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Customers Don’t Trust 5-Star Reviews Anymore. Here’s What They Want Instead

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By RYAN VANNI

As AI floods e-commerce with fake feedback, brands like Ghia, Ritual, and Dr. Squatch are rebuilding trust with smarter social proof.

In e-commerce, product page reviews have always been the digital equivalent of a crowded restaurant. When a waiting line stretches around the block, you assume the food must be good. That’s because humans are evolutionarily hardwired to seek safety in numbers; we look for social proof to lower our perceived risk. So, when a product page has hundreds of 5-star reviews, brands could assume that this version of social proof alone would lead to higher sales.

Not anymore. Traditional text-heavy reviews are experiencing a massive crisis of “review nihilism.” Both customer fatigue and AI slop have resulted in a DTC landscape where these types of reviews are significantly less effective.

When a product accumulates 5,000 reviews, it stops being helpful. No mobile shopper is going to read 50 pages of feedback. Not to mention the recent rise of AI-generated fake reviews, making a flat “5-star rating” highly suspect to savvy consumers. According to data from Pangram Labs, nearly 74 percent of AI-generated reviews lean heavily on unearned 5-star bias. The result? Shoppers don’t trust a perfect score anymore. They trust nuance and verified verification mechanisms.

For brands like Ghia, Ritual and Dr. Squatch, this could have been a worse case scenario. All have very rigorous review sections for each product that provide enormous value for shoppers and brands; serving as a visual proxy for the missing sensory experience and acting as a zero-cost product development focus group. But instead of sticking with a fading strategy, each pivoted and became a valuable lesson in the power of guided discovery.

A new path to validation

While legacy e-commerce is usually reactive—putting a wall of text at the bottom of a page and hoping users wander down to read it—guided discovery is predictive. It uses AI and smart UI choices to serve various forms of social proof directly to the user.

So, instead of forcing a customer to hunt for information, guided discovery answers product questions—like “Does this taste chalky?” or “Is it too sweet?”—before they even need to scroll. Creating a system like this means balancing several approaches to allow customers to feel like they’re growing trust organically. Here’s where to start:

Let tech curate the vibes: Instead of reviews, try AI-summarized “sentiments” which involve using the technology to read thousands of customer reviews and distil them into an objective, bulleted snapshot highlighting the “pros” and “cons” directly on the product page. It’s a favourite new approach embraced by Amazon and platforms powered by Yotpo Reviews AI. However, resist the urge to use AI to hide negative feedback. Research shows that will only get brands flagged as untrustworthy by consumers. Similarly, avoid generalized statements that add zero cognitive value and feel like corporate fluff.

Let UGC do the hard work: Move away from static star ratings toward shoppable, highly interactive customer photo and video galleries. In an AI-saturated ecosystem where text can be faked, raw vertical video of a real person unboxing or eating a product is the ultimate trust infrastructure. In fact, they drive up to a 137 percent higher purchase likelihood than polished studio ads because they look humanly authentic. It’s no wonder that Ghia and Dr. Squatch do an exceptional job of integrating native-looking TikTok and Instagram reels of actual customers directly onto their landing pages.

Practice radical transparency: Customers need more proof than ever, so brands must go the extra mile in citing sources transparently. If your AI summary claims a snack is “low-sugar but sweet,” those keywords should be clickable. Tapping the word should instantly filter the review database to show the exact verified reviews that generated that sentiment. Ritual is the standard-bearer for this strategy. Every single ingredient, clinical study, and customer consensus statement on their site is backed by a clickable data point that leads straight to the source material.

Most importantly, brands must come to terms with the fact that reviews alone will no longer do the work of validating your brand and products. Fighting “review nihilism” takes a little cleverness and a lot of dedication to providing social proof along an entire ecommerce journey.

Feature image credit: Adobe Stock

By RYAN VANNI

Sourced from Inc.

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Shopify president: Agentic commerce could usher in ‘merit-based shopping’

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By Erin Cabrey

AI agent-based shopping could increase e-commerce penetration and ultimately “level the playing field” for brands, Harley Finkelstein told Retail Brew.

Retail is entering its agentic era.

At least that’s what Shopify President Harley Finkelstein told Retail Brew at NRF. He’s certainly not alone in that thinking: Agentic commerce was by far the show’s buzziest term, especially if you attended sessions featuring Google, Walmart, Ulta Beauty, Wayfair, The Home Depot, Urban Outfitters…the list goes on.

At the show on Sunday, Google unveiled the Universal Commerce Protocol (UCP), a new open standard to scale agentic commerce, co-developed with companies like Shopify, Walmart, and Target, and supported by 20+ others across retail. UCP connects AI agents to merchants, and enables these agents to work across shoppers’ purchasing journeys—giving shoppers options like using discount codes, inputting loyalty account information, or buying subscriptions within AI platforms. Shopify merchants will also be able to sell through Google’s AI Mode within search and its Gemini app.

The UCP addresses pain points and apprehension many brands have surrounding agentic commerce, Finkelstein said. He shared how the news is setting the stage for a major industry shift.

This interview has been lightly edited for length and clarity.

What makes Shopify so bullish in thinking that consumers want to shop using AI?

I’ve been at this for 17 years. Shopify’s been at this for 20 years. We’ve seen these trends that happen. I think social commerce was important. It was never something that most people will do most of the time. We built, initially, e-comm, and we moved to point of sale, and then obviously social commerce came. And we started seeing more of these channels…It has always been our philosophy that wherever there’s a new place where a consumer can buy, Shopify has to enable that.

The Roblox channel—Fenty is doing great with it, but a lot of other merchants don’t even use it because it’s just not relevant…All those things are different than agentic. Why? Because when we look at buyer behaviour outside of commerce, if you look at the DAU [daily active user] chart for these agentic applications for just humans right now, it is exponential. That is very different than social media. That is very different from all these other products. So we are so bullish on this because there is a high likelihood that this will become one of the main paradigms of retail, like e-commerce, and so we have to be front and centre for that sort of stuff as well.

We also have data to back it up. [In] 12 months, we’ve seen a 14x increase in orders to Shopify stores that have been sourced from some sort of agents…The base is small, but it’s growing fast. When you combine all those things, it’s easy to have a hypothesis that this thing may be dramatic for the industry.

I’ve heard a lot of people saying online and today at NRF that agentic commerce could be leading to e-commerce sites almost being obsolete and challenging the storytelling element of brands.

Their online store is their hub. It’s where they have their videos and their content. It’s where you sign up for their newsletters. It is where they display their newest products. It’s where they do product drops. It’s still going to be the hub. But I think there’s going to be this new potential spoke called agentic that could be very, very meaningful.

If you’re planning a trip, for example, and you need to buy from across five different stores. The agentic side of things will give you a much bigger benefit, rather than opening up five different tabs in your browser. But I don’t think e-commerce is going anywhere. In fact, there are a lot of people much smarter than me who believe that what agentic is going to do is actually increase the penetration of e-commerce, because someone right now that’s not buying online may be using ChatGPT to look up recipes, or to plan a trip, or to edit a document, and they may decide, “I’m gonna actually use this now to do some research on a product,” and they may actually complete the purchase on the product. E-commerce as a percentage of total retail is still sub-20% in the US, it’s ~12% in Canada, it’s [more than] 25% in the UK. There is a chance that actually—like Covid-19 bent the curve on e-commerce penetration—there could be a bending of the curve also with agentic.

What’s left for brands to do to compete in the agentic commerce space?

Make sure you have someone looking at catch off the catalogue, the way your products get indexed, the way your products get syndicated. Make sure someone is looking at UCP to make sure all the stuff that matters on a per-product basis is in that protocol. Make sure you are ready for this.

The other thing that’s really cool is that the results in an agent, unlike the results in some sort of ad-based flow, is merit-based. It’s not actually based on who’s paid more money.

Last night, we did an event at the Shopify office with Tom Sachs…He’s the coolest sneaker designer in the world.

