Online selling is almost as old as the internet itself, and there’s a good reason for it. People love to purchase products and services online because it’s easy and convenient. And that’s why the popularity of eCommerce stores grows every year and why everyone keeps up with eCommerce trends.
In 2020, retail eCommerce sales worldwide amounted to 4.28 trillion dollars, and that number is only expected to rise as more and more online stores get created every day. While the competition in the eCommerce market is tough, online merchants can still become very successful and profitable.
But you can’t find success unless your store has all the necessary elements.
Knowledge management system
A knowledge management system, or KMS for short, is a tool businesses use to share knowledge. It can be used as a platform for teaching and learning or for solving problems. You can use this tool to create documents, articles, and guides that will educate your customers on your products.
With a KMS, you can create an invaluable knowledge base that has many benefits, some of which include:
- Reducing the cost of customer support. When you have the answers to many queries all in one place, customers can find out what they need on their own. They won’t need to call your customer support for every little thing, which will save you time and money.
- More efficient employee training. Your employees won’t require weeks or even months of training so they could have the answer to every customer question. You can create a different knowledge base for each department in your business filled with guides, tutorials, and courses new employees can use.
- Faster problem-solving. You can have a knowledge base your customer support team can specifically refer to for most customer issues. This way, they will be better equipped to solve issues and search for a solution to the problem with a few clicks.
- Improving your SEO rankings. Public knowledge bases can be optimized with keywords that will significantly boost your SEO and improve your website’s ranking.
There are multiple different types of knowledge management systems that you can use to create your own knowledge base. What you choose will ultimately depend on your specific goals, but by choosing the right one, you can create a great addition to your eCommerce store.
Product descriptions
One of the drawbacks of online shopping is that customers aren’t able to physically see the products you’re selling. To make up for that, you need to have excellent product descriptions that provide your website visitors with all the necessary information.
While some of your visitors will search for a specific product and already know all the information they need, others will stumble upon the product by exploring your site or searching on Google. For those people who know nothing about the product, you need to provide a detailed description.
The type of description you write will depend on the type of product you’re selling and who you’re selling it to.
When it comes to books, your product description will need to include a summary as well as positive professional reviews. For items that are more niche and are often purchased by collectors, your description needs to go into extensive detail. For supplements, supplies for children or pets, and non-prescription medicines, you need to include a health warning.
If you sell any type of technology, you need to include technical specifications. Your description needs to include sizing and color options for clothes, shoes, and any other fashion item.
No matter what you’re selling, the product description you write needs to show the item’s appeal. No matter if it fills an emotional need, provides a practical solution to the problem, or brings satisfaction and comfort, make sure to clearly illustrate the appeal to your customers.
If you’re not sure about what information you need to include, put yourself in your customers’ shoes and think about what information you would need before purchasing a product.
Live chat
Most of the time, when a website visitor wants an answer to their question, they want it instantly. If they reach out to your customer support team and don’t get a response within a few minutes, they’ll probably lose interest in the product or even your store completely and move on to another.
You can avoid this if you use a live chat, which will help you automatically answer your customers’ questions and become a valuable part of an omnichannel eCommerce approach. This software offers many benefits, and according to live chat stats, as much as 63% of consumers reported that they are more likely to return to a website that offers live chat.
Let’s take a look at some of the benefits to living chat has to offer:
- It helps you save time. Good customer service needs to be quick, and when you offer live chat, you save a lot of time for your customers. They don’t need to wait on the phone to talk to an agent or for a reply to an email.
- Answers questions before a customer hesitate. You can program your live chat to provide answers to certain questions automatically before the customer has the chance to change their mind. And when the customer gets their answer right away, they can continue with their shopping confidently.
- Provides you with customer insight. When you use live chat, you can ask customers for feedback as soon as they get a solution to their problem or a response to their question. With this feedback, you will gain valuable insight into your customer’s shopping preferences and use it for marketing purposes.
- Humanizes your eCommerce website. A chat box that pops up right away and offers friendly help from a real person mimics the experience customers have in traditional stores and makes your website visitors feel welcome.
Customer ratings and reviews
One of the most important things for an eCommerce store is to establish trust with their website visitors. Sadly, there are many scams on the internet, and smart internet users know not to trust everything online, including eCommerce stores.
To show your potential customers, you’re a reputable and trustworthy brand. You need to display ratings and reviews from previous customers. Customer reviews are a form of social proof that shows real people have already purchased and enjoyed your products.
Whether or not you display customer ratings and reviews on your website is very detrimental to your business’ success. After all, nearly nine out of ten consumers read reviews before making a purchase.
Not only do they build trust and aid decision-making for customers, but they also drive sales, contribute to your SEO, and enable problem-solving.
Here are a few ways you can get customers to leave reviews:
- Don’t be afraid to ask satisfied customers to leave reviews, and you can even offer incentives in exchange.
- Make it easy for customers to leave a review on your website and include links to your social media pages where they can also post their experience with your store.
- Send out customer surveys to everyone who purchases from your store.
- Engage with the reviews and comments customers leave to show how grateful you are for their purchase.
Final thoughts
Running an eCommerce store takes a lot of hard work and perseverance. Even though you can easily find success while selling goods and services online, you can’t do it without a good website. Even if you have the best products in the world, it won’t mean anything if your website doesn’t contain the right elements.
So make sure to include all of the elements you read about here, offer great customer service and high-quality products, and you’ll undoubtedly find success in the eCommerce world.
