E-Commerce Hacks That Actually Work

With everyone in the game of e-commerce these days, you could use a competitive advantage over the rest of the market. But you’re not the only game in town looking to up their strategy.

Take a look at these quick e-commerce hacks you should be incorporating into your marketing strategy.

Shipping Smarts

No one wants to pay for shipping, so offering free shipping can be a huge incentive. “Free Shipping” is a fairly common offering on e-commerce sites, but it’s usually paired with a minimum order requirement. On the customer service side of things, it’s good strategy, anyway. But it’s actually good for your bottom line too. Increasing average order values increases your bottom line and helps to cover the cost of shipping. Be up front with them and let them know if their purchase qualifies for free shipping.

Along the same lines, if you’re not offering free shipping you need to be sure you’re up front about the total price of the item including shipping directly on the product page. One of the most common reasons for cart abandonment is extra expenses during checkout. The more accurate you can get, the better. Take it a step further and let them enter their zip code for more accurate pricing if you’re not able to offer flat rate shipping.

Express Checkout

This is a little trick that makes the purchase an easy no-brainer. When all someone has to do is click one button, they’re sold! People that use express checkout like Amazon’s “Buy now with 1-Click” don’t want to be bothered with trying to read their credit card numbers. They don’t want to have to look at upsells.

Insisting your guests register in order to complete the checkout process is totally yesterday, and can severely affect your conversion rate. No one wants to be forced into anything. It’s great to get registered customers on your site, but sometimes it just isn’t feasible for customers to register.

Often they just don’t want to. Being forced to register is very off-putting. In 2016, over one-third of the people who abandoned their cart did so because they didn’t want to create an account. Definitely offer a guest checkout option.

Speaking of choices, accepting more than one form of payment could increase your chances of conversion. You should be offering more than just a “pay by credit card option. Give them choices. Over 44% of consumers say they’d prefer to use PayPal as an option for the fraud-prevention protection they offer.  Or if your consumers are more tech-savvy give them the option to use digital currency like bitcoin, dash, em, litecoin, or monero.

Create a Sense of Urgency

Creating a sense of urgency drives conversions. The longer people believe they have to think and dawdle, the more the chance they’ll either change their mind or just forget to come back. If people suspect that you have a limited quantity of merchandise, they won’t want to be left out in the cold.

Scarcity and value are very powerful motivators. Creating that sense of urgency can really drive a sale. Show ‘limited time offers’ or demonstrate stock scarcity. You can also offer time-bound shipping through wording like ‘free shipping if you purchase before midnight.’

Just be sure not to pile these offers on too thick. Everything in moderation, or you’ll run the risk of coming off as being manipulative.

Provide a Sense of Security

Excellent customer service and credibility can draw in potential consumers, but offering no-risk guarantees will increase sales and customer satisfaction. ‘100% money-back guarantee,’ ‘lifetime warranty,’ and ‘free returns’ are ways you can instill confidence in your brand. If someone is unsure about making a purchase with you or trying your product, offering them a no-risk purchase can close the deal when they see you stand behind the product.   

More than 50% of customers read the return policy before making a purchase. Some sites like Zappos even offer free shipping on returns to make buying from their site extremely low risk. As a result, the average order size for repeat customers is 26% higher than with new customers.

Make your offer front and center so they’re easily seen.

Abandonment Issues

Don’t just let someone leave their full cart at the checkout desk. Just because they’ve left their cart doesn’t mean all is lost. Abandoned cart emails are incredibly effective. Check out these stats from SalesCycle:

• 46% of abandoned cart emails are opened.
• 13.3% of abandoned cart emails are clicked.
• 35% of those clicks lead to a purchase back on the site.
• On average, those purchases are 19% higher than ordinary purchases.

. . . . making those emails well-worth the effort. Road ID is a service that can do this well, sometimes providing a discount to lure the customer back to complete the purchase.