2022 was surprising in many ways, but perhaps the biggest surprise for eCommerce business owners was the unexpected decline in online sales revenue. According to the World Economic Forum, eCommerce revenue declined for the first time ever in history throughout 2022, resulting in a red bottom line for many small online business owners.
While this is unfortunate, it’s by no means the guaranteed trend for the future. With 2023 on the horizon, now’s the best time to think about refreshing and revitalizing your own eCommerce business for even greater success.
Make Stellar Video Content for Product Listing Pages
Modern eCommerce customers aren’t looking for surprises when they receive their ordered products. When they purchase a new rug, for example, and expect it to be blue, but it turns out to be green instead, you can bet you’ll have a disgruntled or angry return request on your hands very quickly.
Therefore, it’s important that your eCommerce store always has excellent video content accompanying product listing pages. Even a basic, 10-second video showing a 360° overview of a product available to order can do wonders for reducing return requests from your customers and improving customer satisfaction.
The better video content you make for your product listing pages, the more likely it is that customers will order products and receive exactly what they expect. This is a simple and long-lasting way to boost returns and brand satisfaction across the board, as the more you implement it, the more satisfied customers will be with your business. They’ll perceive your business to be more trustworthy (especially compared to any competitors who cut corners).
Add In-Box Content for an Enhanced Brand Experience
Customers often miss the brand experience they get from shopping at in-person or retail stores. But you can try to replicate that to some extent by adding in-box content to every item you ship to your customers.
Just what exactly is “in-box” content? Think sticker sheets, postcards, photos, handwritten notes, and more. Anything that can help personalize or enhance a box opening experience can improve your business’s reputation and make customers more satisfied with shopping with you than ever before.
This is doubly true around the holidays or big selling seasons throughout the year, like Black Friday weekend. It’s important to differentiate your eCommerce brand from all the others on the market. The best way to do that is to add in-box content that your competitors can’t replicate.
Mix in More “Real” Visual Content for Products
Overly staged, very well-lit content has its place, but you’ll also want to mix in more real-looking (even potentially low-quality) visual content for your products, like customer review videos. For example, if you can secure a single testimonial video for a product from a customer filmed on their own camera, that testimonial video might do wonders for improving the product’s purchase rate and your brand’s trustworthiness.
Why? Customers see that kind of content and think of it as authentic. The more real feeling and authentic your visual content for your products are, the better, especially when combined with the tips described above.
Customers don’t want to be fooled or persuaded by visual content, such as professional photos or videos, that look fake. They want to see what real customers have experienced with your products before pulling the trigger and making a purchase.
Pursue Real Customers, Fewer Influencers
Lots of eCommerce brands have pursued influencers on platforms like Instagram and Facebook over the last few years. While this marketing strategy can still be effective, it might be in your best interest to pivot more toward pursuing real customers and testimonials, such as positive reviews, instead of diverting a lot of marketing cash to paid influencers.
That’s partially because influencers are now known entities to many consumers. They know that influences are paid deals to represent certain brands or products on their channels. Since the cat is out of the bag, your brand might succeed by aiming for more trustworthy, authentic reviews on platforms like Google, Yelp, and even your own website from people who have purchased your products or experienced your brand.
Good word-of-mouth can improve your eCommerce business’s sales like few other forces. Try to cultivate as many positive reviews as possible to see immediate improvements in your bottom line.
Offer Faster, Easier Ways to Pay
There’s one more way to revitalize your eCommerce business and attract new buyers: make it easier for them to spend money.
Simply put, if a customer runs into a lengthy, confusing, or glitchy checkout process, they’re not likely to stick around. They’ll just click away from your site for a different eCommerce shop. To that end, you need to make sure that payment is smooth and streamlined from start to finish.
Go through your online store’s checkout process and make sure that your customers don’t have to push too many buttons or input too much information. Checking out should take a handful of minutes at most so your customers can buy their chosen products ASAP.
You can also implement new, PCI-compliant payment processing systems like Gravity Payments. Gravity Payments makes it easy for you to send secure, responsive payment processing for your online store, ensuring that your customer transactions will go through safely each and every time.
By taking the time to make it easier for your customers to make purchases, you’ll increase the likelihood that they will complete those purchases in the first place.
Wrap Up
All in all, 2023 offers many opportunities for you to refresh your eCommerce business and bring more new customers to your online shop than ever before. Keep these tips in mind as you draw up your business plans for the coming year, and don’t hesitate to contact Gravity Payments for assistance setting up an online payment portal your customers will love.
