6 ways to increase e-commerce sales
Your most expensive sale is your first! In this article we explore 6 simple ways in which you can make the most of each sale
opportunity on your e-commerce website.
Free shipping over £25
We may have plucked our figures from thin air, but it demonstrates a point. Free shipping is a powerful booster to sales
particularly if you can find the right value to support free shipping nationwide. Consumers in particular will
opt for a more expensive version of your product, or even add additional items to their cart to get free shipping
at checkout and therefore more value for their money. Be sure to advertise your Free Shipping offer clearly to
get best results. More information on the principles of shipping can be found in our
Guide to Shipping and Handling
.
Offers & sale events
Your website visitors are looking for a good deal and will be shopping around several websites, often at the same time. An
attractive Sale or special offer will help you attract attention and increase the time users spend on your site,
which will increase your sale potential. Clearly promote appeal for your offers with graphics and maintain a
strategy for your offers. Ask yourself... When should I schedule my sale? What is the minimum order value to
receive the offer? Is the offer open to all products in my store or a particular product line?
Volume pricing
Once you have a visitor interested in a product, volume pricing is a great way to sell more per order where your products
are suitable for bulk purchases. Consumables are an ideal candidate for volume pricing. Both consumers and trade
customers will be quite happy to order more per order if they know the unit price is more competitive when buying
in bulk.
So our top tip for volume pricing is to maintain narrow and achievable price breaks that don’t require a lot
of thought for users - "if I buy this much I save that much".
Advertising & discount coupons
Advertising through print media, on-line coupon services or in emails, coupons provide a great way in helping your convert
sales and to track them. Even a 5% discount coupon on any product could mean the difference between a sale for
casual surfers. So the next time you advertise your on-line store try adding a discount coupon code in your advert
to increase sales.
Add discount coupons to packaging
We can be very wary of promoting too many discounts and rightly so. At the end of the day you're in business to make a profit and your first sale per customer is always your most expensive. One method of increasing sales that really works is to include a discount coupon within your dispatched order packaging. This will encourage repeat business cheaper than you can achieve through other means.
Loyalty discounts
We all like to feel special. Rewarding customer loyalty with a loyalty discount structure will help you build a relationship between you and your customers and more importantly keep them coming back for more. It's up to you how you measure loyalty but you could base it on order frequency, or an order value. Rewarding customers will help you grow a good reputation and build repeat & new orders through recommendation.