Tom Sachs is going to be discovered by more people because of the agentic stuff, because he doesn’t have any money—he runs what’s called NikeCraft, which is a division of Nike, which makes sneakers for what I call entrepreneurs. It’s not for basketball or sports. It’s just for, like, hanging out. And if the agent knows that I like these nichey things—that I like Kith, that I like Supreme, that I like limited-edition stuff, that I really love design and architecture—Tom Sachs is going to actually show up there, whereas now he’s never going to show up in some sponsored search, or even inside of Google because he doesn’t do SEO optimization. The products that will be found will be merit-based as opposed to ad-based. I think that’s democracy. That’ll level the playing field.

Feature image credit: Shopify

By Erin Cabrey

Sourced from Retail Brew

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31 Genius Strategies to Build and Command Your E-Commerce Empire

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By Chris Alarcon

Operating an e-commerce business is a rewarding experience. However, venturing into online selling without a plan can hamper your chances of success. You may ask yourself, “Where do I start planning? What does it truly take to operate an e-commerce business in today’s age?”

Thankfully, we’re here to help answer those questions. This post will teach you how to start and grow your e-commerce business!

Let’s dive in.

Define Your E-Commerce Business Idea

Before entering the e-commerce world, you need to define your business idea. Defining your business idea will ensure you have a clear vision of what you want the business to be and determine if it will be successful.

By doing this, you’re finding your niche in the e-commerce market and learning how to do it better than the rest.

This step takes a bit of brainstorming and research, but soon, you will be on your way to financial freedom.

Choosing Your Right Product(s)

Choosing your product can seem like the easiest part of creating an e-commerce business plan, but the truth is that it takes quite a bit of forethought.

To find the right product for your business, you need to do some market research and sense what you are passionate about. Deciding what to sell means more than purchasing goods from a supplier.

You are identifying which market you want to tap into. Consider selling and creating a new business from various niche markets and products.

If you are unsure of what products or which markets you would like to tap into, here are a few examples:

  • Clothing
  • Home goods
  • Children’s toys
  • Homemade and handcrafted items
  • Digital services

No matter which product or market you choose, performing research is critical.

Validate Your Idea

Once you’ve decided what your product will be, you must validate your e-commerce business idea.

This process entails researching to ensure an audience for your product, learning about the market’s problems and why they are facing them, and finding out how to solve them. You should also see if there are potential trends you can capitalize on.

Answering the questions above will give you the insight you need into whether a business will succeed.

Any business idea can sound ground-breaking at the moment. But moving forward is put on hold until you validate it by ensuring that there is a market for your product or that you can create the need for it.

Define Your Target Audience

Beyond discovering if there is an audience for your product, you will also need to define your target audience.

Is your audience the younger crowd that enjoys and needs trendy items and marketing? Or is it an older audience that prefers straightforward marketing and practical products? Of course, the gender, income level, and general location of your audience also factor in.

Further, you must know your intended audience’s lifestyle factors, interests, wants, and needs.

Implementing a solid definition of who your target audience is will help you shape your marketing approach and tailor your product offerings.

This definition will give you a sense of direction before jumping into the launch of your product or business. Then, you can visualize the prize you should focus on.

Brainstorm What Will Set Your Business Apart

Brainstorming how your business will differ from competitors is vital.

You need to give potential customers a reason why they should choose you over what else is available currently. Without a solid aspect that sets you apart, your business can become lost in the sea of emerging e-commerce businesses.

Research Your Competition

Knowing what sets your business apart from others in the market is critical. That’s why we also recommend spending a substantial amount of time researching your competitors.

To start researching your competitors, pretend you are a potential customer and search for the popular keyword and search queries pertaining to your business.

Then, take note of the pages with the highest rankings, as they will be your main competitors. Don’t stop there!

Dive into your competitors’ social media accounts and note how they brand and market themselves on the platforms. (Also, don’t forget about Amazon!) Use the infamous online retailer as a database to identify similar product offerings.

After you gather all of this information, organize it into a spreadsheet, listing the top competitors for your business.

Build Strong Branding

Branding is everything when marketing your products and your e-commerce business. It conveys the overall message that your company believes in and offers.

For example, brands like Nike will use motivational language to motivate their established customer base and draw potential customers.

But what does branding entail? How do you build your business with strong branding?

Building a strong brand doesn’t have to be costly; it simply takes consistency, planning, and research.

Audience Persona

Your audience persona is what customers will come to know your business for.

As previously mentioned, companies will utilize specific language to convey a message regarding branding. That helps build a company’s persona and brand identity.

You can implement your brand persona in all forms of marketing, from the colors you use in the marketing campaign to the vocabulary you use in social media posts. This implementation will help formulate the characteristics and emotions customers associate with your company.

When you are creating your persona, remember who your target audience is. For example, the persona for a brand like L.L. Bean will not have the same effect on a younger modern audience.

Brand Voice

In addition to vernacular and language, brand voice is critical for conveying your message. It will further tell your audience what your company is and what it can do for them.

This branding portion focuses explicitly on the language and vernacular part of the branding strategy.

To create a strong brand voice, you should first figure out how you want customers to feel when interacting with your brand’s online presence.

If a relaxed vibe is what you are going for, a laid-back tone and casual language are what you want when creating e-commerce marketing materials.

But on the other hand, if luxury and glamor are the vibe of your company, sophisticated language with flowery descriptions is what you need.

Social Media Branding

In our digital age, branding efforts extend into the social media sphere with most audiences, including older generations. In short, social media is the number one place to reach potential customers.

Your brand’s social media presence should be more than posting advertisements and product launches. Engaging with your audience is critical for building rapport and further ingraining brand voice, persona, and identity.

You can increase your audience engagement by hosting polls, commenting back to followers, and organizing live streams where they can interact with you and your company.

Brand Identity

Finally, we reach brand identity. This encompasses your voice, persona, and social media presence. It gets into the fine details of your visuals and content choices that will set you apart from your competitors.

With a proper brand identity, customers recognize your brand through adverts and social media posts without seeing your company’s name.

Visuals and Content

To establish your brand’s identity, you will want to choose your brand colours, design your logo, create content creation guidelines, and formulate your strategy.

Your branding guidelines should entail information about marketing copy, colour palette, brand story, and image guidelines.

Your strategy should also entail plans for reaching your intended audience through stylized branded content and marketing materials.

If you need help formulating these guidelines and plans, professional brand strategists are available on freelance marketplaces such as Upwork and Fiverr. They can help take your current vision and turn it into an actualized plan.

E-Commerce Websites

Next, incorporate that information into setting up your e-commerce website.

Your company’s website is a hub for selling your products to customers and establishing a home base for all things relating to your brand. In addition, this website is the place for driving your brand voice, persona, and identity into the hearts of established and potential customers.

So, remember to strictly enforce your brand guidelines when building and maintaining your website.

Again, if you need help building an e-commerce website, you can find website builders and your brand strategist on platforms such as Fiverr and Upwork.

Create Your Shipping Strategy

If you are running an e-commerce business with physical products, like clothing, home goods, or kids’ toys, you must create a shipping strategy that gets the product to your customers safely and efficiently.

First, you must determine if you will transfer the shipping costs to your customers or factor shipping into the product’s price and offer free shipping. Offering flat-rate shipping is also an option.

Additionally, no matter which shipping cost method you choose, you will want to keep a database of the weight of your product(s). This data will help you consistently track the price of shipping your products when it is dependent upon their weight.

Finally, you need to source your packaging materials. From boxes to envelopes and wrapping materials to filler, your packaging should help safely deliver the product to the consumer and leave a lasting impression with its presentation.

If you have downloadable digital products to sell online, you will want to find the best platform and software for delivering these materials. Consider these top five:

  • SendOwl
  • Shootproof
  • Shopify Digital Downloads
  • Fetch app
  • Digital Product Delivery

Each has unique offerings, and depending on the type of digital products you sell and your target audience, some will be more suitable than others.

