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There are thousands of e-commerce stores in most niches. If you’ve done your research and seen how many competitors you have, you might be wondering if it’s even worth starting. But having competitors is a good thing. It shows your niche is viable and that there are customers waiting to buy.
What you need to do is to stand out and show potential customers why they should buy from you.
There are many ways to do this, including ensuring your logistics run smoothly with 3PL and focusing on your USP.
Staking a Claim on e-Commerce Landscape
Here are some tips for staking your claim in a crowded e-commerce landscape.
1) Start off on the right foot with your logistics
When customers come to your site, they want a smooth, easy buying journey and they want their goods as soon as possible.
You can’t provide that if your e-commerce backend isn’t set up properly.
One of the main things that simply must work seamlessly is your logistics. You need good processes and tracking to ensure that your products are picked, packed, and delivered both accurately and quickly.
If you want to do that yourself, it involves finding a way to store your items until you sell them. You also need to accurately pick and fulfill orders, and ship on time, every time.
That can lead to a lot of expenses, including warehousing, staff costs, and more.
However, there is another way. You could choose to use third party logistics where a specialist 3PL company provides all of those services for you.
There are many advantages to using 3PL, including a seamless buying experience for your customers. You can also save time and money because you don’t need to organize your own warehousing or pay for staff to pick up your orders.
Third-party logistics companies also ship so many items that they can negotiate exceptionally good rates with large shipping companies, such as FedEx. That means you get better prices and potentially faster shipping, and you can choose to pass those savings onto your customers. If you can offer free one-day shipping, you can set yourself apart from competitors that can’t offer that.
Set your backend up the right way from the start, and you’ll be in a great position to stand out and be ahead of the competition.
2) Create a great first impression
You have just seconds to get your customers’ attention and make them want to stay on your website.
Plan your site design carefully with attractive graphics and fonts that suit your branding. Ensure that there’s a clear path through the customer journey with eye-catching, quality images, buy buttons, and calls to action.
You also need to ensure that your site loads quickly and works on all devices, including mobile. So many shoppers now use their phones to buy that you’ll definitely be missing out on sales if you don’t have this covered. In addition, mobile readiness is a big ranking factor for Google.
Think about what your customers want to see and give it to them, with content that’s engaging. Write copy that draws them to read more and addresses their pain points and you have a better chance of converting browsers to buyers.
One other thing that will attract your customers is to use videos. Many people prefer to watch a video rather than read copy. You can show off your products in use, demonstrate particular features, show how to make the most of your products, and more.
Here are just a couple of statistics from Wyzowl’s Video Marketing Statistics 2022:
“81% of marketers say video has helped them directly increase sales.”
93% of marketers say video has helped them increase brand awareness.
Finally, provide social proof. Potential customers feel reassured if they can see that others have bought from you and had a good experience. They like to see detailed reviews that answer their questions and show what they’ll be getting if they buy from you.
Create a good first impression and you should be able to keep people on your site for longer, engage them, and persuade them to buy.
3) Provide an excellent customer experience
“93% of customers are more likely to repeat purchases from companies who have offered excellent customer service.”
“84% of people say that the experience provided by a business is equally important to the product or service they’re using.”
Those statistics are huge and they show the value of providing a great customer experience. Ensuring a great experience really can add to your bottom line and bring in both new and repeat customers.
We’ve already talked about the importance of a well-designed website and a smooth customer journey. Every aspect of your site needs to work beautifully, particularly your checkout. Test and check everything regularly and look to see where you can improve.
Customers now expect to be able to reach you on multiple platforms, as well as your website. They want to be able to chat and get their questions answered on your social media. They want the right information when they want it, even if it’s the middle of the night for you. And they will go elsewhere if they don’t feel valued.
Do everything you can to improve your customer experience and make sure your customers can get in touch and get a reply on every platform. Your bottom line will thank you.
4) Keep on top of the latest trends
E-commerce landscape is ever-changing and so are the latest trends. If you can keep on top of what’s happening in both e-commerce and the wider world, you can respond quickly and adapt. You can alter your marketing to include the latest popular memes and GIFs. You can take part in the latest jokes in your niche, if that fits your brand.
And you can quickly develop and bring out new products that fit those new trends.
At the End
Stay constantly up to date and you can respond and create new products before your competitors can react.
That’s a great way to ensure you stand out with new and innovative products that your competitors don’t have.
3PL can help you with this too, as it’s possible to supply your customers with a wider range of new and interesting products. You can quickly order new goods and have them in stock and stored in your 3PL warehouse ready to buy.
It’s not easy to stand out in the e-commerce landscape, but it is possible and it can be highly profitable.
