While eCommerce allows small, midsized and specialty retailers and brands to compete globally alongside larger retailers and brands, it can be challenging to drive consistent sales online when you’re up against large established retailers with more resources and huge budgets.
Near-impossible to compete on price and awareness, most successful smaller businesses differentiate themselves through a unique product assortment, exceptional customer experience, and service. Growing eCommerce businesses can also build trust, increase sales, and create long-term loyalty through proven and smart technology investments, such as social proof.
Why do Small Businesses Struggle with Sales?
While it’s imperative for all businesses to have an online presence and deliver excellent customer experiences, small businesses often struggle with growing online sales because they face challenges that larger competitors can more easily overcome. Common barriers include:
- Limited visibility
- Lack of brand trust
- Fierce competition from established retailers and marketplaces
- High bounce rates
- Limited resources
Limited budgets restrict the ability to invest in marketing, technology and customer acquisition, making it harder to reach and convert shoppers. Many instead rely heavily on word-of-mouth or strong customer advocates to help create awareness and send new shoppers to their sites.
Smaller retailers may also lack the data insights that allow them to personalize experiences and deliver the optimized online experiences that today’s shoppers expect.
The challenges can seem overwhelming, but with the right strategies and smart technology investments, small businesses can turn their agility and customer focus into an advantage for driving online sales.
5 Proven Ways to Increase Sales and Build Trust
Growing eCommerce businesses and specialty retailers can increase online sales by focusing on tactics that directly influence purchase decisions, remove friction and boost trust and credibility.
By helping shoppers easily find what they are looking for and make more informed decisions, you will reduce shopper hesitation, increase conversion and reduce return rates. As an added bonus, happy customers are more likely to become loyal brand ambassadors and refer new customers to you.
Here are seven proven ways to improve customer experiences and increase conversions:
1. Simplify the shopping journey
A complicated shopping journey often leads to higher cart abandonment. With easy navigation and product discovery, fast-loading product pages, transparent pricing, and a frictionless checkout experience, you will make it easier and more likely for customers to complete their purchase.
2. Optimize your product pages
With more and more traffic coming directly from search, social and digital ads to the PDP, product pages are becoming the digital front door to your eCommerce site. Use your most valuable page real estate for relevant and easy-to-find product information, high-quality product images, and highlight key attributes and information, as well as social proof. Utilize these important pages to recommend other products for potential upsells and cross-sells.
3. Use real-time social proof to build trust
Shoppers trust other shoppers. By highlighting customer reviews, ratings, testimonials, and real-time purchase activity, you will build consumer trust, credibility, and reduce purchase hesitation. When shoppers see evidence that other shoppers are confidently buying from you, it creates reassurance and can encourage browsers to convert. By incorporating social proof messaging, you’ll help shoppers make the right purchase decisions, which can also lead to lower return rates.
4. Offer exceptional customer support
A great customer service experience can turn a one-time shopper into a loyal customer. Offer quick responses, clear and transparent communication, as well as flexible return policies that demonstrate reliability and care. By offering multiple forms of communication, including live chat, you can make it easier for customers to communicate, thereby reducing frustration and building trust. By offering self-service support tools like FAQs and how-to videos, you can proactively offer 24/7 customer support.
5. Build post-purchase trust to drive repeat business
Encourage repeat business and loyalty by showing customer appreciation. This can be done through loyalty programs that offer perks such as discounts, exclusive offers, or early access to new products. These programs make customers feel valued and more likely to return. A solid post-purchase communication strategy with order confirmations, delivery updates and feedback requests, as well as social proof, will help build trust and reduce buyer’s remorse.
How Growing Businesses Can Get Started with Social Proof
Brands and retailers that are growing their online businesses often have limited budgets for new technology, yet high ROI expectations. It can be challenging to find enterprise-level solutions that are low-risk, easy to test, and deliver fast, measurable results.
Social proof messaging is a powerful conversion optimization solution that is easy to implement, scalable and proven to deliver more dynamic online shopping experiences, reduce cart abandonment and boost incremental sales.
Taggstar’s Social Proof Pro Plan helps businesses across all verticals grow online sales. The solution is powered by the same technology as our Enterprise Solution, but is more affordable for brands and retailers that are growing their online channels.
Retailers and brands like PSCL Beds and Damart UK help their customers make informed purchasing decisions and buy with confidence with Social Proof Pro Plan. The solution surfaces real-time insights about what’s trending, popular, and in demand, displayed in impactful messages on the product listing page, product detail page and checkout.
For specialty retailer PSCL Beds, social proof far exceeded expectations. After just nine days of testing, they saw a 9.19% conversion rate uplift across mobile and desktop, generating a £19,000 uplift in revenue and a £50 increase in average order value.
Damart UK were equally impressed with the results, delivering a healthy uplift in sales and conversion and a strong ROI. The solution enabled them to implement and test social proof messaging with no significant disruption to their business.
Drive Sales and Build Trust with Taggstar
Helping customers make informed buying decisions and building trust is critical for businesses of all sizes and across all verticals. It may seem like an overwhelming task when competing against large retailers with big budgets, but building trust doesn’t have to be costly or complicated.
Taggstar’s Social Proof Pro Plan delivers real-time social proof messaging without a heavy technical lift or major investment. It is ideal for retailers and brands seeking to deliver better customer experiences, build trust, increase conversions and accelerate online growth.
Social Proof Pro Plan customers typically begin to see conversion rate uplifts and increased sales within just a few weeks of going live. Many experience measurable improvements almost immediately.