Launch Your Business

After choosing your products, formulating a brand identity, creating a website, and developing a shipping strategy, it’s time to launch your e-commerce business!

Although you have accomplished so much already, the adventure is still ongoing because you need to start selling products.

When launching your business, it’s critical to remember that anything can happen, and you may have to reformulate your previous plans. But don’t be too quick to jump ship; the plan was created for a reason. You simply want to open yourself up to new possibilities.

From here on out, your mission is to achieve financial freedom, which sometimes requires testing variables to improve performance.

Market Your Business

After getting your business up and running, you must increase your marketing efforts to ensure your business grows.

But unlike decades past, with your online business, physical advertisements on billboards and in print newspapers won’t cut it. So instead, you need to learn the ways of e-commerce marketing.

Learn Basic SEO

Learning the basics of search engine optimization (SEO) is your ticket to boosting your business among the Google ranks.

Have a Baseline

To start venturing into the world of SEO, you need to have a baseline.

By utilizing a service like Semrush, you can see your domain overview, and it will tell you how visible your business/webpage is on mobile and desktop apps. Its domain overview section covers all the data and analytics you need to understand where your business currently stands.

Know Your Keywords

Additionally, you will want to research and learn the most prevalent keywords and search queries for your type of business. You can then use this information to create content that will help lead shoppers back to your website.

Discover The Power of Backlinks

Backlinks are also essential for creating online traffic for your business, as they are links to your website from other websites.

The more links you have from trustworthy and high-traffic web pages, the more search engines like Google and Bing will see your business and website as valuable and reliable sources.

But the most critical component of all when it comes to basic SEO is staying informed. SEO is an ever-evolving world that takes ongoing reform to remain successful.

Blog Consistently

While looking for the best ways to market your e-commerce store or business, you may have seen the phrase “content is king.” But what kind of content is best?

Blogging is one of the best forms of online content for marketing your business. By publishing blog posts consistently and utilizing the keywords and search queries that pertain to your business, you can increase your chances of climbing the Google ranks and accruing more backlinks.

Your blog posts should always surround topics pertaining to your business.

For instance, post frequent blog posts about what’s trending in fashion if you have a clothing business. Or, if it’s a digital service company, publish articles that discuss the benefits of utilizing a service like yours.

Implement Social Media Marketing

We live in the golden age of social media, and if you’re searching for more customers, you need to utilize Instagram, Facebook, YouTube, TikTok, and more.

You can do this by posting relevant branded content frequently. Your social media content should also utilize hashtags to help further increase your visibility among your target audience.

Like SEO keywords, hashtags can help lead potential customers back to your page, and the more interaction you have on a post, the more likely you are to appear on Explore and For You pages on social media.

Build and Grow an Email List

Building and growing an email list is the best way to create a direct line to your customer base. You can ensure they return and purchase more products by staying in touch with them.

But people prefer to keep their personal information, like email addresses, private. So how do you grow an email list?

You need to offer a deal in return for a customer’s email. Whether it’s free downloads or special sales offers, customers will take note of what you are willing to give in return.

Analyse Your Results

Adapting your e-commerce business to the ever-evolving world is crucial for long-term success.

After spending time in the market and gathering data, you should analyse your results. You will want to look at critical metrics, like your popular products.

Once you notice consistent growth in your business, you will want to optimize your online storefront for high-scale volume. Think about performing the following as your business grows:

  • Display popular products on the front page.
  • Manage fluctuating stock volumes by sending email invitations and allowing backorders.
  • Allow for more checkout options: guest checkout, abandoned shopping cart reminders, etc.
  • Match your brand and website messaging to the current market.

No matter what your results are after performing an annual analysis, being prepared to make a few changes is always wise.

FAQs

How Do You Start an E-Commerce Business Without Money?

You can start an e-commerce business without money in a few different ways. One of the best and easiest ways is to sell your expert service.

Whether you are a great writer, marketer, virtual assistant, or graphic designer, you can create an online e-commerce business today with zero or minimal start-up costs.

You can also start a drop shipping business, where you have an online store that customers can order from, and the supplier does the product fulfilment directly. AliExpress or Alibaba are popular suppliers for such storefronts.

How Do You Start an E-Commerce Business on Amazon?

Starting an e-commerce business on Amazon is simple.

First, you must choose what kind of products you want to sell; the possibilities are endless when you choose Amazon as your e-commerce platform.

Afterward, you must sign up for an Amazon seller’s account and select your business model. Wholesale, private label, and retail arbitrage are the most popular.

Once you have the basics covered, it’s time to start listing your products, send them to Amazon to handle storage and shipping, and then market yourself.

What Does an E-Commerce Business Do?

An e-commerce business is a business that sells goods or services online. These goods and services can range from writing and graphic design services to clothing retailers and home goods storefronts.

What Are The Four Types of E-Commerce?

What industry leaders commonly refer to as the four traditional types of e-commerce are business-to-consumer (B2C), business-to-business (B2B), consumer-to-consumer (C2C), and consumer-to-business (C2B).

Each type has specific traits and offerings that set them apart. The most common type is B2C.

Is E-Commerce Really Profitable?

E-commerce can be an incredibly profitable business venture. But if you’re looking for an entirely passive way to generate income, this venture isn’t for you.

Running an e-commerce business takes time and dedication. You have to be willing to devote all of your time to managing the business and potentially marketing yourself to thrive.

How Do You Start up an E-Commerce Business?

Suppose you want to start up an e-commerce business. In that case, you must follow a plan to define your business, create a branding and marketing strategy, and perform market analysis regularly.

Free and low-cost start-up options exist whether you want to sell a service or a physical product.

No matter what e-commerce business you decide to open, be prepared to dedicate a lot of time to starting it. However, it is a rewarding venture.

Start Your Journey to Financial Freedom Today!

Whether you want to operate a small business like a small-scale online retailer or an industry-leading digital service, e-commerce is a way to set yourself up for future financial freedom!

All it takes is time and dedication to ensure smooth sailing in e-commerce. So why not start today?

Start researching your ideas, get to know the current online marketplaces, validate those ideas, and start drawing up a plan.

By Chris Alarcon

Christopher is the driving force behind Financially Well Off – the ultimate destination for those looking to achieve financial independence, explore the world and stay motivated daily. If you’re ready to transform your perspective on money and take charge of your life, you’ve come to the right place.

Sourced from Parent Portfolio

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Why social commerce is transforming online retail

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Sourced from RETAILDIVE

Social commerce is where social media and e-commerce intertwine. Consumers scroll social media platforms like TikTok and Instagram for entertainment and information. More recently, consumers are using social media to browse and shop online. If brands want to reach a new pool of consumers, they must meet shoppers where they are.

Consumers want convenience and variety when shopping online – and they are willing to invest time and effort to comparison shop. An overwhelming 82% of global consumers will visit two or more websites before buying, according to the 2023 Online Consumer Behaviour Global Report by Rithum and research firm Dynata. This report was based on a survey of over 6,000 online shoppers across the U.S., U.K., Australia, France, Germany, Sweden and Denmark in August 2023.

That’s the same percentage of consumers who found items through Amazon recommended products and Google search ads. 72% of consumers said they would go further, visiting two to four websites before buying, according to the report.

Social commerce is popular among younger consumers

Adding social media platforms as a selling channel gives direct-to-consumer (DTC) brands the opportunity to connect with audiences they might not otherwise reach. This includes reaching younger consumers who are comfortable scrolling and trying new products they find through social media. According to the report, 63% of consumers between the ages 18-25 said they had been influenced to make a purchase after seeing a product promoted by a brand on social media in the past 12 months.

Consumers comfortable purchasing through social media are expected to buy more through 2027. According to market research company eMarketer, U.S. social commerce sales per buyer is expected to nearly double from $627.8 billion in 2023 to $1,223.7 billion in 2027.

That influence isn’t limited to Gen Z’ers. More than half of consumers (53%) ages 26-35, and 40% of consumers ages 36-45 also said they were influenced to buy products they saw through social media ads, according to the Rithum and Dynata report.

