The eCommerce industry is a multi-trillion dollar industry with a plethora of opportunities. As of now, the eCommerce industry is one of the most lucrative ones that is easy to get into. However, this ocean of opportunity is dominated by a few big fish like Amazon, Alibaba, Walmart etc. This makes it a little bit of a bigger challenge for smaller fish to come out on top and get a bit of that opportunities.
However, this doesn't really mean that it is not possible for newly launched stores to acquire large profits in any way. they just need more smarter ways to compete with established businesses like these. Given below is a checklist of five smart ways you can enhance your potential.
1. Content Personalization
Personalization is crucial not just for eCommerce stores but for any kind of business that functions online. Content personalization not only engages users better but also helps business create a more efficient customer journey map that leads to a purchase.
Personalizing content is simply a matter of writing extra lines of codes. You first divide users into various categories based on their history and behaviour and then create a customer journey map. This will look something like this:
Based on this, you can modify the code of your platform display content in a way that engages the website visitors and guides them towards the purchase. Personalization doesn't just stop at the content of the website but also extends to the content of the email newsletters, social media posts etc. With a few extra coding or a custom plugin, all of it can be personalized.
Conventional methods dictate that you should sell your products through all marketplaces to reach out to a large number of audience. This definitely is true if your sole aim is to make money. However, to increase your brand's awareness, you should stick to selling products only through your site.
Marketplaces work for their own profit and not yours. they definitely expose your products to many but never your website or your brand. If you analzyze the way the product pages of such marketplaces are designed, you'll notice that your website is not as conspicuous as it should be. This way, a lot of prospective audience won't even come to realize your website and will ultimately refer the marketplace to buy your product.
There is one flaw that large eCommerce businesses can't do with ease and that is implement a new and unique technical functionality on their site. This is because of their large customer base, they will initially have to go through an extensive amount of beta testing, work with the variety of customer feedback to ensure whether the functionality works well etc. However, with small stores, this doesn't pose much of a problem.
Small eCommerce stores can easily create and launch custom functionalities such as AR product view, virtual try on, product customization etc. Such features will ultimately become a unique selling point for businesses to market on. With an efficient strategy of marketing, this feature alone will be able to attract a plethora of customers to your store and establish an impactful presence in the market.
To stand out of the crowd, small stores should try to create something exclusive to sell. Something that connects with users more deeply and is available solely on your store.
For instance, one of the clients at an eCommerce development company: Matrid Technologies, was an online clothing retailer. He collaborated with a Non Profit Organization to help them sell their merchandise through his store. He also promoted his store by stating that all the proceeds from the merchandise of the organization bought exclusively from his store are donated. This helped him create a product that was exclusive to his store. It also resulted in a significant upsurge in traffic and conversions.
A unique method of selling or creating something unique from an existing product is all you need to make something exclusive to your store. With a little work put in, the rewards can be substantial.
Although this is a pretty obvious strategy, there are still a vast number of small stores that ignore this. Mobile phones contribute a significantly large market to eCommerce businesses. This why all major stores have their native mobile apps.
A custom mobile app for your store is a highly beneficial strategy that opens up another medium of sales and another point of marketing. Reaching out to customers through a mobile app becomes a lot easier thereby making it easier for you to promote your products. A mobile app shortens a customer journey from visiting your store to a sale which directly increases your sales. So no matter the reason, always have a mobile strategy for your store. If you don't have the budget for native apps, hire xamarin app developers to launch a cross platform and then later launch native apps when it fits the budget.
In the end, we can say that competing with large and established eCommerce stores won't be as hard as it may seem. Sure going head to head competing with them won't is not possible in early stages. But it isn't necessary as well as you're not aiming to be exactly like them.
So with just a little smart work, no matter how big the other fish are, nothing will be able to stop you from getting a significant chunk of the prize.
Personalizing content is simply a matter of writing extra lines of codes. You first divide users into various categories based on their history and behaviour and then create a customer journey map. This will look something like this:
Based on this, you can modify the code of your platform display content in a way that engages the website visitors and guides them towards the purchase. Personalization doesn't just stop at the content of the website but also extends to the content of the email newsletters, social media posts etc. With a few extra coding or a custom plugin, all of it can be personalized.
2. Don't Sell through Marketplaces
Conventional methods dictate that you should sell your products through all marketplaces to reach out to a large number of audience. This definitely is true if your sole aim is to make money. However, to increase your brand's awareness, you should stick to selling products only through your site.
Marketplaces work for their own profit and not yours. they definitely expose your products to many but never your website or your brand. If you analzyze the way the product pages of such marketplaces are designed, you'll notice that your website is not as conspicuous as it should be. This way, a lot of prospective audience won't even come to realize your website and will ultimately refer the marketplace to buy your product.
3. Include a Unique Functionality
There is one flaw that large eCommerce businesses can't do with ease and that is implement a new and unique technical functionality on their site. This is because of their large customer base, they will initially have to go through an extensive amount of beta testing, work with the variety of customer feedback to ensure whether the functionality works well etc. However, with small stores, this doesn't pose much of a problem.
Small eCommerce stores can easily create and launch custom functionalities such as AR product view, virtual try on, product customization etc. Such features will ultimately become a unique selling point for businesses to market on. With an efficient strategy of marketing, this feature alone will be able to attract a plethora of customers to your store and establish an impactful presence in the market.
4. Make Something Exclusive
To stand out of the crowd, small stores should try to create something exclusive to sell. Something that connects with users more deeply and is available solely on your store.
For instance, one of the clients at an eCommerce development company: Matrid Technologies, was an online clothing retailer. He collaborated with a Non Profit Organization to help them sell their merchandise through his store. He also promoted his store by stating that all the proceeds from the merchandise of the organization bought exclusively from his store are donated. This helped him create a product that was exclusive to his store. It also resulted in a significant upsurge in traffic and conversions.
A unique method of selling or creating something unique from an existing product is all you need to make something exclusive to your store. With a little work put in, the rewards can be substantial.
5. Go Mobile
Although this is a pretty obvious strategy, there are still a vast number of small stores that ignore this. Mobile phones contribute a significantly large market to eCommerce businesses. This why all major stores have their native mobile apps.
A custom mobile app for your store is a highly beneficial strategy that opens up another medium of sales and another point of marketing. Reaching out to customers through a mobile app becomes a lot easier thereby making it easier for you to promote your products. A mobile app shortens a customer journey from visiting your store to a sale which directly increases your sales. So no matter the reason, always have a mobile strategy for your store. If you don't have the budget for native apps, hire xamarin app developers to launch a cross platform and then later launch native apps when it fits the budget.
Conclusion
In the end, we can say that competing with large and established eCommerce stores won't be as hard as it may seem. Sure going head to head competing with them won't is not possible in early stages. But it isn't necessary as well as you're not aiming to be exactly like them.
So with just a little smart work, no matter how big the other fish are, nothing will be able to stop you from getting a significant chunk of the prize.
