How to Drive Sales for an eCommerce Business

The pandemic has certainly seen the rise of eCommerce and both buying and selling products online. From health and wellness, to baking goods to gym equipment, these are just a few things that have emerged and continue to grow online from 2020 to 2021 and beyond.

But amongst the noise of competition and social media, we identify some clever ways to drive sales for your eCommerce business.

Social media marketing

Social media is typically going to be your starting point. In fact, many businesses today start with an Instagram account and do not even bother setting up a website.

But to gain initial traction, you can set up an account on Instagram or Facebook, ask your circle of friends to follow and link you and make sure that you fill up your page or wall with a number of posts – making it seem that you are a little established and not just starting out.

You can certainly start with a giveaway or competition and encourage people to post or share to enter – creating some hype in the process.

If you have a budget, consider using paid social marketing on the likes of Facebook and Instagram. Search online for free vouchers so that you can get a least $100 worth of credit for it. Try to spend on adverts to get some sales in to build up a customer base. If you convert on sales, keep reinvesting and reinvesting and quickly you can find yourself comfortably spending a few thousand each month and see a positive return.

PR

There are some clever ways to get PR which can help you drive sales and open you to other opportunities. The simplest and free way is to search on Twitter everyday and find people and journalists who are searching for comments or interviews. Twitter is the hub for reporters and those looking to write pieces and whilst PR is never guaranteed, you could get picked up and get featured in a nice publication.

If you have a budget, you may look at using a specialist tech PR agency and this can help you put together a story or press release for publication and they can send this out to hundreds of journalists to capture some important PR.

Affiliates

If you have a product or service that can be sold anywhere in the country, you can look at using affiliate programs. This includes listing on sites like Amazon, gift sites, cashback sites, blogs or other lead generators.

Taking an example from Cosy House Collection, who sell bamboo sheets and pillows, they feature on a number of different affiliate websites, paying a commission to the merchant for every sale they make.

Affiliations are an effective way to give commissions to introducers, understand your margins if you give 5% or 10% per sale and also scale up. You can incentive affiliates with deals, offers or bonuses – and this can help you boost sales.

Growth hacking techniques

Some other smart techniques for driving sales through eCommerce include things like scarcity marketing and only offering a limited amount of stock, which encourages people to buy.

You can also offer discounts just as someone is about to exit or has abandoned their shopping cart – or with a repeat purchase.

Refer-a-friend incentives are always popular, especially if you can offer a free good or discount to the individual for making referrals.

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Consider also looking at the best web design practices for eCommerce to boost your sales and some other tips here such as knowing your audience, creating a story and learning to be adaptable.