Habits of Successful E-commerce Businesses

E-commerce is snowballing, with more than 9.1 million global online stores. In this landscape, the most successful businesses focus on and implement similar strategies. While this list isn’t exhaustive, these habits of successful e-commerce businesses strategies are common among some of the most profitable online companies. To make your business stand out, modeling the practices of successful e-commerce businesses is necessary. In this post, we will discuss 5 habits of successful e-commerce businesses.

Automation

To implement automation strategies for e-commerce success, consider how automation can improve customer experience. This involves automating customer service inquiries, setting up automated reminders to encourage repeat purchases, or sending automated emails to provide order updates. Now, let’s explore some of the most common marketing automation strategies:

• Sending automated welcome emails
• Automated cart recovery (abandoned cart reminders)
• Win-Back emails to get subscribers re-engaged
• Automate customer feedback collection

Look for opportunities to automate inventory management, shipping processes, and product discovery. Automation of these processes can help streamline operations and improve customer experience. Additionally, use analytics to track success of automation strategies and adjust accordingly.

Collaborate and Outsource

It is common for e-commerce owners to get nervous about collaborations. However, they believe that if they drive traffic to other companies, customers won’t have enough resources left to buy their products. While driving traffic to your direct competitor might do that, other symbiotic collaborations have the opposite effect. An excellent example of an ideal collaboration is Black Milk Clothing and Solestruck. Black Milk Clothing sells clothes for people who want to stand out. Their fashion line nods to niche horror films, Pokemon, and other cult-classic imagery. In a successful collaboration, they teamed up with Solestruck, a funky female-owned shoe company, on a few photo shoots, and people started asking where they could buy the shoes. This collaboration was a win-win for both brands. The key is to find mutually beneficial collaborations. To get you started, here are some easy collaboration ideas:

• Cross promotions
• Social media giveaways and influencer campaigns
• Subscription boxes with multiple partners
• Creating (topic clusters) with other retailers in similar or complementary industries

The other aspect that rings of collaboration is outsourcing business operations that are not part of the core offering to other professionals. By delegating these responsibilities to experts in that field, you free up time to focus on core competencies of the business, such as creating new products, refining customer offerings, and building marketing campaigns that singularly target your customer avatar. Now, let’s delve into the types of outsourcing that the most successful entrepreneurs engage in:

• Social media management
• Website design and development
• Warehousing
• Inventory Management
• Order fulfillment
• Customer service
• Returns management

Track and Utilize Data Analytics

You must track the data. Regardless of whether you sell hand-poured candles or reusable baby diapers, data is crucial for making informed decisions. Successful e-commerce businesses have a habit of monitoring data and utilizing it effectively to refine their business processes. Nevertheless, it can be daunting to consider all the data points vital to business success. To help with this, here are some of the top metrics that e-commerce businesses should track:

• Customer Acquisition Cost – Simply put, this is the amount of capital it costs to acquire a new customer
• Average Order Value – This is the average amount customers are spending at one time in your store
• Sales Conversion Rate – This is the number of customers who made a purchase compared to the total visitors to your store

• Shopping Cart Abandonment Rate – This evaluates the number of customers who add a product to their cart but fail to complete the purchase. Tracking this metric can provide insight into troubles or difficulties with the purchasing process.
• Top Products Sold – Tracking the most popular products is essential to profitability. Best sellers should be promoted and carefully ordered to minimize stockouts.
• Return Rates – This calculates how many products sold are being returned or exchanged.
• Regular Inventory Snapshots – Tracking how much inventory you have left at the end of a specific period helps you develop a cadence of reordering to limit overstocking and understocking.

There are so many more metrics that can be tracked and evaluated. However, it’s essential to recognize that data fatigue is a real issue for many owners. Instead of getting overwhelmed by all the available reports, narrow down what is vital for your business. Decide on the information you currently need to make better decisions. Focus on tracking and utilizing those metrics first, and then, you can gradually expand your usage of data and analytics.

Focus on Customer Experience

According to Forbes, “Customer experience is today’s business benchmark.” In this ever-evolving landscape, it’s crucial to prioritize your customers. They now demand more than just a transactional relationship with a brand; they seek a complete experience. This encompasses everything from memorable unboxing experiences to hassle-free return policies. Successful e-commerce businesses continually evaluate and enhance the customer experience. Here are the key aspects to consider:

• Seamless user experience on your website – This implies that your website should be user-friendly, with fast loading speeds and visually appealing design. Remember, investing in high-quality product photos is worth far more than a thousand words – it’s worth a thousand dollars!
• Secure and varied payment methods – Offering multiple secure payment options enhances customer satisfaction.
• Excellent customer service – Gone are the days when part-time customer support sufficed. To stand out in a competitive market, you must be ready to assist your customers when they need it. While around-the-clock call center support may not be necessary, having systems like chatbots and FAQs readily available is a must from the moment you make your first sale.
• Implement Customer Loyalty Programs – Rewarding customers for their purchases and encouraging them to return is easily achieved through customer loyalty programs.
• Provide Seamless Omnichannel Experience – Customers now expect brand consistency across every platform. Ensuring a seamless omnichannel experience not only fosters brand loyalty but also builds trust in your company.

Experiment and Test

One of the most vital habits of successful e-commerce businesses is they are not afraid to experiment and test new things. Innovation in any industry comes from trial and error. Here are some common forms of business experimentation:

• A/B Testing – Testing two versions of the same material
• Pilot – A trial that would help test a proof of concept to see if you should go further with it
• Mockups – A representation of the look and feel of a user interface
• Quantification – Asking an audience to rank and rate things to quantify their thoughts into data