Social media goes beyond brand awareness

Social commerce is evolving. The rate at which it has grown has exploded over the last year. It is expected to reach $1.698 trillion in sales by the end of 2024, according to data gathering platform Statista. That momentum shows no signs of slowing.

Consumer behaviour indicates that social commerce is a retail opportunity for the long-term. 23% of global consumers indicated that they already use their social media feed to find products to buy online, according to the Rithum and Dynata report.

According to research and consulting firm Forrester’s August 2023 Consumer Pulse Survey, 46% of consumers who participated in back-to-school shopping bought directly from an ad they saw on social media. But brands are learning they can leverage social media beyond sponsored ads. It is its own selling channel.

ByteDance’s TikTok launched TikTok Shop in September 2023 in the United States. TikTok Shop is also live in the United Kingdom. Instead of relying solely on ads, influencer’s user-generated content (UGC) creates an authentic shopping experience. Consumers can now buy products promoted by their favourite content creators. TikTok’s community spans more than 1 billion monthly active users.

Social commerce as an authentic shopping experience

Brands can look to content creators, or influencers, to reach new consumers. Here, it’s the quality, rather than quantity, of followers that matter. Non-celebrity micro-influencers with a few thousand loyal followers capture attention and can contribute toward a higher conversion rate for a product.

Authenticity is increasingly important. Micro-influencers have gained followers by sharing their lives or advice on social media. UGC is not produced or polished by brands. Here, the content creator shares a product they like with their followers. As a result, consumers tend to trust their recommendations.

Brands can partner with influencers, where the influencer promotes the brand’s products or services through social media platforms such as TikTok, Facebook, Instagram, YouTube and others. These relationships can be established directly between the influencer and brand or be connected through agencies that help usher these relationships to find the right fit.

Apparel and beauty categories are popular among consumers shopping through social media. These tend to be lower-priced purchases, so the risk and reward is less prohibitive. It’s also easy with less friction to pay at checkout. Consumers can increasingly pay through various social media apps using trusted methods such as PayPal, Apple Pay, Google Pay and Venmo.

The evolution of social commerce isn’t a passing trend. Consumers want an honest review – and they feel they can trust the content creators they follow on social media. Social media opens a gateway for brands to create an authentic connection with consumers. Learn more about selling on TikTok Shop, and Shops on Facebook and Instagram.

Feature Image Credit: iStock.com/georgeclerk

Sourced from RETAILDIVE

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The Power Of E-Commerce: How Small, Local Businesses Can Expand Online

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By John Hall

If you run a small, local business, chances are you’ve got some sort of a website. You may even be set up to sell a few products online, here and there. But you may not have tapped the massive potential of building out a real e-commerce arm for your business. And you might not realize just how easy — or how lucrative — it’s become for small, local businesses to move online.

If you’re still mostly bound to brick-and-mortar, it’s time to consider a change. Here are some low-risk, high-reward ways to successfully scale into the digital world.

1. Do a Digital Reboot

As noted, you may already have a great website or even a decent online store. But it’s likely you could be doing much more to make it competitive with other e-commerce sites in your niche.

If it isn’t already, your site should be hosted on—or at least integrated with—a platform that’s designed for e-commerce, like Shopify, Squarespace or BigCommerce. Make sure it’s easy to use, intuitive to navigate and has a clean, simple design. It might be worth having a specialist conduct a user experience audit.

Perhaps most importantly, ensure your site is optimized for mobile users. Remember that 91% of Americans ages 18 to 49—likely the bulk of your target customers—shop on their smartphones. Most web design platforms let you convert your desktop designs to mobile layouts almost automatically. But you still need to make sure the mobile version is attractive and usable.

2. Leverage the Power of Online Testimonials

Getting good product reviews on your site and on other platforms can do wonders for your business. Consumers don’t trust brands, but they trust other people’s experience of a brand or product. Positive reviews can be just as effective as hearing directly from people they know in real life.

Smallbiz Technology recommends that businesses feature reviews and testimonials directly on their website and social media channels, natch. But they also note that positive reviews on third-party sites like Google, Yelp, and Trustpilot can generate tons of traffic.

To encourage customers to write reviews, they suggest offering customers free products or discounts as incentives. But note that if you sell products through a marketplace like Amazon, exchanging gifts for reviews could violate their policies. Alternatively, you can reach out and simply ask customers who like your product to take a moment to do a short write-up.

3. Offer Convenient Payment and Shipping Options

Your customer won’t buy from you online if you don’t make it as easy for them as shopping on Amazon. It’s imperative to offer fast, free or cheap shipping and eliminate any trace of friction from the shopping experience. The smallest details can send a customer packing even when they were already pretty serious about making a purchase.

Whatever you do, don’t force your customers to create an account before checkout. That’s one of the fastest ways to turn a ready-to-buy customer into one who’s just closed your site’s browser tab. It’s also vital to offer a number of convenient payment options, including PayPal, Apple Pay and Google Pay in addition to the standard credit cards.

Packing and shipping your own orders in-house may save you money when you’re just starting out. But as a small business, you don’t have the infrastructure to keep doing that at scale. Eventually, you’ll need to contract with a third-party fulfilment service. Shopify offers its own in-house option and maintains a list of other recommended fulfilment services you can try.

4. Be Smart About Email Marketing and Social Media

One advantage you have as a small local business owner is that you already have a devoted following. You’ve got people in your corner who support your business and want to see it flourish. If you create content that speaks to your biggest champions, they’ll be excited to share it with others.

Email marketing remains one of the best ways to drive engagement and sales for your brand. After all, it’s one of the few forms of brand communication that customers actually enjoy receiving. Still, carefully consider your content—you don’t want to irritate your loyal fans with ads for the same old products. Use email to make announcements, share informative blog posts or offer valuable discounts. That’s the kind of content your devotees will be happy to pass along to their friends.

Social media is likewise a powerful tool for bonding with current customers and reaching new ones. This is especially true if you actively engage with users, such as responding to Instagram comments or stitching videos on TikTok. Partnering with influencers through a platform like Grin or Afluencer could also help drive engagement.

Don’t Reinvent the Wheel

As recently as five or 10 years ago, small businesses had to transition to e-commerce on their own. They needed their own systems for everything from packing and shipping to handling customer service to accepting credit card payments.

All that has changed. Now, there’s an easy, affordable third-party solution for just about any e-commerce problem you can think of. You’ve already got a small, likely overworked staff. Don’t make them—or yourself—create systems from scratch when there’s probably a ready-made solution a short Google search away.

Feature Image Credit: getty

By John Hall

Follow me on Twitter or LinkedIn. Check out my website.

John Hall is a sales keynote speaker and virtual keynote speaker. He’s an adviser for the growth marketing agency Relevance, a company that helps brands be the most relevant in their industry. He’s also the co-founder of Calendar, a scheduling and time management app. You can book him as a keynote speaker here.

Sourced from Forbes

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The Future of Site Design: How 5 Companies Make E-Commerce More Personal, Engaging, and Effective

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By Rebecca Deczynski

Site design shakeups are helping retail brands increase conversion, decrease return rates, and build lasting, fruitful relationships with their most loyal customers.

When’s the last time you updated your website?

While the rise of omnichannel retail has led countless brands to invest in in-person real estate and social commerce has driven investments in social media, some founders contend that retailers should focus on sharpening their own websites to increase conversion, customer loyalty, and lifetime customer value. “Platforms will come and go. What is consistent is your own channel,” says Janvi Shah, co-founder and CEO of the Boston-based e-commerce company Hue. “Even if a customer isn’t checking out from your own website, so many are doing a high level of research before they decide to purchase–so the halo effect of you investing in your own platform will spread to all the different channels you’re in.”

Innovations in artificial intelligence and site design present new opportunities for retailers to better connect with their audiences–and drive long-term benefits. Here are five ways B2B businesses are transforming e-commerce.

