How to Boost eCommerce Sales: Gifit case study

Ways to Boost eCommerce Store Sales

To increase eCommerce sales, resort to a lot of marketing tactics and technical features. This is email marketing, obtaining loyal customers through a variety of loyalty programs, first purchase discounts, offers like free shipping, etc. The main ways to attract and retain more customers are described in the article below.  

Buyer personas developing

Think from the POV of your users. What are their pain points? Where do they face friction? Where do they hang out online? Finding out the answers to these questions will allow you to develop buyer personas and grow sales easily — because now you know what to sell, how to sell, and where to sell.

FOMO 

Fear of Missing Out is a psychological phenomenon that is used in digital marketing to “hurry up” the consumer and convince him that there will be no second chance to profitably purchase the product. About 60% of millennials make a purchase decision in an eCommerce store influenced by high-quality product images and FOMO — they mostly do it within 24 hours. 

Ask questions that will lead the target customer to believe that their success depends on how soon they will buy things. Here are some examples: 

• “What happens if you don’t fix the problem by a certain date?”.
• “What happens if you don’t deal with this problem?”. 

Limited quantity or a countdown counter until the end of the discount is one of the reasons that spur existing customers not to postpone the purchase in the online store.   

Free shipping

Free shipping entices customers to purchase by wrapping all costs into the price of each item. A shopping cart is often abandoned at the checkout process when customers are dissuaded by an additional shipping charge. Maintaining a steady cost from product pages to checkout page increases a customer’s likelihood of following through with the purchase.

Upselling

Upselling is an eCommerce sales method. How does it work: the seller offers the client to pay for a more expensive option than he planned. For example, instead of one scoop of ice cream, a person is offered to buy two, with potential sales of air tickets — to pay extra for choosing a seat, and instead of a subscription for a month, choose a subscription for a year. 

According to Marketing Metrics, the probability of eCommerce sales to a new customer is 5–20%, and to the existing customers is 60%. Upselling is one way to use that 60%:

• Customization. Make the product the way potential buyers want it to be. A great example is when with online sales of a car, you can offer the client to choose body color. 
• «1+1=3» (multiple products at a reduced price). The customer was about to buy one bottle of cleaning product, and you offer him the next purchase: buy three for the price of two.

Cross-selling
Cross-selling is the online sales of related products along with the initial choice of the client: for example, a smartphone + a protective film, a houseplant + fertilizers.

Intelvision specialists can add a block “customers often buy with this product…” or similar, with multiple payment options to the eCommerce store.

Work On Your Brand Awareness

How to boost eCommerce sales? Increase brand awareness by creating strong associations about your product. Customer buys not just products — he or she wants to receive the emotion of a specific product.  

A brand that seeks to increase eCommerce sales is distinguished from a business by the fact that customers have emotions and associations with the company’s products. There is high competition in most industries nowadays, this is why you need to stand out. 

• Generate your “chips”. A business needs to have specific product characteristics or service features that will distinguish the company from competitors. For example, Domestos kills 99.9% of germs — no one else does.
• Form a brand identity. Jewelry brand Tiffany & Co is associated with a turquoise box, and Apple is associated with a bitten fruit.

Create associations and link them to the brand. It will also help to increase eCommerce sales. Focus on why the brand exists, how it changes the world around you, and what kind of personality it has. For example, Marlboro has a cowboy brand character — a middle-aged man smelling tobacco and desert winds.

Create a Unique Selling Proposition

A unique value proposition is what people will be willing to pay you for. Indicate it in social media profiles, and use it as a message in posts and advertising. A unique selling proposition will be remembered, set you apart from competitors, and improve sales. 

To create a USP:

1. Make a list of characteristics that differentiate your eCommerce store products from those of your competitors. What words would you use to tell potential customers about the benefits of the product? 
2. Research your competitors’ USPs. What characteristics help them generate sales? 
3. Determine the needs of your target customer. 
4. Use the formula: [brand] offers [product/service] for [target audience] because [value proposition]. Unlike [alternative/competitor], we [key difference]. 

Based on this information, create your unique selling proposition. Here is an example of Apple’s USP: “‎Every iPhone we’ve made — and we mean every single one — was built on the belief that a phone should be simple, beautiful, and magical to use.”‎

Implement a solid email marketing strategy

According to HubSpot, over 90% of internet users use email every day, and about 59% acknowledge that emails influence their buying decisions. Email marketing is channel number 1 for return on investment. In 2021, the overall conversion rates (percentage of users who completed the target action relative to the total number of users at the considered sales funnel stage) of email marketing was 15.22%.

You can promote a blog post with a mailing list, report profitable product offerings, and, as a result, generate sales. Weekly newsletters build trust with an audience, and newsletters with great content people read to the end.

Tip: before launching email marketing, you need to develop a strategy and create a subscriber list. An effective tactic to build an email list is to add an opt-in checkbox during the checkout process. This is much less intrusive than a pop-up on your eCommerce site.

