Ecommerce growth strategies are a must for your online store. No matter if your store is new or an established brand, ecommerce growth strategies help to fire up your sales to elevate your business profits.
The competition for customer attention is bigger than ever; the good news is that marketers can still catch attention with the right sales promotions. When done right, ecommerce sales strategies can not only boost short-term sales but also attract new visitors, get positive reviews for your business, and increase revisits.
However, you compete with other ecommerce businesses when you introduce promotions. Every day, customers receive a large number of ads and emails. Creating promotions that grab attention has become difficult, but there’s really no other way to win prospects.
In this guide, we discuss some of the best ecommerce growth strategies to create successful sales and promotion campaigns which can lead to engagement and conversions and contribute to the growth of your ecommerce business.
Related: Top Ecommerce Statistics
The top ecommerce growth strategies to generate maximum conversions for your online store are:
Ecommerce Growth Strategy #1- Flash Sales
One of the best strategies eCommerce businesses use to boost sales, flash sales are limited time offers given to customers. During a flash sale, the store may feature either or all of the following:
- Limited Stocks
- New Products
- Free Shipping
What makes this strategy truly compelling is its time-bound nature. This ignites the human instinct of impulsively grabbing something in a fear of missing out. So they end up acting fast and buying more.
For ecommerce businesses, flash sales are a great way to sell out old stock or poorly-moving products simply taking up unnecessary space in the warehouse. This strategy also helps increase customer loyalty and brand awareness while increasing the possibility that shoppers check out non-sale products on the store. You must also keep in mind to protect your brand as you strive to expand your business. You’ll save yourself and your company countless hours of labor if your listings are hijacked this way.
Related: Ecommerce Growth Strategies That Fire Up Sales
Flash sales are great for increasing brand awareness and exposure. This strategy also helps you target the right audience and drive visitors interested in your products.
Here are the considerations to run a flash sale promotion effectively.
Decide The Goal of The Promotion
Your goal for the promotion can help you plan the flash sale better. It’s important to know exactly what you wish to achieve from your flash sale. Here are the possible benefits:
- Clear out a specific product range that is not moving
- Encourage buyers to consider various products
- Simply build leads and increase sales
Choose Your Target Audience
Customize your flash sale in such a way that the product you offer aligns with your target audience. For customer retention, it is important to give discounts on products that bring the right people to your store.
Make Announcements At The Right Time
Announcing the flash sale at the right time is the key to success. While it is a good idea to give a heads up in advance to spread the word, doing it earlier than needed means there are chances they forget. If you announce the sale right on time, many people will miss it.
Related: Ecommerce Security: Threats And Solutions
Leverage The Power of Urgency
The biggest reason why flash sales work is the creation of urgency. The key is to make the audience emotional and eager to purchase. The highest transaction rates are noted for 3-4 hour flash sales and any flash sale should not exceed the duration of 24 hours.
By limiting the stock and time frame, those who missed out would want to sign up for your newsletter so they don’t miss any future promotions. This will bring more leads your way!
Word of Caution
Flash sales also have some pitfalls. This type of promotion can attract one-time buyers who avail the deal and then vanish. Offering discounts would also lower your profit margins but the loss can make up for the long-term value you get. A flash sale can affect your reputation if you fail to manage things like delivery and customer service during the event.
Related: Ecommerce Google Ads Automation: Successful Strategies
Ecommerce Growth Strategy #2- Coupons
One of the most effective marketing strategies in ecommerce, the coupon system is popular with most online businesses. A coupon is essentially a discount ‘shared’ with customers. Coupons are loved because it gives a feeling of unexpectedly having found a bargain.
Brands rely a lot on coupons for promotion. Such an incentive can increase conversions by motivating hesitant customers. The discounts you offer eliminate the risk factors that may be holding them back from making a purchase. Coupons also help increase customer retention by making them feel special and expressing gratitude for their support.
While a basic coupon marketing is easy to implement, there are ways you can use this strategy to drive increased sales to your store.
Work On The Goals of The Promotion
There are many goals that you can achieve with coupons that customers can use during their purchase on the site.
- Drive more sales with tempting offers
- Increase the number of returning customers
- Clear out existing product stock
- Attract attention through social media and drive more traffic to your store
Related: Best Ecommerce Platforms For Restaurants
Optimize Your Coupon Strategy
The discount you give to your customers depends on multiple factors including the urgency of making sales, your profit margins, and more.
Here are some ways to use Coupons effectively for your ecommerce marketing.
- Offer coupons with big discounts to first-time buyers to build credibility
- Send coupons to existing customers to encourage loyalty
- Use seasonal and holiday coupons to keep up the excitement
- Give price-minimum coupons to increase the spending on your store
- Share Buy One Get One coupons to clear out less moving items
Related: Best WordPress Plugins For Ecommerce Store
Word of Caution
Coupons also have a few drawbacks when used for sales and promotion in your ecommerce business. The discounts you offer can reduce profit margins on sales but they should be considered as an investment to attract huge gains in the future. This type of promotion can sometimes attract the wrong type of customers who don’t add much value to the business in the long run.
