Published on July 29th, 2016 | by Guest
0Top 5 eCommerce Tools to Increase Sales for Your Online Store
Online sales accounted for more than one-third of the total retail sales in 2015, according to the U.S. Commerce Department.
Global B2C sales are expected to reach 1.92 trillion in 2016 – Statista
The eCommerce sales increased in 2015 by 14.6 percent, reaching at $341.7 billion, as compared to $298.3 billion in 2014, according to U.S Department of Commerce. Further statistics by Statista reveal that about 40 percent of worldwide internet users used their desktop, mobile and other online devices to buy products of their choice. This means more than 1 billion online buyers are engaged in online shopping and this number is expected to grow continually in the coming years.
However, the competition is immense and growing an online store remains the biggest challenge for many online business owners. Every year bring along new set of challenges and opportunities, so you need to be prepared to face the changes and meet the ever changing customer expectations.
If you look at top performing eCommerce stores, you will find one thing in common – apart from choosing a strong and robust eCommerce platform, they use cutting edge eCommerce tools that help them outperform their competitors. So, if you want to succeed in this highly competitive landscape, you need to invest in the best eCommerce tools that will help you increase the sales for your online store.
Top 5 eCommerce Tools
Here are top four eCommerce tools that must be part of your eCommerce plan, so that you can increase your sales:
- ShopIntegrator
If you want to tap into the eCommerce marketplace, the first step would be setting up an online store that offers the best customer experience. ShopIntegrator offers a wide range of exciting features that make setting up and managing the online store easier. Some of the most exclusive features offered by ShopIntegrator include mobile optimized checkout, multi-website integration, appearance customization, social commerce options, various payment processing options, etc.
If you evaluate the most successful eCommerce businesses, you will find three things in common with their website designs:
Reduces frustrations (in terms of customer journey)
Minimized customer’s fears, doubts, and uncertainties
Fun and engaging customer experience
ShopIntegrator provides them all; it offers a clean yet intuitive design that ensures easy navigation, straight-forward checkout process and an amazing search capability. And remember that the overall look and feel of the eCommerce website contributes 94 percent to mark the first impression on the visitors. With ShopIntegrator, you can create the best UX for your online store.
- Ecwid
Ecwid is a tool that allows you to seamlessly integrate shopping carts almost anywhere, even on your social media pages.
A number of online stores suffer from cart abandonment, which is one of the major issues with eCommerce sites. According to Baymard, the average online shopping cart abandonment rate is 68.63 percent. Roughly it means, one in four customers complete the purchase cycle, while three of them leave without purchasing anything, even if they have added products to the shopping cart.
According to Business Insider, almost $4 trillion worth of shopping carts is abandoned and approximately 63 percent of that can be recovered by using appropriate methods. The most common reason for abandonment is bad user-experience or lengthy check-out process. So, by using tools like Ecwid, you can improve the overall user experience and encourage your customers to complete the purchase cycle. It supports payment processors and it is easy to setup. It also offers a number of add-on apps.
- Groove
Customer service is paramount for the success of your online business, so you must look for ways to improve your customer service to have a competitive advantage.
Customer experience will become the key brand differentiator overtaking price and product – Walkerinfo
68 percent customers switched service providers because they experienced poor customer service – Accenture
By reducing the customer defection rate by 5 percent, you can increase the profitability by 25 to 125 percent – Source
Bad quality customer service can tarnish your reputation to a great extent. Take the example of the Comcast customer service call (full report here) which marred the reputation of the company to a great extent. So, if you want to strengthen the ties with your customers, you have to choose Groove. Groove is a tool that can help you make your customers happy and satisfied. It is a customer support platform that is as easy as handling emails. You can efficiently track performance metrics, manage tickets and also integrate apps like Slack and Olark.
- Get Drip
Email marketing will continue to be a major player in increasing eCommerce sales. Most of the eCommerce giants leverage the power of email to drive sales.
Email accounts for more than 7 percent of eCommerce acquisitions and overall it is the second most effective acquisition channel – Custora
For 89 percent of marketers email is the primary channel for lead generation – Mailigen
So it is crucial that you leverage email marketing to increase sales for your online store. Get Drip is a specialized marketing automation tool that allows you to capture customer’s email address via pop-ups. It then funnels these leads into an automated system that allows you to nurture those through personalized emails.
Using Get Drip, you can segment your customers based on form data, website visits, email response activities, etc. By segmenting your customers you can personalize the emails according to specific customer preferences, which can help you increase the revenue by 50 percent.
- Bounce Exchange
Bounce Exchange is an eCommerce tools that uses the “exit intent” technology. Exit intent is an advanced technology that tracks cursor movements of the visitors in real time. By using this technology you can track exactly when a particular visitor is about to abandon your site and provide him/her with one last offer before he/ she leaves the site. Exit intent technology helps eCommerce business owners to minimize the shopping cart abandonment rate manifolds.
Rather than pestering visitors with pop-ups or interruptive ads, Bounce Exchange offers an effective method to capture a lead before the visitor leaves the website. The use of exit intent technology is growing in the eCommerce marketplace, so you can benefit to a great extent, by being one of the early adopters. Pacsun, is one of the big players in the eCommerce industry that is already using Bounce Exchange to drive sales.
Final Takeaway
These are a few of the many eCommerce tools that can help you increase the sales for your online store. If you have resolved to improve the revenue and bottom line for your business this year, then you must start understanding and responding to the online behaviors of your customers. The tools mentioned above will help you flourish in this highly competitive landscape by giving you a competitive advantage.
However, you need to try and test the above tools to see which one works best for you. Offer the best you can for your customers and you will win the race!