The enforced lockdown during the pandemic created a trampoline that propelled ecommerce businesses and skyrocketed online sales. Your customers, cooped up in their houses, had no choice but to shop online. The Novel Coronavirus dramatically changed people’s shopping behavior due to social distancing and self-quarantine efforts. This impact was felt across the digital world with online brands struggling to meet the unprecedented demands.
In fact, Amazon, the world’s premier ecommerce website, had to temporarily halt delivery of all low-priority products to focus all its fulfilments and logistics resources on servicing essential items. According to a survey by SearchNode, over 90% of all ecommerce stores saw increased traffic on their websites. And about 50% of them reported that their sales had gone up by more than 100% during the lockdown. While these statistics sound ‘too-good-to-be-true’, Covid-19 has systematically transformed the way the world shops.
This monumental impact does leave all of us with a critical question – how will ecommerce stores maintain their momentum once the lockdown is lifted and traditional brick-and-mortar stores open up again? The answer to this question is simple – provide your online customers with a streamlined and personalized shopping experience using quality ecommerce support services.
What are ecommerce support services?
Ecommerce is a cut-throat world. With only 10 ecommerce companies controlling more than 60% of all online traffic, smaller stores need to redirect their efforts towards providing a better shopping experience in order to compete. Having solid ecommerce support services to backup your quality products can help your store stand out amongst the 24 million ecommerce stores that litter the entire globe.
Simply put, ecommerce support is basically any service or product that helps your ecommerce store run smoothly. Not only does it give your shoppers the customized experience they desire, it also gives them an opportunity to build a relationship with your brand. From cataloging, image editing, and product management to order processing, customer support, and redressals, each process plays an integral role attracting new buyers, retaining old ones, and improving brand reputation.
Here are the ecommerce support services you need to capitalize on to keep your online business galloping ahead of all competitors even after the pandemic is over.
Top 6 Support Services To Grow Your Ecommerce Business
- Product Catalog Services – Your product catalog is your first impression. Every potential buyer that visits your website will not spare more than a few seconds to browse through your products. If the catalog is not visually optimized and updated, you stand the risk of losing them to a fellow competitor. The images need to be crisp, appealing, and detailed enough to entice the buyers. Even the content descriptions need to be engaging enough to hold their attention.
- Product Data Management – When your shoppers are in a hurry, have neither the time nor the willingness to browse through multiple pages looking for their favorite item. It’s up to you to ensure that the browsing experience on your store is convenient. This can be achieved by proper indexing, classification, and categorising. Moreover, your product data needs to be updated with the latest keywords and compliance terms. In short, the easier it is for a buyer to find a product, the higher your chance of making the sale.
- Image Editing – No ecommerce store wants to deal with returns and refunds. Even though they are part of the digital shopping journey, returns and refunds can eat into your profit margins apart from increasing the churn rate of your audience. The best way to avoid this situation is to upload accurate pictures. Your images need to be retouched, enhanced, and wrapped to make them more visually appealing. By removing the background and developing the colors, your products look better, thereby, exponentially in reading the chances of a sale.
- Marketplace management – Instead of selling your products on just your website, it is usually recommended to tap into the audiences of other giant marketplaces too. Listing your products on platforms such as Amazon, eBay, Etsy, and Rakuten will give your brand more visibility and higher conversions. One of the biggest benefits of listing on these marketplaces is that you no longer need to cultivate an audience on your own. Behemoths like Amazon already have strong reputations and readymade audiences for you to bank on.
- Price Monitoring – Your pricing strategy plays a key role in converting customers. Online shoppers browse through multiple websites and blogs before purchasing a product. They’re looking for the best deal they can get. Using real-time data to optimize your prices to undercut your competitors is sure shot method to boost sales numbers and revenue.
- Online Customer Support – According to this year’s American Customer Satisfaction report (ACSI), 77% of all shoppers feel that customer support has gotten worse. It’s the second biggest complaint of all online shoppers! By integrating live chat support into your website, you can sidestep these complaints. After all, it’s your job to show your customers how important they are to you. And what better way to do so than giving them access to instant help?
Unfortunately, handling all these aspects internally takes up a lot of time and manpower – crucial resources that could, instead, be invested in product development and marketing. By outsourcing these services to a reputed online provider such as Acme, you’re not only guaranteeing your store’s success but also guaranteeing your own peace of mind.