Improved product information

For beauty brands looking to increase conversion, Hue proposes a solution that isn’t new–user-generated content–but with a more seamless implementation. The company enables clients to embed video reviews of customers onto their website landing pages, product pages, and social media platforms to drive sales and increase engagement. Clients are also welcome to use Hue-sourced UGC in paid advertisements.

Hue handles the technology required for web integration, as well as video sourcing. The company manages a community of about 2,000 content creators who originate honest testing-and-review videos for Hue’s clients in exchange for free products. Video reviews are key to boosting customer engagement, says Shah, 30: On average, clients see a 127 percent lift in time spent on-site after integrating Hue. “What we see with video is that it’s a lot harder to fake,” Shah says. “People have a lot of scepticism about written reviews. And if someone is speaking to the camera and showing their skin, that’s not easy to Photoshop.”

New York City-based Surratt Beauty, a Hue client, embeds the company’s UGC on product pages for its foundation. Evadney Petgrave, e-commerce and digital marketing director for the company, says that that platform is user-friendly and has helped Surratt to replicate the in-store, shade-matching experience digitally. On average, Hue has seen sales on product pages with its embedded UGC increase by 23 percent. The company, which currently partners with more than 20 beauty brands and retailers, expects to triple its revenue in the next 12 months.

Hue enables clients to embed video reviews of customers onto their website landing pages.

Hue enables clients to embed video reviews of customers onto their website landing pages. Photo: Courtesy Company

Smarter search functionality

Getting the right product in front of the right customer is a huge hurdle for retail businesses–even when customers have already made it to their site. That has driven Lily AI, a Mountain View, California-based startup, to make the search bar more human. “There’s language I have in my mind when I look for products, but that’s not the same language [a brand uses] when they’re sold to me,” says co-founder and CEO Purva Gupta, 35. “Let’s say a brand describes a product as ‘midnight French terry activewear’–a consumer is going to call it ‘blue sweatshirt.'” The issue, Gupta says, is that for many retailers, the merchandising process is incredibly manual, typically requiring junior-level merchants to attribute three to four attributes per product.

Lily AI aims to solve the problem with image recognition technology that uses artificial intelligence to attribute more accurate, customer-centric keywords to products, at scale. The technology can also accommodate customer searches that may be more subjective or nebulous–such as trends like quiet luxury or cottagecore. Gupta says that Lily AI helped clients–which include Bloomingdale’s and Macy’s–increase site conversion, as well as average revenue per consumer. One Lily AI client, ThredUp, attributed a 15 percent lift in sell-through rate to Lily AI’s enhanced product attribution.

Lily AI aims to solve the problem with image recognition technology to attribute more accurate, "customer-centric" keywords to products.

Lily AI aims to solve the problem with image recognition technology to attribute more accurate, “customer-centric” keywords to products. Photo: Courtesy Company

Better personalization

New York City-based Psykhe AI envisions a world in which e-commerce sites cater directly to individual customers, serving them the products it knows they’ll most respond to. The company, which is currently in pilot testing with plans to launch in September, uses A.I. to merchandise category pages to unique visitors. By seeing which products a visitor engages with, it gathers information about their user preferences and serves them products that are likely to align with those preferences. For example, a shopper who interacts with classic, bright floral dresses that cost $100 or less isn’t likely to be served a more avante-garde, structural leather garment priced at $800. The platform–which is designed to work for both fashion and home décor brands–is trained on a data set that draws connections between personality traits such as neuroticism and agreeableness, style preferences, and three million aggregated products. The company has raised more than $3 million in funding.

Founder and CEO Anabel Maldonado, 37, who has a background in both fashion and psychology, says that the product is targeted toward large, multibrand retailers looking to improve discoverability. “It’s like a salesperson who sees you looking at something and from that is able to understand your aesthetic ecosystem,” Maldonado says. Pilot testing has shown a 5x increase in conversion rate, an 8x increase in dwell time, and a 25 percent decrease in return rates.

Psykhe AI uses artificial intelligence to merchandise category pages to unique visitors.

Psykhe AI uses artificial intelligence to merchandise category pages to unique visitors.Photo: Courtesy Company

More engaging digital interfaces

While retail brands are increasingly investing in their in-person strategies, Neha Singh, founder of the New York City-based tech company Obsess, contends that it’s well worth elevating their online presence, too. Working with clients like Coach, Mattel, and Crocs, Obsess designs interactive virtual storefronts that operate on both mobile devices and browsers. “It’s really about engagement and brand-building,” Singh says. “It typically takes seven to eight touch points for a customer to make a purchase decision. Now you’re making one of those touch points much deeper or more memorable.”

Because virtual storefronts increase time spent on a retail brand’s site and customer engagement, they can also lead brands to secure new sources of first-party data. “We have a lot of capabilities in our platform around gamification and quizzes that enable brands to ask questions in a way that’s baked into the flow of the experience,” Singh says. “And what we see is that people are much more likely to answer questions in our gamified environment versus if you just put a pop-up on a regular ecommerce site.” That has an impact on a brand’s long-term success, as it can provide learnings on customer preferences. Obsess declined to share revenue, but Singh says the company has grown more than 100 percent year-over-year for the past three years.

Targeted conversion tactics

The best opportunity to upsell a customer is when they’re already likely to make a purchase, says Elizabeth Buchanan, chief commercial officer of the New York City-based ecommerce company Rokt. That’s why Rokt enables retail businesses to promote offers–for both their own brand (like membership programs and store credit cards) or other brands (for which they’d earn revenue based on customer engagement)–through the checkout process and on order confirmation pages. The key, Buchanan says, is the ability to use A.I. to promote offers that are relevant.

Rokt enables retail businesses to promote offers through the checkout process.

Rokt enables retail businesses to promote offers through the checkout process.Photo: Courtesy Company

“If you think about a barista that remembers your order when you approach the counter–we try to achieve that same kind of seamless and relevant experience throughout the checkout flow,” she says. Relevancy has become paramount for brands to pull off upselling without alienating customers–to the point that, if Rokt’s A.I. determines that an offer will increase the risk of cart abandonment, it won’t present an offer to the customer, Buchanan adds. Especially as increased privacy restrictions have limited the ability of brands to track customers via cookies, the enhanced ability for companies to increase lifetime customer value through A.I. targeting can prove highly beneficial. One Rokt client, Panda Express, had a 7.8 percent positive engagement rate with post-purchase offers, which the company says increased revenue and customer loyalty. Rokt has a valuation of $2.4 billion and in the past financial year grew more than 45 percent.

Feature Image Credit: An Obsess interactive virtual storefront for the brand Laneige. Photo: Courtesy Company

By Rebecca Deczynski

@rebecca_decz

Sourced from Inc.

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E-commerce wasn’t working until livestreaming came along

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By Sedge Beswick 

Without sounding too ‘Been there, done that’ – when it comes to live stream events – we were early adopters at Asos.

During my time leading the social media team there, we ran an earlier iteration of this e-commerce revolution. Albeit a little scrappier than what we’re seeing now.

Ours included live and interactive Twitter competitions. Yes, remember Twitter?

We also coordinated live virtual games of Pass the Parcel and Take Me Out (although the latter was a total disaster!) on our social media platforms. But that was then, and in the seven years since, live events have evolved into something altogether slicker, cooler and oh-so profitable. So much so that Coresight Research predicts that by the end of this year, sales from livestream events will reach $32bn, and by 2026, will account for over 5% of total e-commerce sales.

Huge.

This contrasts sharply with a retail environment that feels more than a little flat. We’re hearing of super low conversation rates of around 1-2% and basket abandon rates of 90%. People are not finding what they want online. And if they do, about 20-30% return them afterward. But then there are live shopping events. The unicorn of e-commerce. A bastion of hope for brands and influencers.

Although it might seem gimmicky – may I refer you to my team’s earlier experiments at Asos – livestream shopping actually solves a significant customer problem. Although convenient, shopping online can feel boring, impersonal and wholly functional. There’s none of the human access and interaction that stores and social platforms can offer, and in the case of beauty in particular, none of the tailored advice those hallowed beauty counters provide. It’s all just transactional.