How to get the attention of the recipient, increase eCommerce sales, and how to surprise paying customers:

• Letter subject — perfect option is a personalized or intriguing letter subject. This increases the website traffic volumes and the number of website sales.
• Author’s letter — it is more pleasant to communicate with a person than with a corporate machine. But it is important not to overdo it: when marketing communications are conducted for thousands of users, there is a risk of an ambiguous reaction. 
• Countdown to the end of the promotion — it prompts the recipient to make a purchase immediately.
• Closed club — being part of a limited offer means even more appreciation. This is a great trick to boost eCommerce. For example, craft alcohol eCommerce stores can send users the recommendations about choosing wine or beer for the holidays, as well as customer testimonials and a coupon code — all strictly by invitation. Such content will help boost eCommerce sales.
• Personalization in emails — Spotify sends users a new Discover Weekly playlist. It is a collection of 30 songs that, according to the service, may be of interest to the client. The recommendation model is based on the history of actions.

Newsletters can be divided into branded and those that require a specific action. If the purpose of the newsletter is online sales, then the success criterion is boosting eCommerce sales. It is more difficult to measure the effectiveness of the brand emails analytically, but you can analyze customer feedback, and open or bounce rate.

Provide Digitalization and Excellent Customer Service

To boost eCommerce sales, ensure a positive customer experience, and use the maximum number of digital marketing channels.  PwC study shows that 86% of customers are willing to overpay if they get a good customer experience in an eCommerce store. To provide it and get more sales, you need to know what customers want and what they expect. 

What marketing channels and technologies can be used to get more traffic to the company’s eCommerce store, as well as boost eCommerce sales?

1. Chatbot or live chat. Clients should easily and quickly interact with online business using a live chat option or a chatbot. According to a Google study, 65% of customers prefer to communicate with companies via live chat. Since you can collect sensitive user data and credit card details, it’s essential to have a high-security standard. Therefore, the live chat must secure every conversation with 256-bit SSL encryption.
2. Augmented reality (AR). Gartner predicts that by 2022, 70% of companies will experiment with AR in paid ads to boost eCommerce sales. For example, to promote the release of the second season of Stranger Things, Netflix launched a Snapchat AR campaign. Users could “pass” through the portal to one of the locations from the series and interact with objects, shooting a video with that AR filter.
3. Quality UI and UX design. User Interface (UI) is what the user will see when he enters the online store: buttons, navigation, etc. User Experience (UX) is the user’s experience of interacting with the components of an eCommerce store or in an application. Use a readable font, and customize filters and searches. Do not forget that the checkout page should be as concise as possible, and the checkout process should be simple and fast. If new customers are faced with a lot of unnecessary information or a long and complicated checkout process, there is a risk of losing a client.
4. Mobile-friendly website version. Business Insider, quoting data from an eMarketer report, expects 40.1% of eCommerce sales to happen on mobile devices in the US in 2022, compared to only 36.9% in 2019. Having a well-designed, mobile-friendly website is now a top priority for the eCommerce store owner.

When adapting an eCommerce store for a mobile device, it is important to set up the loading of video content after the key info on the product page. Simplify the menu so that the content fits completely on the screen, and the text can be read without zooming in. Keep in mind that it will be inconvenient for new customers to scroll through a large amount of text and click on small elements. Also, do not forget to use high-quality product images. 

1. Multiple payment options. Provide multiple payment options to boost eCommerce processes. Does your business take a credit card? What about Google Wallet payments, ApplePay, and other payment options? According to the latest online shopping stats, mobile wallets like Apple Pay, Amazon Pay, Samsung Pay, and Google Pay are becoming the new normal. Make sure to include multiple payment ways for your website visitors. Doing so is a great way to increase online sales, particularly if your site has strong mobile traffic.
2. Protection of personal data of clients. To win the trust of prospective customers and get more sales, hire the right experts and think about the protection of personal data in advance. The leakage of information about customers can lead to irreversible consequences for online business.

We have published more technologies and methods that you can use to boost eCommerce sales in our blog. Learn about the latest trends and tricks that can improve your eCommerce business with Intelvision experts!

Talk to Your Prospects on Social Media

More than 1.8 billion people use Facebook and 500 million use Instagram daily. Brands can reach an unlimited number of customers via social networks. What platforms and techniques are important to use if you want to attract the attention of the target market, drive traffic to the website or the mobile apps, and boost eCommerce sales?

TikTok

There are a lot of opportunities for advertising on this social media. In addition to targeting options, filters, and hashtag challenges are available there. Marketing companies and analysts predict that TikTok will become the leading social media by the end of 2022. The main audience of social media is zoomers and millennials. To attract them and increase online sales, you need to implement innovation and personalization. 

Brands that can find their place on TikTok, will gain a competitive edge and increase online sales. Content marketing and social media strategy consist of user-generated content and posts created by employees. Try influencer marketing opportunities as well.

