E-commerce is retail’s Angel of the North; it heralds the transition from the industrial age to the information age, and creates a sense of embrace between online and offline worlds.
Since the Internet’s inception e-commerce sales have taken flight; changing the way retailers approach their sales strategies. The North in particular has proved to be an adaptable, pioneering region, enthusiastically adopting digital strategies to seize commercial opportunities.
To celebrate Catalyst 2017’s arrival in Manchester on Tuesday 16th May, Adam Joseph, Director of Client Services at ChannelAdvisor, provides his top tips on how to transform retailers to successful e-tailers.
The northern retail landscape is filled with success stories. Some of the UK’s biggest retail names – including two of the biggest four supermarkets – Asda and Morrisons, hail from ‘up North’, and recent estimates depict that around 10% of workers in the North are employed in retail.
The boom in e-commerce sales has been driven by the uptake of mobile technology. Our increasingly time-poor consumers, glued to their smartphones, value flexibility, ease-of-use and online channels for shopping on the go.
At ChannelAdvisor, we are dedicated to businesses of all sizes. On the front lines of e-commerce since 2001, we help retailers and branded manufacturers manage more listings, reach more consumers and sell more products than ever before. We deem the following strategies crucial to retailers and brands looking to embrace e-commerce:
1. Moving to mobile
At the end of last year we saw the majority of orders placed were from mobile phones. We encourage retailers to go where their customers are, which means putting mobile first.
Mobile is not a replacement for the legacy desktop: smaller screens and battery life need to be contended with, plus variable behaviour between customers. Therefore, knowing your customer and ensuring your mobile website is fully optimised is imperative to converting sales.
In short, make it easy for customers to navigate, browse and pay for your products. Consumers increasingly expect to use third parties such as ApplePay and PayPal to make payments, so don’t neglect these or you risk losing out.
2. Embracing your audience
A diverse audience requires a multifaceted strategy, and a good place to start is by employing the help of data – the richest currency available for online retailers.
Dynamic Product Ads exploit data pulled on consumer browsing and purchasing behaviour. Highly-targeted, these adverts enable retailers to personalise marketing offerings and significantly improve customer experience. Social media platforms such as Facebook and Instagram have demonstrated that Dynamic Product Ads can both increase the potential marketing reach of a brand, and also efficiently target the right consumers. Proving it does pay to get personal!
Sponsored ads, such as those orchestrated by Amazon, and Headline Search Ads, are also straightforward ways to increase brand visibility, and influencing consumers at the point of purchase.
3. Selling on the marketplace
The popularity of marketplaces such, as Amazon, eBay or Fruugo, has made them a key part of any retailer’s strategy looking to boost sales and strengthen their global presence. With such a high user-rate, choice, and quality of experience, marketplaces are now one of the most important elements of a purchaser’s journey.
Offering both browsers and sellers a one-stop-shop website for all their needs, marketplaces are especially useful for smaller retailers looking to launch their products into their customer’s browsing sphere. Sophisticated features such as auctioning tools, multiple listings, logistics and distribution solutions, give retailers more for their money.
4. The finish
From start to finish, the customer’s journey is fundamental to whether they will return. And to clarify, the finish isn’t until the consumer has received the product. Since retail’s move online, fulfilling orders has become a defining factor to their success.
The logistics of delivery has become a hot topic for e-commerce, with an increasing demand for quicker shipping. Services such as Fulfilment by Amazon mean that for boutique retailers, delivery services can be carried out quickly and easily, resulting in happy customers.
5. …And a brand was born
Nurturing your brand is key to longevity and is one of the most challenging obstacles retailers face. Amazon’s brand registry allows users to list products in such a way that it can help retailers exert more control over listings, with brand gating as an added extra to safeguard intellectual property. Differentiation is also pivotal in helping you carve out a niche in the market!
To acknowledge just how far e-commerce has come, we are welcoming retailers to join us at The Principal Hotel, on the 16th May. We want to provide the opportunity for northern businesses to have access to resources, speakers and companies, including Google, Mary Portas, The Cambridge Satchel Company and World First, who are ready to share their knowledge and experience of retail in the 21st century.
You can find more information on the event here: http://catalystconnect2017.channeladvisor.co.uk/