This is why we’ve seen so many brands and creators pivot in recent years. To take everything they’ve learned from their social media presence – and combine it with products they really know and believe in. The result is a new e-commerce revenue channel that feels engaging and interactive, like social, but sells products at speed and scale. The result is livestreaming.

So, what do I mean by livestreaming? I mean video content hosted on social media platforms like TikTok Live and Instagram Live or on a brand’s website. Presented by a personality, the content will usually be themed around a trend, product launch, seasonal moment etc. (think of it like a campaign), and when the presenter mentions certain products, the platform will show the product on screen. It will be easily-shoppable for viewers. Chat functionality allows viewers to ask questions in real-time to make their shopping experience feel even more tailored and special.

The success stories are rolling in thick and fast. In one week this summer, make-up artist and brand owner Mitchell Halliday earned $2m selling his Made by Mitchell (MBM) mystery bundles live on TikTok. Flash sales are nothing new in retail. But the power of his personality, the entertainment of not knowing what bundle a customer would get, the unboxing videos that followed, and his deep understanding of his followers and products made his flash sales feel entirely new.

But social media platforms don’t have a monopoly on providing this service to brands and creators. Most of them have lagged behind D2C e-commerce sites. In the UK, beauty brands like Pai Skincare have led the way. Mostly presented by the brand’s founder, Sarah Brown – it has gone live with 65 live shows since 2020, which, like Made by Mitchell’s, now live under a ‘Watch ’tab on its website. And just like MBM, it is being presented by a charismatic personality that embodies the brand and knows everything there is to know about the products – because it created them. That makes them totally authentic and, more importantly, unflappable during a live show. No question could derail them; no accidental deleting of a script would be an issue. And that’s why it works. In fact, by 2021, 10% of Pai’s online revenue was generated by live shopping. And its conversion rate from livestreamed shows? A staggering 17%.

The tech that enables live streaming is getting better and better, too. Third-party providers like Wonder.live or Bambuser – whose livestream shopping clients include fashion brands like Adidas, Stella McCartney, Net-A-Porter, Fendi and Farfetch – boast four times higher engagement than Instagram, three times longer session time than traditional e-commerce and ten times higher conversion.

There’s no longer the need to question whether the Western markets are ready for livestreaming; it is time to test, learn, go live and sell.

By Sedge Beswick 

Sourced from The Drum

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The Power Of E-Commerce: How Small, Local Businesses Can Expand Online

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By John Hall

If you run a small, local business, chances are you’ve got some sort of a website. You may even be set up to sell a few products online, here and there. But you may not have tapped the massive potential of building out a real e-commerce arm for your business. And you might not realize just how easy — or how lucrative — it’s become for small, local businesses to move online.

If you’re still mostly bound to brick-and-mortar, it’s time to consider a change. Here are some low-risk, high-reward ways to successfully scale into the digital world.

1. Do a Digital Reboot

As noted, you may already have a great website or even a decent online store. But it’s likely you could be doing much more to make it competitive with other e-commerce sites in your niche.

If it isn’t already, your site should be hosted on—or at least integrated with—a platform that’s designed for e-commerce, like Shopify, Squarespace or BigCommerce. Make sure it’s easy to use, intuitive to navigate and has a clean, simple design. It might be worth having a specialist conduct a user experience audit.

Perhaps most importantly, ensure your site is optimized for mobile users. Remember that 91% of Americans ages 18 to 49—likely the bulk of your target customers—shop on their smartphones. Most web design platforms let you convert your desktop designs to mobile layouts almost automatically. But you still need to make sure the mobile version is attractive and usable.

2. Leverage the Power of Online Testimonials

Getting good product reviews on your site and on other platforms can do wonders for your business. Consumers don’t trust brands, but they trust other people’s experience of a brand or product. Positive reviews can be just as effective as hearing directly from people they know in real life.

Smallbiz Technology recommends that businesses feature reviews and testimonials directly on their website and social media channels, natch. But they also note that positive reviews on third-party sites like Google, Yelp, and Trustpilot can generate tons of traffic.

To encourage customers to write reviews, they suggest offering customers free products or discounts as incentives. But note that if you sell products through a marketplace like Amazon, exchanging gifts for reviews could violate their policies. Alternatively, you can reach out and simply ask customers who like your product to take a moment to do a short write-up.

3. Offer Convenient Payment and Shipping Options

Your customer won’t buy from you online if you don’t make it as easy for them as shopping on Amazon. It’s imperative to offer fast, free or cheap shipping and eliminate any trace of friction from the shopping experience. The smallest details can send a customer packing even when they were already pretty serious about making a purchase.

Whatever you do, don’t force your customers to create an account before checkout. That’s one of the fastest ways to turn a ready-to-buy customer into one who’s just closed your site’s browser tab. It’s also vital to offer a number of convenient payment options, including PayPal, Apple Pay and Google Pay in addition to the standard credit cards.

Packing and shipping your own orders in-house may save you money when you’re just starting out. But as a small business, you don’t have the infrastructure to keep doing that at scale. Eventually, you’ll need to contract with a third-party fulfilment service. Shopify offers its own in-house option and maintains a list of other recommended fulfilment services you can try.

4. Be Smart About Email Marketing and Social Media

One advantage you have as a small local business owner is that you already have a devoted following. You’ve got people in your corner who support your business and want to see it flourish. If you create content that speaks to your biggest champions, they’ll be excited to share it with others.

Email marketing remains one of the best ways to drive engagement and sales for your brand. After all, it’s one of the few forms of brand communication that customers actually enjoy receiving. Still, carefully consider your content—you don’t want to irritate your loyal fans with ads for the same old products. Use email to make announcements, share informative blog posts or offer valuable discounts. That’s the kind of content your devotees will be happy to pass along to their friends.

Social media is likewise a powerful tool for bonding with current customers and reaching new ones. This is especially true if you actively engage with users, such as responding to Instagram comments or stitching videos on TikTok. Partnering with influencers through a platform like Grin or Afluencer could also help drive engagement.

Don’t Reinvent the Wheel

As recently as five or 10 years ago, small businesses had to transition to e-commerce on their own. They needed their own systems for everything from packing and shipping to handling customer service to accepting credit card payments.

All that has changed. Now, there’s an easy, affordable third-party solution for just about any e-commerce problem you can think of. You’ve already got a small, likely overworked staff. Don’t make them—or yourself—create systems from scratch when there’s probably a ready-made solution a short Google search away.

Feature Image Credit: getty

By John Hall

John Hall is a top motivational speaker and the co-founder of Calendar, a scheduling and time management app. He’s also an adviser for the growth marketing agency Relevance, a company that helps brands differentiate themselves and lead their industry online. You can book him as a keynote speaker here.

Sourced from Forbes

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WhatsApp For E-commerce: Boosting Sales and Enhancing Customer Interactions

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With the rapid growth and evolution of e-commerce platforms, businesses are always on the lookout for innovative tools to enhance customer interactions and drive sales. One such powerful tool that has emerged is WhatsApp.

Originally designed as a messaging platform, its vast potential for business use cannot be overlooked. With marketing tools such as WhatsApp Web Sender, automated messages, and more, businesses can now utilize WhatsApp for e-commerce to connect with their customers, promote products, and drive sales.

This article will explore the advantages of using WhatsApp for e-commerce and how it can revolutionize the way you interact with your customers.

Introduction to WhatsApp in E-commerce

The digital realm has evolved, and with it, so have the platforms that consumers use to communicate and make purchases. While platforms like Instagram and Facebook have their place in e-commerce, WhatsApp offers a more personal and direct line of communication between businesses and their customers.

Advantages of Using WhatsApp for E-commerce

  • Direct and Personalized Communication

Unlike traditional e-commerce platforms where communication might feel one-sided, WhatsApp allows businesses to engage in direct and personalized conversations with their customers. This not only builds trust but also fosters a deeper relationship with the customer. They can ask questions, get immediate responses, and feel more connected to the brand.

