When the company changed the price, sales dropped exponentially! Why was this? Dr. Ariely concluded that people were more likely to buy when they believed they were getting a deal and saw value in the purchase. Pricing is very important, but offering unique dynamic pricing structures can help drive sales and capture the multiple income levels of customers.
Matthew Hall is an experience eCommerce entrepreneur who just sold off his last business at a major profit and writes to keep himself busy until he’s ready to start up his next one. For making sure you have an effective checkout process he highly recommends going to www.fastspring.com/. You can learn more about Matthew by visiting him on Google+.
Photo by Brith-Marie Warn from FreeImages
