Starting an eCommerce business remains one of the more popular options for people looking to start a business. This is because eCommerce businesses often have low startup costs, making them more achievable compared to some other businesses.
However, it’s one thing to start an eCommerce business and another to grow it into a sustainable model. More than likely, your goal is to have a thriving eCommerce business for years, rather than just a mediocre one for a few months. To achieve that, there are some great technology tools available that can boost your eCommerce business.
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Artificial Intelligence
A great place to start is with artificial intelligence (AI). With AI, you can perform various tasks to benefit your business in a fraction of the time. One great example is customer service. You could install a chatbot on your eCommerce site that’s powered by AI technology.
This chatbot can then have realistic conversions with your customers and provide them with assistance. Even if the customer knows they are talking to a bot, they will likely enjoy the convenience that the chatbot provides. You can use a chatbot to significantly reduce your customer service load all while improving customer experience.
Online Merchandising
The next thing to explore is online merchandising. Merchandising is the act of promoting goods or services. For a long time, it was essentially the act of improving how a business sold goods in person. In merchandising, items can be arranged better on a shelf or displayed in a window to gain better visibility. Therefore, as an example, you can use this same strategy online. To increase sales, you can display merchandise with your logo made with DTG printers and highlight it to increase profiit.
You can apply this same philosophy to online stores. With eCommerce merchandising for retail tools like the one provided by Fast Simon, you can create better online experiences for your customers. These tools will help you develop a better presentation on your website, based on what your users want.
Split Testing
Split testing, or A/B testing, is another way to improve your user experience. A split test is when you create two (or more) versions of a webpage, with slight differences between the versions.
You then show each visitor to the website one of the versions at random. Once you get a large number of visitors to each version, you should be able to see if the changes between the versions resulted in improved metrics.
For example, you might create two versions of a products page, in which one version has the price and the other doesn’t. After running this test, you notice that the page that displayed the prices resulted in more click-throughs to the products, so you decide to make that the permanent page. A great tool to explore getting started with A/B testing is Optimizely.
Keyword Tracking
To get more visitors to an eCommerce store, you’ll want to appear high within search engines for keywords related to your products. There are likely many combinations or sets of keywords that you want to rank highly for, covering all your different kinds of products.
To track how well you’re performing with different keywords, you can use a tool like the keyword tracker from Moz. This will allow you to see which keywords you’re performing well with and which ones you need to improve on. You can then alter your SEO strategies to better target your most important keywords and drive more traffic to your site.
User Personalization
Many users like having a personalized experience when they visit a website. For example, they want products recommended to them that they’ll actually like. You can use technology to create a more personalized experience for each of your users.
One tool that can help you is BloomReach, which makes it easy to offer products to customers based on their interests. Beyond this, you can do simple things like displaying a user’s name when they sign into their account or showing products that they have viewed before.
Optimized Email Marketing
Finally, you should look to optimize your email marketing campaigns. Email marketing remains one of the most effective tools for eCommerce brands. They’re a great way to reach customers with discounts and information about your latest products.
However, if you’re not sending information that interests the customer, they’re more likely to unopen the email or simply unsubscribe. With email optimization tools like those provided by MailChimp, you can create more efficient email campaigns that practically run themselves.
Use Technology to Your Advantage
Ecommerce businesses are possible thanks to technological innovations. Continue the progress by improving your eCommerce store with other technology tools. With just a few simple tools you can significantly improve your efficiency and sales, setting you up for long-term success.