For instance, a business can decide to use third-party tools like WhatsApp Chrome extension to send automated messages and product updates straight to their customers. Businesses can also embed links in those messages which leads customers directly to product pages, allowing them to make purchases with just a few clicks.

  • Efficient Customer Service

Queries, complaints, and feedback can be handled in real time on WhatsApp. By integrating a WhatsApp chat option on your e-commerce platform, you give your customers an efficient way to reach out, which can significantly improve customer satisfaction rates.

  • Integration with CRM Systems

WhatsApp can be integrated into various Customer Relationship Management (CRM) systems. This means that customer interactions on WhatsApp can be tracked, recorded, and analyzed to provide better services and offers tailored to individual customer preferences.

  • Marketing and Promotions

One of the significant advantages of using WhatsApp for e-commerce is the ability to send out marketing campaigns and promotions directly to customers. With features like broadcast lists and group chats, businesses can share the latest product releases, offers, and discounts, ensuring that their message reaches the targeted audience efficiently.

  • Efficient Order Processing and Updates

Once a customer places an order, they can be updated on the processing status, shipment details, and delivery time through WhatsApp messages. This not only ensures transparency but also reduces the anxiety of waiting for an order to arrive.

  • Secure Transactions

With end-to-end encryption, WhatsApp ensures that all conversations and transactions remain private and secure. This level of security can boost customer confidence, knowing that their data and transaction details are in safe hands.

  • Building a Loyal Customer Base

Regular and personal interactions on WhatsApp can foster loyalty among customers. By providing excellent after-sales service, addressing concerns promptly, and offering tailored promotions, businesses can ensure a loyal and returning customer base.

  • Feedback and Reviews

Receiving feedback is crucial for any business. Through WhatsApp, businesses can easily solicit reviews and feedback post-purchase, helping them understand what works and where improvements are needed.

Conclusion

WhatsApp, with its vast user base and intuitive features, is poised to become a game-changer in the world of e-commerce. Whether it’s through direct communications or seamless integrations, businesses now have a powerful tool to boost sales and enhance customer interactions. In this fast-paced digital era, it’s essential to leverage all available resources, and WhatsApp, with its myriad of benefits, is one resource that e-commerce platforms can’t afford to ignore.

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How To Start and Grow Your E-Commerce Business in 2023

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By Chris Alarcon

Operating an e-commerce business is a rewarding experience. However, venturing into online selling without a plan can hamper your chances of success.

You may ask yourself, “Where do I start planning? What does it truly take to operate an e-commerce business in today’s age?”

Thankfully, we’re here to help answer those questions. This post will teach you how to start and grow your e-commerce business!

Let’s dive in.

Define Your E-Commerce Business Idea

Before entering the e-commerce world, you need to define your business idea. Defining your business idea will ensure you have a clear vision of what you want the business to be and determine if it will be successful.

By doing this, you’re finding your niche in the e-commerce market and learning how to do it better than the rest.

This step takes a bit of brainstorming and research, but soon, you will be on your way to financial freedom.

Choosing Your Right Product(s)

Choosing your product can seem like the easiest part of creating an e-commerce business plan, but the truth is that it takes quite a bit of forethought.

To find the right product for your business, you need to do some market research and sense what you are passionate about. Deciding what to sell means more than purchasing goods from a supplier.

You are identifying which market you want to tap into. Consider selling and creating a new business from various niche markets and products.

If you are unsure of what products or which markets you would like to tap into, here are a few examples:

  • Clothing
  • Home goods
  • Children’s toys
  • Homemade and handcrafted items
  • Digital services

No matter which product or market you choose, performing research is critical.

Validate Your Idea

Once you’ve decided what your product will be, you must validate your e-commerce business idea.

This process entails researching to ensure an audience for your product, learning about the market’s problems and why they are facing them, and finding out how to solve them. You should also see if there are potential trends you can capitalize on.

Answering the questions above will give you the insight you need into whether a business will succeed.

Any business idea can sound ground breaking at the moment. But moving forward is put on hold until you validate it by ensuring that there is a market for your product or that you can create the need for it.

Define Your Target Audience

Beyond discovering if there is an audience for your product, you will also need to define your target audience.

Is your audience the younger crowd that enjoys and needs trendy items and marketing? Or is it an older audience that prefers straightforward marketing and practical products? Of course, the gender, income level, and general location of your audience also factor in.

Further, you must know your intended audience’s lifestyle factors, interests, wants, and needs.

Implementing a solid definition of who your target audience is will help you shape your marketing approach and tailor your product offerings.

This definition will give you a sense of direction before jumping into the launch of your product or business. Then, you can visualize the prize you should focus on.

Brainstorm What Will Set Your Business Apart

Brainstorming how your business will differ from competitors is vital.

You need to give potential customers a reason why they should choose you over what else is available currently. Without a solid aspect that sets you apart, your business can become lost in the sea of emerging e-commerce businesses.

Research Your Competition

Knowing what sets your business apart from others in the market is critical. That’s why we also recommend spending a substantial amount of time researching your competitors.

To start researching your competitors, pretend you are a potential customer and search for the popular keyword and search queries pertaining to your business.

Then, take note of the pages with the highest rankings, as they will be your main competitors. Don’t stop there!

Dive into your competitors’ social media accounts and note how they brand and market themselves on the platforms. (Also, don’t forget about Amazon!) Use the infamous online retailer as a database to identify similar product offerings.

After you gather all of this information, organize it into a spreadsheet, listing the top competitors for your business.

Build Strong Branding

Branding is everything when marketing your products and your e-commerce business. It conveys the overall message that your company believes in and offers.

For example, brands like Nike will use motivational language to motivate their established customer base and draw potential customers.

But what does branding entail? How do you build your business with strong branding?

Building a strong brand doesn’t have to be costly; it simply takes consistency, planning, and research.

Audience Persona

Your audience persona is what customers will come to know your business for.

As previously mentioned, companies will utilize specific language to convey a message regarding branding. That helps build a company’s persona and brand identity.

You can implement your brand persona in all forms of marketing, from the colours you use in the marketing campaign to the vocabulary you use in social media posts. This implementation will help formulate the characteristics and emotions customers associate with your company.

When you are creating your persona, remember who your target audience is. For example, the persona for a brand like L.L. Bean will not have the same effect on a younger modern audience.

Brand Voice

In addition to vernacular and language, brand voice is critical for conveying your message. It will further tell your audience what your company is and what it can do for them.

This branding portion focuses explicitly on the language and vernacular part of the branding strategy.

To create a strong brand voice, you should first figure out how you want customers to feel when interacting with your brand’s online presence.

If a relaxed vibe is what you are going for, a laid-back tone and casual language are what you want when creating e-commerce marketing materials.

But on the other hand, if luxury and glamor are the vibe of your company, sophisticated language with flowery descriptions is what you need.

Social Media Branding

In our digital age, branding efforts extend into the social media sphere with most audiences, including older generations. In short, social media is the number one place to reach potential customers.

Your brand’s social media presence should be more than posting advertisements and product launches. Engaging with your audience is critical for building rapport and further ingraining brand voice, persona, and identity.

You can increase your audience engagement by hosting polls, commenting back to followers, and organizing live streams where they can interact with you and your company.

Brand Identity

Finally, we reach brand identity. This encompasses your voice, persona, and social media presence. It gets into the fine details of your visuals and content choices that will set you apart from your competitors.

With a proper brand identity, customers recognize your brand through adverts and social media posts without seeing your company’s name.

Visuals and Content

To establish your brand’s identity, you will want to choose your brand colours, design your logo, create content creation guidelines, and formulate your strategy.

Your branding guidelines should entail information about marketing copy, colour palette, brand story, and image guidelines.

Your strategy should also entail plans for reaching your intended audience through stylized branded content and marketing materials.

