12 ‘Do’s’ and ‘Don’ts of E-Commerce – Part One

BE TRUE TO YOUR BRAND

Your brand is the single most important investment you can make in your business.

Your web design, logo, color palette and copy ‘tone’ all represent the very heart of your brand. Guard these attributes like a hawk and be finicky about keeping them consistent across everything from social media posts to product descriptions. Consistency creates trust and trust creates loyal customers.

ANALYZE THE CUSTOMER JOURNEY

There are two big questions here. And you need to be able to answer ‘yes’ to both:

  1) Do you know how your customer prefers to buy your products or services? 

2) Does your e-commerce process reflect the way your customer buys? 

A good customer journey is the path to more business and more revenue.

GIVE ‘ROCKSTAR’ SERVICE

No matter how strong your web presence, people need to feel that there are real flesh-and-blood humans behind it. Jump into the conversation with your customers – answer inquiries, make suggestions, solve problems. Look to give them a positive experience at every touch point. Or , perhaps, this: “Hold the customer at the heart of the business because without the customer there is no business.”

HANDLE YOUR EMAIL LIST WITH CARE

A good email list is worth its weight in gold. It has an ability that many channels don’t: Creating valuable, personal touches – at scale. According to Shopify, the secret to building your list is all about “getting permission and providing value.”

To get permission, think about what incentives or high-quality content you can create in order to drive sign-ups and to add value, focus on sending your subscribers a balanced mix of more high-quality content with occasional sales and promotional messages mixed in.

FIND YOUR TRIBE

Businesses are built on word of mouth, click, tweet and post these days. Use social media to create a community around your brand. Actively engage with your audience – listen to them, respond to them, surprise and delight them, and, most importantly, allow them to be part of the conversation around your brand. Your followers on Facebook, Instagram and Twitter could turn out to be your best salespeople. 

ENSURE YOUR VISITORS ARE SECURE

A survey by Avira, the security software company, found that 30% of consumers are still actually worried when they buy online. Make sure you have SSL (Secure Sockets Layer) certification that’s visible on your checkout page. That ‘s’ in ‘https’ is a very reassuring letter.

There’s more coming, but – for now – does your E-Commerce business cover these points? Do you have any further ideas that you ‘live by’? let me know in the Comments.