Related: Best Google Ad Extensions for Ecommerce Businesses
Ecommerce Growth Strategy #3- BOGO
ecommerce business owners can use a variety of discounts and offers as promotional strategies but not all of them are created and executed equally. The smartest businesses are selective about what type of discounts work the best for them. Buy One Get One promotions are great at igniting interest in new products, increasing the sale of dormant products, and introducing samples of expensive products.
Consider the example where Product A is priced $10 and the cost is $2.5. Selling it with a 50% discount would give you a profit of $2.5. But in a BOGO promotion, you get a $5 profit and more space in your warehouse!
Related: Best Ways to Reduce Shopping Cart Abandonment
BOGO promotions are better than other promotions in many ways. The key benefit is clearing inventory and improving your cash flow and increasing profits.
By giving specific products in this promotion, you can clear some of the older stock that you were struggling to move and lower losses.
Here are some of the ways you can use the promotional strategy to your advantage.
Customize The Number of Free Items
it is not always necessary to give an item for free on the purchase of another. You can create your own combination like ‘Buy 6, get 2 free’. If you can’t afford to give anything for free, you can introduce an offer like ‘Buy One, Get Another One at 50% Off’.
Ensure Efficiency of The Deal
Make sure the promotion coupon is easily applied when the customer uses the mail to go to the store. If your customer has to do minimal effort to avail the deal, they’ll be more likely to convert. BOGO is known to work better with products that are normally used together.
Related: Ecommerce SEO Checklist
Use A Time Constraint
Use words like ‘Last Chance’ in your promotion to create a sense of urgency. Consider including an expiration date on the promotion email.
Word of Caution
Be sure to clearly state the terms of the sale. What happens if prospects want to buy two items priced differently? What will they have to pay for? If you don’t clearly state this in your terms and conditions, you’ll be getting into a lot of customer feuds. Do you accept returns? Because customers might realize they didn’t really need the item and would ask for a refund. This could defeat the purpose of the sale, so be clear with what’s acceptable and what isn’t.
Ecommerce Growth Strategy #4- Mystery Sales
It is a great idea to leverage the curious nature of humans to your business growth. You can catch customer interest though a mystery sale and promote your ecommerce business effectively. A mystery sale is a promotion where the customer does not see what discount you are offering until they shop at your store.
Related: Best B2B Ecommerce Platforms
Leverage Curiosity to High CTRs
This strategy aims at piquing visitor’s interest and consequently, increasing traffic. Instead of telling prospects that you are giving away a specific percentage of discount, you encourage them to discover what’s in store for them. This curiosity leads to high click-through rates. Mystery sales are known to increase click-through rates by up to 200%.
Mystery sales can prove to be a highly effective sales strategy because prospects are driven to find out what type of discount they are entitled to, even when they are not willing to make a purchase. This means you bring them a step closer to your store and a step closer to purchasing.
Related: How to Create Shoppable Videos? Complete Guide
Getting The Most Out of Your Ecommerce Growth Strategy
While mystery sales work like a charm, it is important to optimize them for maximum benefit. Here’s how:
- Create eye-catching marketing campaigns to pull prospects to your site
- Use power words like ‘Mystery’, ‘Unusual’, ‘Discover’ or ‘Free’ to trigger emotions in your sale announcements
- Create personalized banners to reveal the discount upon clicking. Show a lower, default discount percentage to visitors that don’t click on the banner
- Customize discounts for customers depending on their purchase history
Here is an example of a mystery sale introduced by an ecommerce business. The discounts were assigned on the basis of the user’s last purchase to keep profit margins from falling.
- 90 days or more after the last purchase – discount is 25%
- 45-90 days from the last purchase – 20% discount
- Less than 45 days since the last purchase – 15% off
Word of Caution
Make sure that the actual sales are lucrative enough. If you create a lot of suspense but don’t deliver on the promise, your visitors will feel cheated and might not want to engage with your brand again. Also, make sure your newsletters are captivating and eye-catching so your reader base immediately rushes to check it out. Here’s a list of newsletter ideas to get you started.
Related: How To Sell On Flipkart? Complete Guide
Final Thoughts
Despite the intensifying competition, there has never been a better time for ecommerce businesses. The ongoing pandemic has propelled digital commerce decades into the future, by forcing consumers who’ve been reluctant to order online all this while, to make it their only shopping destination. All this means that right now is the best time to promote your business with promotional strategies to gain new customers and strengthen existing relationships.
As in most businesses, the key is differentiating and adding value. If you can successfully plan and execute your sales with that in mind, you’ll gain traffic, leads, and sales – all three right away!