If you need help formulating these guidelines and plans, professional brand strategists are available on freelance marketplaces such as Upwork and Fiverr. They can help take your current vision and turn it into an actualized plan.

E-Commerce Websites

Next, incorporate that information into setting up your e-commerce website.

Your company’s website is a hub for selling your products to customers and establishing a home base for all things relating to your brand. In addition, this website is the place for driving your brand voice, persona, and identity into the hearts of established and potential customers.

So, remember to strictly enforce your brand guidelines when building and maintaining your website.

Again, if you need help building an e-commerce website, you can find website builders and your brand strategist on platforms such as Fiverr and Upwork.

Create Your Shipping Strategy

If you are running an e-commerce business with physical products, like clothing, home goods, or kids’ toys, you must create a shipping strategy that gets the product to your customers safely and efficiently.

First, you must determine if you will transfer the shipping costs to your customers or factor shipping into the product’s price and offer free shipping. Offering flat-rate shipping is also an option.

Additionally, no matter which shipping cost method you choose, you will want to keep a database of the weight of your product(s). This data will help you consistently track the price of shipping your products when it is dependent upon their weight.

Finally, you need to source your packaging materials. From boxes to envelopes and wrapping materials to filler, your packaging should help safely deliver the product to the consumer and leave a lasting impression with its presentation.

If you have downloadable digital products to sell online, you will want to find the best platform and software for delivering these materials. Consider these top five:

  • SendOwl
  • Shootproof
  • Shopify Digital Downloads
  • Fetch app
  • Digital Product Delivery

Each has unique offerings, and depending on the type of digital products you sell and your target audience, some will be more suitable than others.

Launch Your Business

After choosing your products, formulating a brand identity, creating a website, and developing a shipping strategy, it’s time to launch your e-commerce business!

Although you have accomplished so much already, the adventure is still ongoing because you need to start selling products.

When launching your business, it’s critical to remember that anything can happen, and you may have to reformulate your previous plans. But don’t be too quick to jump ship; the plan was created for a reason. You simply want to open yourself up to new possibilities.

From here on out, your mission is to achieve financial freedom, which sometimes requires testing variables to improve performance.

Market Your Business

After getting your business up and running, you must increase your marketing efforts to ensure your business grows.

But unlike decades past, with your online business, physical advertisements on billboards and in print newspapers won’t cut it. So instead, you need to learn the ways of e-commerce marketing.

Learn Basic SEO

Learning the basics of search engine optimization (SEO) is your ticket to boosting your business among the Google ranks.

Have a Baseline

To start venturing into the world of SEO, you need to have a baseline.

By utilizing a service like Semrush, you can see your domain overview, and it will tell you how visible your business/webpage is on mobile and desktop apps. Its domain overview section covers all the data and analytics you need to understand where your business currently stands.

Know Your Keywords

Additionally, you will want to research and learn the most prevalent keywords and search queries for your type of business. You can then use this information to create content that will help lead shoppers back to your website.

Discover The Power of Backlinks

Backlinks are also essential for creating online traffic for your business, as they are links to your website from other websites.

The more links you have from trustworthy and high-traffic web pages, the more search engines like Google and Bing will see your business and website as valuable and reliable sources.

But the most critical component of all when it comes to basic SEO is staying informed. SEO is an ever-evolving world that takes ongoing reform to remain successful.

Blog Consistently

While looking for the best ways to market your e-commerce store or business, you may have seen the phrase “content is king.” But what kind of content is best?

Blogging is one of the best forms of online content for marketing your business. By publishing blog posts consistently and utilizing the keywords and search queries that pertain to your business, you can increase your chances of climbing the Google ranks and accruing more backlinks.

Your blog posts should always surround topics pertaining to your business.

For instance, post frequent blog posts about what’s trending in fashion if you have a clothing business. Or, if it’s a digital service company, publish articles that discuss the benefits of utilizing a service like yours.

Implement Social Media Marketing

We live in the golden age of social media, and if you’re searching for more customers, you need to utilize Instagram, Facebook, YouTube, TikTok, and more.

You can do this by posting relevant branded content frequently. Your social media content should also utilize hashtags to help further increase your visibility among your target audience.

Like SEO keywords, hashtags can help lead potential customers back to your page, and the more interaction you have on a post, the more likely you are to appear on Explore and For You pages on social media.

Build and Grow an Email List

Building and growing an email list is the best way to create a direct line to your customer base. You can ensure they return and purchase more products by staying in touch with them.

But people prefer to keep their personal information, like email addresses, private. So how do you grow an email list?

You need to offer a deal in return for a customer’s email. Whether it’s free downloads or special sales offers, customers will take note of what you are willing to give in return.

Analyse Your Results

Adapting your e-commerce business to the ever-evolving world is crucial for long-term success.

After spending time in the market and gathering data, you should analyse your results. You will want to look at critical metrics, like your popular products.

Once you notice consistent growth in your business, you will want to optimize your online storefront for high-scale volume. Think about performing the following as your business grows:

  • Display popular products on the front page.
  • Manage fluctuating stock volumes by sending email invitations and allowing backorders.
  • Allow for more checkout options: guest checkout, abandoned shopping cart reminders, etc.
  • Match your brand and website messaging to the current market.

No matter what your results are after performing an annual analysis, being prepared to make a few changes is always wise.

FAQs

How Do You Start an E-Commerce Business Without Money?

You can start an e-commerce business without money in a few different ways. One of the best and easiest ways is to sell your expert service.

Whether you are a great writer, marketer, virtual assistant, or graphic designer, you can create an online e-commerce business today with zero or minimal start-up costs.

You can also start a dropshipping business, where you have an online store that customers can order from, and the supplier does the product fulfilment directly. AliExpress or Alibaba are popular suppliers for such storefronts.

How Do You Start an E-Commerce Business on Amazon?

Starting an e-commerce business on Amazon is simple.

First, you must choose what kind of products you want to sell; the possibilities are endless when you choose Amazon as your e-commerce platform.

Afterward, you must sign up for an Amazon seller’s account and select your business model. Wholesale, private label, and retail arbitrage are the most popular.

Once you have the basics covered, it’s time to start listing your products, send them to Amazon to handle storage and shipping, and then market yourself.

What Does an E-Commerce Business Do?

An e-commerce business is a business that sells goods or services online. These goods and services can range from writing and graphic design services to clothing retailers and home goods storefronts.

What Are The Four Types of E-Commerce?

What industry leaders commonly refer to as the four traditional types of e-commerce are business-to-consumer (B2C), business-to-business (B2B), consumer-to-consumer (C2C), and consumer-to-business (C2B).

Each type has specific traits and offerings that set them apart. The most common type is B2C.

Is E-Commerce Really Profitable?

E-commerce can be an incredibly profitable business venture. But if you’re looking for an entirely passive way to generate income, this venture isn’t for you.

Running an e-commerce business takes time and dedication. You have to be willing to devote all of your time to managing the business and potentially marketing yourself to thrive.

How Do You Start up an E-Commerce Business?

Suppose you want to start up an e-commerce business. In that case, you must follow a plan to define your business, create a branding and marketing strategy, and perform market analysis regularly.

Free and low-cost start-up options exist whether you want to sell a service or a physical product.

No matter what e-commerce business you decide to open, be prepared to dedicate a lot of time to starting it. However, it is a rewarding venture.

Start Your Journey to Financial Freedom Today!

Whether you want to operate a small business like a small-scale online retailer or an industry-leading digital service, e-commerce is a way to set yourself up for future financial freedom!

All it takes is time and dedication to ensure smooth sailing in e-commerce. So why not start today?

Start researching your ideas, get to know the current online marketplaces, validate those ideas, and start drawing up a plan. 

By Chris Alarcon

Chris is the founder of Financially Well Off, the blog for people looking to reach financial independence and stay inspired along the way. Go from being stressed and in debt to growing your net worth. Grab your free guide here.

Sourced from WEALTH OF GEEKS

 

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