Growing Your E-commerce Business

Growing your E-COMMERCE BUSINESS As the owner of a small- to medium-sized business, you know the importance of e-commerce in connecting with potential customers. You've experienced the careful planning and effort that went into building and launching your site, perhaps with the guidance of PayPal's infographic "The Startup Roadmap: Getting Your Business Online." But there's still more to do. The good news is that if you take the right steps, you will be poised to tap into the estimated 1.32 billion online shoppers worldwide in 2016.' Here's how to keep your customers faithful and raise awareness of your business. Build trust & loyalty Check your appearance Making sure your site looks professional is important. By paying attention to detail, you send a message of trustworthiness to shoppers. Sloppiness erodes confidence 59% wouldn't buy from a company's site with bad grammar or misspellings.? abc • Misspellings and grammar mistakes make your site look careless. Words make a difference • Call the checkout 40% process a secure rate their trust in checkout. · Ask shoppers to verify, not re-enter their email address. online merchants as very high or somewhat high. Give your site a tuneup A solid site tells shoppers that the entire experience, including privacy and security, will go smoothly. Free services, such as Google Search Console, are available to help you improve your web page. Test your infrastructure Slow-loading pages are deadly. Clean up your site Broken links or images that don't load telegraph sloppiness. Be good to mobile shoppers Estimated $626 billion in global mobile e-commerce in 2018. LOADING... LOADING. LOADING. 52% say website performance (i.e. quick-loading pages) is their top expectation. 40% will leave a website and buy elsewhere if a website is slow. 61% will leave a mobile site if they don't find what they want right away. Display trust seals Security, privacy, and business seals assure customers that their personal and financial details are safe. SSL 69% of security-conscious customers look for websites with trust Security seals Allow secure connections from a web server to a browser. Privacy seals • Must be applied for and cost a fee, but verify that you have a robust Business seals • Verify you as the owner of a reputable and honest symbols. privacy policy. • TRUSTE is one of the largest trust verifiers for e-commerce businesses. company. You'll usually receive a security seal from the company providing you with an SSL certificate. 53% • The Better Business Bureau is the most well- known provider of business seals. recognize the padlock symbol as adding trust. DO showcase the people DON'T hide your contact behind your company with an About Us or Company History section. information - put a prominent link in the header or footer of each page. Study up on SEO Make sure your products show up Shoppers find what they need by typing products into search engines and visiting the first few links. www. Make sure you're stating the purpose of your website clearly in all relevant places • Concise title and header tags tell search engines and users what • Content should incorporate keywords a shopper would use to search for your site. • Image alt tags appear when an image is unavailable. each page is about. • Your URL should be succinct, clean, and easy to understand. SEO can make a difference, but be patiento • 2-4 months to see initial results. •8-12 months to see substantial results. Optimize for mobile You run the risk of losing customer transactions if your site isn't mobile optimized." 56% 31% of US smartphone owners have abandoned a mobile abandoned a mobile trans- action because the site/app was too difficult to navigate. transaction. DO make room for customer product reviews - a majority of shoppers search for these before buying. DON'T directly copy content from other sites or from a product manufacturer - it can hurt your search ranking. Make checkout customer friendly Clear the obstacles One of the biggest headaches for online sellers is shopping cart abandonment. Reduce 68.5% unnecessary checkout steps Avoid complex and confusing checkout average shopping cart abandonment rate, partly due to the checkout process." processes. Don't force shoppers Offer multiple payment options 24% skip their purchase because they don't like the payment options." to create accounts 23% abandon their cart if they have to register." DON'T tack on DO test your checkout process – consider asking friends and family to test the process and alert you of any pitfalls or frustrations. unnecessary steps - save surveys and newsletter signups for the checkout confirmation page. Remind shoppers to come back & buy Don't let them lose interest Remarketing helps you recapture the attention of shoppers who have browsed your site. 20% of marketers in the US, Canada, and the UK have a separate remarketing budget." 50% of marketers plan to increase their remarketing budget. Different types of remarketing Marketers are reminding shoppers to return in various ways. Dabc ... Email Social media Shoppers on your site see ads for your business in their social Search Site Customers on your site see ads for your business when they visit other websites. Shoppers on your site who then hunt for relevant key- words on search engines see your ads in their results. Regular customers who've browsed your site or abandoned their shopping carts without buying receive email reminders. 33.2% use email remarketing." news feeds. 86.2% use site 72.5% use search remarketing." 36.4% use social media remarketing." remarketing." х DON'T hound your customers DO create multiple, fresh ads to keep the attention of shoppers. with ads at every website they visit. Find customers beyond your borders The world is your marketplace Make sure to pay attention to a country's customs – and offer the right checkout choices. 1.8 billion 90% people worldwide will become of European users will always prefer consumers to visit a website by 202520 This group will spend $30 trillion yearly. in their language." Expand payment methods In addition to credit or debit cards, include alternatives such as PayPal. 42% would never buy products and services in a language other than their own." Plan your launch If you want to start small: • Try country-specific websites, such as eBay. If you are thinking bigger: • Tout your international selling capabilities. • List countries served. • Allow shoppers to change your site's currency and language. Match your strategy to your goals. DO use government tools such as SBA.gov and Export.gov and consider a translation company. DON'T miss out on opportunities - capitalize on your current international markets and htify future ones. Watch your business grow Now that your site is trustworthy and will give shoppers a great experience, it's time for the payoff – customers, and lots of them. By 2018, purchases of products and services online are expected to total $2.5 trillion globally." PayPal Learn more about growing your e-commerce business with PayPal. Sources: 1. "Number of digital buyers worldwide from 2011 to 2016 (in millions)," Stastista 2. "59% of Brits would not use company with poor grammar on website, survey shows," The Global Marketing Alliance, Nov. 19, 2013 3, 9. "CA Security Council 2015 Consumer Trust Survey 4-5. "The State of the User Experience," Limelight Networks, 2015 6. "eCommerce expected to accelerate globally in 2014," Goldman Sachs, March 5, 2014 7. "Mobile-friendly sites turn visitors into customers," Google Mobile Ads Blog, Sept. 25, 2012 8. "Nearly 2/3 American Shoppers Don't Trust Retailers With Their Payment & Personal Information," Bizrate Insights, Industry Trends, Feb. 3, 2015 10. "What CMOS Need To Know About SEO," July 1, 2015, Forbes 11. "$24.5 Billion in Revenue Left on the Table by U.S. Retailers and Financial Services Last Year Due to Poor Mobile User Experience," Jumio Survey, Aug. 18, 2015 12. "31 Cart Abandonment Rate Statistics," Baymard Institute, updated May 8, 2015 13. "VWO eCommerce Survey 2014, Trends and Insights to Find and Convert Buyers," Visual Website Optimizer 14. "Shopping Cart Recovery," Listrak, 2014 15-19. "The Retargeting Barometer Report Powered by Digiday," Q4 2013 20. "Global flows in a digital age," McKinsey & Company, June 2014 21-22. "Speak to Global Customers in Their Own Language," Harvard Business Review, Aug. 3, 2012 23. "Retail Sales Worldwide Will Top $22 Trillion This Year," eMarketer, Dec. 23, 2014