Short videos

The short video trend came from TikTok. To retain users and increase sales of business owners, other social networks implemented the TikTok video format. For example, Instagram does it with the help of Reels. They provide organic traffic to the company’s website or app. 

You can create 2–4 short videos per month to showcase your new products, top-selling items, and their specific benefits in a fun and innovative way. Remember that the video should contain a value proposition for the audience, and be linked to the product. 

User-generated content

UGC is company-related content created by customers, employees, partners, and brand evangelists. Online reviews and UGC are more trusted than branded blog posts or photos. As a result, it helps to increase online sales. Many eCommerce stores and brands use UGC. Among them are Adobe, Coca-Cola, Starbucks, etc. Tip: even if you publish product images made by your clients, the content must be of high quality. 

Social media integration into the website 

You can use enticing images of your products to catch the eye of your Instagram followers, and then link back to a product page on your store. Another way to integrate Instagram is to add your feed to your eCommerce site directly. This will encourage social engagement from your visitors and will boost eCommerce sales.

Implement Creative Marketing Tactics

Add a post-purchase survey to your website. You can ask them what convinced them to buy from you, or what could have improved their experience. This will help you to learn about your strengths and weaknesses through the eyes of your customers and will add creativity to your website.

With Intelvision, you can easily create a post-purchase survey like the one below and display it on the purchase confirmation page of your website.

To boost eCommerce, use the creative CTA (call to action) elements to increase the effectiveness of marketing campaigns. CTA elements can be designed in the form of clickable texts, buttons, or banners, and lead to the page for downloading a file, top-selling items, product descriptions, subscriptions, or registration. CTA tells new visitors what to do next: make a purchasing decision, order a service, leave reviews for a discount or subscribe to an email newsletter.

Case Gifit: Integrate Gifting Solution into the eCommerce Platform

Finally, we have approached the case we were longing to share with you. Our dedicated team specializes in developing eCommerce apps and services. We created Gifit, a web application for the eCommerce platform. It can be used by customers that make orders for gifting purposes. The app handles delivery attachments (photos, videos, GIFs, rich text) that would be provided with delivery packages. Inside those attachments will be hidden the code that allows the customer to open his package. 

As digitization is becoming an inevitable part of our everyday life, the Intelvision team developed a product that could enhance the gifting experience for customers, as well as increase eCommerce sales. With so many platforms in the industry, a gifting software solution is a cool way of boosting eCommerce sales. 

Each project starts with a challenge. Speaking about the Gifit project, our tasks consisted in: 

1. Implementing a high-tech custom gifting software solution from scratch to meet certain business criteria and goals. 
2. Implementing a video handling solution for our client with a cost-effective objective. 

1. Developing a web application that could enhance the gifting experience for customers. With so many eCommerce platforms, a gifting software solution is a cool way to increase sales.   
2. Making the gifting process pleasant for both a sender and a receiver with the help of Gifit. 
3. Making it possible to organize gifting for all kinds of purposes, from corporate gifting to friends exchanging presents and entertainment purposes. 

Our team managed to accomplish this project in just three months, and help to boost eCommerce sales. Specialists that worked on this project consisted of one backend developer, one project manager, one frontend developer, and one DevOps. Our specialists used work management tools such as Visual Studio, Visual Studio Code, Git, and technologies .NET 5, React-Redux, MediatR, QR Coder, Fluent Validation, Entity Framework Core, Azure Blob storage SDK, Azure Media Services SDK, Jwt, Microsoft extensions localization, NUnit, and Moq. 

We provided our customer with services of software development consulting at first, to find out the above-mentioned challenges and pick the best technology stack in this matter. When it comes to solutions, we have reached such results:

• Built a robust software architecture. We implemented our technically robust software architecture, ad-hoc methods, and created an application from scratch. 
• Implemented QR code scanning. We created a digital opportunity for users to attach digital greeting cards to their gifts with different media (text, photo, video, GIF). The gift receiver will see them after scanning a QR-code on the received package. 
• Created an effective video handling solution. The Intelvision team developed an effective video handling solution. We used Azure Media service for video uploading, converting, and downloading that provides cost-effective functionality to manage videos and create the best gifts possible. 
• Provided corporate gifting opportunities. Gifit enables to develop better relationships and boosts employee engagement as it allows choosing one gift, which would best suit your corporate gifting goals. 

Also, we have synchronized the web and mobile versions of the application to enable users to switch while editing a greeting page. Gifts-based platforms are bound to high revenues. An admin panel our IT specialists have developed provides the ability to see and manage orders’ status and gift choices, and filter orders according to a specific date and particular customer or another criterion.

Bottom Line

Remember that increasing the number of orders you get on your eCommerce stores is a gradual process. You won’t see a change in a day or two. However, you will see a significant increase in your sales volume if you follow the tips we have mentioned in the article and remain dedicated to your eCommerce store. For more tips on how to increase eCommerce sales, read our blog. Or contact our specialists to fix the shortcomings of the product page, the entire site, or application and boost eCommerce sales right now!