Despite a Slower Economy, Online Sales Continue Strong Growth

A recent report from the U.S. Census Bureau shows that despite a slower economy (and traditional in-store retail sales being significantly down) eCommerce retail sales are still growing at a strong pace.

The chart below shows estimated quarterly U.S. retail eCommerce sales as a percent of total quarterly retail sales from the 4th Quarter of 1999 to the 2nd Quarter 2009.

If retail eCommerce can go against all of the current economic odds, just imagine how much more growth there will be as the economy improves.

 View Complete U.S. Census Bureau Report

Contact us to learn more about how eCommerce can help your business.

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4 More Tips to Increase Online Sales

If you sell online (or anywhere else for that matter) you should always be looking for ways to sell more. The following tips can help you gain more sales from both existing and new customers with little to no out of pocket expense.

1. Clearly list all products and services your business offers on your website, even if you don’t offer them for sale online.This one often stumps many businesses that sell online who also have brick and mortar locations. For example, let’s say you sell dresses on your website but also offer alteration services at your store locations. Not mentioning that you offer alteration services for your local area customers on your website is a huge mistake. Just think about how many more phone calls, store visits, and ultimately sales such a simple piece of information could generate for your business.

 

2. Send an email newsletter to people on your email subscriber list and make sure to include a reminder of the products and services your business offers.It isn’t uncommon to receive email newsletters from businesses that are about one specific offer that is of no interest to you. Now imagine if that same newsletter sparked your interest by mentioning another product or service offerings you were currently shopping for. Bet you would visit the site to check it out. Especially if it’s from a company you have done business with before and you trust.

 

3. Use an email signature on all outgoing emails such as customer service emails and shipping notices that describe your product and service offerings and provide a link back to you website.Think about how many emails your business sends every day. Now imagine if each one told the recipient of all that your business offers and allowed them to click a link to immediately go to your website. As basic as this may sound, it’s amazing how many businesses are still not maximizing this simple marketing tool.

 

4. With every order you ship, sell in store, or service you provide, give your customer a flyer that also provides an overview of all of products and services you sell along with your current promotional offers.This is one of the easiest ways to increase sales. For example, a customer may have bought a dress on your website, at your store, or had you do alteration work and not known you sell other items that they would like to buy. Keep in mind that flyers are also viral – they can easily be passed around and shared with others.

Remember, if you’re not clearly telling people of all that you offer and how you can help them, they’ll take their business elsewhere. How many of these ideas are you applying and maximizing?

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Though Times Are Tough For Retail, Online Sales Still Growing

In today’s undeniably difficult economic climate, all businesses are cutting costs. Some are tempted to skimp on their investment in ecommerce, viewing it as a marketing expense rather than a line of business. That is a mistake. 

Online retail is growing at 12 times the rate of brick and mortar.

Internet Retailer has announced that online retail sales growth slowed in the third quarter of 2008. It sounds ominous, but the key word there is not ‘slowed’, it’s ‘growth.’ Consumers are increasingly buying online, often in lieu of buying in brick & mortar stores. In fact, the web has become the channel of choice for most shoppers, and the big spenders love that level of control when buying luxury items.

Over time, this trend will only increase, and you will significantly hamper the growth of your business if you’re not prepared. 

What have you done to market your website today?

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Social media is just word of mouth advertising – the new back fence chat

Social media is being talked up everywhere as the newest thing in internet marketing, but it isn’t really new…  The only difference between online social media and old school word of mouth is the speed at which the word is spread. Modern social media allows you to grow your business faster through accelerated word of mouth marketing applications like social bookmarking sites and consumer blogs.

Online customer reviews and rating systems are just the larger scale, online version of asking a friend for a recommendation. This is among the oldest and most widely proven forms of social media marketing, used by the most successful shopping sites. Internet retailers like Amazon.com and Best Buy encourage customers to directly post reviews of products, whether negative or positive, because it converts online shoppers into buyers at a much higher rate than product pages that don’t have customer reviews.

Shop.org and Forrester have reported that just 26% of surveyed online retailers offered customer ratings and reviews on their websites, but 96% of these retailers rated the feature an effective method for improving online sales conversion rates. 96 percent!!

Look at a Best Buy page with reviews, such as their Small Business Lap Tops page. Note all of the reviews with stars. Which lap top would you be more likely to buy, a three star or a five star? You get the idea. Now, imagine how this would increase sales on your own website.

The ultimate goal for any online retailer will always be to drive qualified traffic to their site. With the rise of social media tools and social shopping sites, such as on-site customer reviews and ThisNext.com, this is becoming easier. Shoppers from such sites are already largely presold on what you’re selling before they arrive to your site. Once you have them, it’s a serious matter of the effectiveness of your online store. Is your store optimized to convert these valuable visitors into buyers?

In today’s increasingly social online shopping environment, your overall marketing strategy must address the socialization of the Internet shopping experience. Ecommerce retailers that do this effectively will continue to see great success well into the future. Conversely, those that are not making solid plans to step into the world of social media with a clear strategy will ultimately end up struggling to stay in business – or fail completely.

In order to be successful in social media and social ecommerce technologies, you must have a clear and preplanned strategy for your implementation. The core strategies your online business must apply include internal social media tools such as on site product reviews, as well as off site, customer-generated content such as customer comments on social shopping sites and blogs. Keep in mind that the greater the participation of your customers the greater will be the return on your efforts.

All of these things are not as easy as they sound. Chatting with your neighbor across the back fence was easy – your neighbor knows you. Effectively participating in social media to grow your business requires a significant amount of effort and skill, just like any other endeavor that leads to success. However, the sooner you begin taking steps in the right direction, the sooner you will build a brand that is promoted by your most important stakeholders; your customers.

What is your social media plan and what are you doing to make it happen?

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Online shopping growing more than four times the rate of offline retail

According to the most recent ecommerce sales data released by the US Department of Commerce, online sales for the 1st quarter of 2008 have grown 13.4% over Q1 2007.

Even with concerns about the economy, ecommerce sales growth is still higher than overall retail sales growth (which has been 6% at most over the past five to six years). In contrast, retail ecommerce sales growth has been about 25% or more year over year, during the same time period.

With online shopping continuing to outperform traditional retail stores, more businesses are starting out online or moving existing brick and mortar operations to the web.

According to USC Annenberg School Center for the Digital Future, existing online shoppers are doing more of their buying online instead of shopping at traditional retail store fronts. The organization also reported that large percentages of consumers say their online buying led to decreased offline buying, and that this number is growing.

It is clear that the increase in online shopping growth is happening due to consumer’s confidence and overall satisfaction levels. Additionally, the lower costs of running an ecommerce store in comparison to a brick and mortar location make this a big opportunity for retailers of all sizes and business models.

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