What Should E-Commerce Entrepreneurs Invest in To Build a Strong Shop

Creating a strong eCommerce shop is currently something a lot of entrepreneurs are striving to do, as the popularity of online shopping is growing at an impressive rate. By the year 2040, as much as 95% of shopping will be facilitated by eCommerce, so it’s undoubtedly a smart business idea to start your own shop.

Essential Investments for Building a Successful Online Store

However, if you want to start an online store in 2023, it will require a lot of planning and investing. If you are a beginner, it’s hard to know where exactly you should start, so we’ve made a list of all the things every eCommerce entrepreneur needs to invest in to build a strong shop.

1. Great eCommerce Platform

Before anything else, you need to build a website that follows website design trends which you will use to sell your products.

If you are worried about the costs of hiring someone else to build your website, you’ll be happy to know there is a much cheaper and better alternative, which is using an eCommerce platform to build your website.

These platforms help you build a website from scratch and you’ll be amazed to see how easy they are to administrate and use. A well-developed online store builder can be used by people who have no experience in coding.

While ease of use is what draws in most eCommerce entrepreneurs, there are other advantages of using a great eCommerce platform:

• Top-notch customer service: All high-quality eCommerce platforms offer great customer service and 24/7 availability for with the help of CRM with SMS marketing automation website owners and their customers. No matter if you’re struggling with setting up the platform or your customers have issues with the website, a customer support agent is always available to help.
• Significantly less downtime: There’s nothing website visitors hate more than poor website performance. Your eCommerce platform will help you boost your site’s performance so you won’t need to troubleshoot your platform every time a minor issue arises.
• High levels of security: Security is of great importance for anyone who runs an online business. Unless you keep your customers’ private information safe and secure, a single data breach could ruin your business and your reputation. Luckily, eCommerce platforms help you ensure that your website stays secure.

2. Search Engine Optimization

The internet is filled with websites and millions of online stores that are fighting for attention and trying to get noticed amongst a sea of competitors. One way you can ensure you get noticed and get a lot of website visitors is through search engine optimization (or SEO for short).

SEO helps you get a high-ranking position on Google and bring in more organic traffic. However, it’s hard to achieve great SEO results alone and only 5.7% of pages will rank in the top 10 search results within a year of publication.

You may want to do this optimization on your own, but you’ll have a hard time doing it if you’re not an expert. If you want to get noticed, you need help from a professional eCommerce SEO agency.

Search engine optimization is beneficial for every website, but it also has specific benefits it can bring to your eCommerce store:

• Building brand awareness: One of the best ways to get your brand noticed by potential customers is to appear in Google’s answer box or on the first page of search results. A lot of people consider brands that have a high-ranking position on Google to be high-quality.
• Leading customers through the marketing funnel SEO can help you in all stages of the marketing funnel, which are awareness, interest, desire, and action. With clever use of keywords, you’ll be able to target your leads and guide them all the way to the bottom of the funnel.
• Elevating content If you perform keyword research and use it to optimize the content on your website, you’ll be able to bring in more traffic with content your audience is interested in.
• Running remarketing campaigns. All you need to run a remarketing campaign is for someone to land on your website. From there, your paid search team can use cookies to track your potential customers wherever they go online and show them ads for your store and products.

3. Social Media Marketing

If a business wants to stay relevant in these dynamic times, they need to follow marketing trends as they change. Old-school marketing isn’t as effective now as it was just a few years ago, and so a lot of companies are switching their focus to social media marketing.

Social media marketing is a great opportunity for startup businesses, as it helps you bring in a lot of traffic without breaking the budget. for instance, getting automatic Instagram likes, Facebook ads promotion, and many others

When you create business profiles on social media platforms, you can enjoy the following benefits:

• Drawing attention: Social media is always showing the most popular content and trending topics, so you can take advantage of newsjacking. This is a practice where you align your activity on social media with trending topics, which allows you to draw attention to an already popular story.
• Boosting SEO: Search engine optimization services aren’t affected only by on-site strategies. When you have a strong social media presence and are active on multiple platforms, your SEO rankings will improve significantly.
• Building customer loyalty: Social media platforms are a great place where you can connect with your customers and get them to engage with your brand. If you reply to comments and messages and address your followers directly, brand loyalty will slowly but surely increase.
• Drawing in new customers: A good social media presence will help you grow your business through word of mouth. Statistics show that almost 71% of consumers who have had a positive experience with a brand on social media are likely to recommend the brand to their friends and family. Besides word of mouth, having a solid social media presence will also attract new customers organically to you. This is because many social media platforms have built-in features that reward any user with a strong following and presence. For example, on Instagram, if you get Instagram likes, comments, and followers consistently, the platform will reward you by showing you to new people every day.

4. Great Customer Service

Finally, the one thing without which no eCommerce store would be able to find success and gain their customers’ trust and loyalty is, logically, top-notch customer service. Running a business isn’t just about offering great products, it’s also about offering great service.

The e-commerce landscape is a bustling marketplace, with opportunities for aspiring entrepreneurs. But conquering this digital realm requires more than just a catchy brand name.

Don’t forget that customer service is the main touchpoint most of your customers will have with your business. As you don't have a physical store and customers can’t see your products in person, you need to show people that your brand cares about them with amazing customer service.

Here are just some of the reasons why you can’t go wrong if you invest in quality customer service:

• Establishing trust: eCommerce stores have to work hard to show they’re trustworthy. If you have customer service agents who are always polite, helpful, and ready to answer any question a customer has, you’ll have a competitive advantage over brands that have poor customer service.
• Resolving issues: Problems are an inevitable part of any business and they will always arise, but how your customer service agents resolve them can make or break your business. When you show people you own up to your mistakes and want to resolve them, you’ll gain many customers for life.
• Building brand reputation: Social media has made it easier than ever for customers to post their discontent with a brand that didn’t meet their expectations. If your customer service is excellent, you won’t have to worry about bad reviews and comments ruining your business.
• Build Stronger Relationships: Personalized interactions foster a sense of connection, making customers feel valued and appreciated.
• Resolve Issues Efficiently: By referencing past interactions and purchase history, you can tailor solutions to specific customer needs, leading to faster and more effective problem-solving.
• Boost Customer Satisfaction: Personalized service demonstrates that you care about each customer's unique experience, leading to higher satisfaction and loyalty.
• Increase Sales Opportunities: Understanding customer preferences allows you to recommend relevant products or services, potentially leading to upselling or cross-selling opportunities.
• Collecting social proof: If you prove yourself as a brand that cares about its customers and is known for friendliness and helpfulness, you’ll be able to collect positive social proof much more easily. After every interaction, simply ask your customers to leave a review or testimonial on your website.

Final Thoughts

Starting a new business is a hard decision for anyone, especially if you want to get into the world of eCommerce which is very competitive. However, just because it can be hard to break through and find loyal customers, it doesn’t mean that this is an impossible task.

As long as you know what you should invest in, you’ll soon have a lot of loyal customers who always come back to your store for more.