Become the next billion-dollar webshop
Our modern world is ever-changing and so is our behaviour. We are about to reach the point where Artificial Intelligence will know all our interests and preferences. It’s pretty scary to think that a “cloud” knows our interests better than we do ourselves. But despite the ethical discussion, it’s necessary to use it to your own advantage.
E-commerce giants like Amazon, ASOS, and Zalando are already using AI in order to grow their businesses and deliver personalised content to their customers. This results in more sales and engagement.
Let’s take a closer look at how you can boost your sales and grow your business into the next billion-dollar webshop by implementing personalisation.
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One of your main goals is trying to boost sales and keep customers satisfied. To achieve this you have to suggest the most relevant items to your customers. Trigger cross-selling or suggest similar goods.
Similar products are goods that are alike within a certain category or brand.
Cross-selling is to sell additional products to an existing customer. Amazon reportedly attributes 35% of its sales to cross-selling by adding “others also liked” and “frequently bought together” options to every product page.
The best and easiest way to do so is by implementing recommendation boxes on your website. These boxes will act upon the previous data your website has collected and will automatically determine what products are similar or complementary. These recommendation boxes will constantly be updated by the AI algorithms, implemented on your website, in order to stay as relevant as possible.
You can implement recommendation boxes on all pages, the most successful ones being the product pages, the home page, the search page, and the check-out page.
There are multiple techniques to recommend products based on the customer’s interest:
- Recommend similar products
- Recommend products that other customers with the same interest also liked
- Recommend products complementary to the original product.
- ...
When a customer has found the right product, they will add it to their basket. When they reach the check-out page, showing complementary products will give extra value to the original product.
For example:
You just added a camera to your shopping cart.
● You might not have thought about the fact that your camera probably needs a memory card in order to store your pictures.
● You might also need a special bag to store your camera.
● What about a cleaning kit to keep everything bright and fresh?
Implementing these recommendations on the product or check-out page not only gives you the opportunity to sell other products, it also shows the customer items that add value to the original product.
There are endless opportunities if you know how to suggest similar items and how to cross-sell the right way.
Retarget your community
Customer loyalty is one of the factors that keeps your business top-of-mind and makes it possible to increase growth. If you gain your customers’ trust, they will be more likely to return to your webshop and share their positive experiences with peers. This eventually results in more potential customers and thus extra generated business.
First, you need your visitor’s email address. There are several ways to receive these addresses.
For example, you can show your visitor a pop-up to subscribe to your company’s newsletter.
Once they’ve subscribed, you can start to retarget them by sending out relevant campaigns that match their interests.
Keep your community engaged and create value for your customers. Tailor emails to the customers’ interests in order to stay relevant. If your customer is interested in sneakers, why not send him the latest sneaker trends of this year? Or even better: send him an early access code for the new Nike drop that’s going live in a few days.
Another smart marketing and cross-sell technique you should be using is sending your customers items they might like. The customer will automatically receive relevant content based on their search behaviour on your website.
You can also trigger your customers who haven’t fulfilled their orders and left the checkout by sending them a follow-up mail to remind them that they still have to fulfill their orders.
When the order has been received by the customer, you can ask them for a review of the product.
Email retargeting has endless opportunities for you. Nail your email campaigns and increase your billion-dollar status in no-time.
Check-out!
If you made it to the point where shoppers are about to wrap up their purchase, you’ve almost reached your goal. This doesn’t mean there aren’t a few possibilities to improve your check-out.
Your check-out is your final shot at trying to add some products to your customers’ purchases. These could be relevant items that are often bought together but a better practice is to implement bargain deals on your check-out page.
We all love discounts, whether it’s at the cash register in-store or the check-out of a website. A discounted product somehow always catches our attention. If you could tailor your bargain deals to the items your shoppers are about to buy, you’ll definitely satisfy their needs.
Customers absolutely hate to pay for shipping because this feels like you’re just wasting your money. A lot of customers tend to leave your webshop and look at a competitor’s when they won’t get something delivered to their doorstep for free.
You can easily solve this by adding a section that recommends products that are about the same price as the budget that’s missing for free shipping. Customers would rather add an extra item and get free shipping than having to pay for the shipping.
Optimise your check-out and keep your customers happy at all times.
Be future-proof
As you have read by now, building your billion-dollar webshop will take some effort. Don’t panic, most of the effort will be done by Artificial Intelligence so you can focus on your business model and marketing strategies.
Growing your customer base, increasing your cross-selling, optimising your check-out, and last but not least personalising your retargeting campaigns will lift your webshop to a whole new level.
Don’t be scared to make adaptations, your future self will thank you for this!