Category: Logistics

“You can’t manage what you can’t measure” – W. Edward Deming & Joe Lynch.

Key performance indicators also known as KPIs, are basically the metrics which measures the performance of business operations.

Enter the term KPI, and Google will come up with thousands of search results.  But does that give you the list of KPIs which you may be looking for to evaluate the performance of the logistics partner for your e-commerce business?

A KPI metrics which is practical and which you can implement in your strategy.

The most common answer in a no.

Then how would you determine the metrics which will help you to evaluate the performance of your e-commerce delivery partner?

I will come to this question later.

Let us first understand why is it important to measure the performance of logistics partner?

The answer is quite simple.

To choose the right shipping partner.

And if you already have one, evaluating its performance will help to reconsider your choice!

But wait,

Why waste so much time in evaluating the right shipping partner? I would choose the one with the lowest price, and my job is done.

Really is it?

For you, as a retailer, when a customer place an order might be a success.

However, the problem is, customers, don’t judge the purchase as a success. They judge it when they actually receive the product.

The emergence of e-commerce business has given customers convenience, flexibility and delivery options.

Some do’s and don’ts while selecting a logistics partner for your e-commerce business.

The Do’s

1. Define exact and measurable KPIs

2. Check if they are prepared for the worst-case scenario

The Don’ts

1. Don’t choose a delivery service because it is nearby

2. Don’t be afraid to ask for a trial period

3. Don’t lock yourself into an extended contract

4. Don’t put price over service

Here, defining exact and measurable KPIs are uber important to evaluate the performance of your logistics partner.

Keep these KPIs as success measures to ensure that your logistics operations are successful.

1. Rate of return

When it comes to e-commerce delivery, returns hurt the overall profitability the most.

However, product returns are inevitable in e-commerce. There are basically two alternatives your products will be returned to you.

1. Return by customer

2. Return by courier

When a customer returns your product, there are multiple reasons like wrong size or wrong product shipped, or the customer changes their mind after purchasing the product and so on.

However, have you ever thought about what can be the reasons for product returns from the courier?

1. a) Delayed deliveries lead to high returns
2. b) Uploading wrong tracking details
3. c) Fake comments on behalf of customers (e.g. False information on attempting delivery where in reality no attempt is made)
4. d) In-transit damage

I recently came across a case study where sellers say that nearly 70% of e-commerce frauds are committed by courier companies and 30% by customers!

What can you do to avoid such situation?

Make this as your very first performance metrics of your delivery partner.

1. Validate with customer

Here what you need to do id to cross-verify with the customer whether the reason given by courier partner is valid or not.

Scenario 1: If the reason given by the courier partner matches with the customer’s, try convincing the customer to receive the order at first place.

Scenario 2: If the reason doesn’t go with the customer’s statement, coordinate with the courier partner and arrange the delivery as soon as possible.

2. Contact courier boy

Contact courier person who has actually interacted with the customer at a first place. Match and validate the reason.

3. Check if the order is TRO marked.

4. Check the turnaround time for the same.

In short, here you need to have a customer care or NDR (non-delivered report) team that can step in to ensure delivery. Alternatively, take services from a logistics aggregator where you have multiple delivery partners to cater to your customers and a dedicated customer care team.

iThink logistics have gained the trust of thousands of e-commerce businesses to ensure the highest delivery ratio. Where we provide,

1. a) Dedicated NDR team
2. b) Ensured the highest delivery
3. c) Weekly remittances
4. d) Single point of contact

2. Delivery ratio

Another KPI to measure the effectiveness of your logistics partner is by measuring the delivery ratio.

This can be calculated by validating the number of orders shipped and the number of orders actual delivered.

Delivery ratio = orders shipped/orders delivered

3. Zone-wise performance

E-commerce has no geographical boundaries. Your customers are spread across the country or globe. Your shipping partner must be able to deliver orders in each zone where your audience resides.

The delivery rate and service quality should not be sacrificed for any area of operation under any circumstances.

Measure the delivery and return ratio as a key performance indicator for each zone where your customers are located.

4. Turnaround time

Tracking every late order can help your e-commerce business to understand the consequences of late deliveries.

As a customer, I will be afraid if my order doesn’t arrive on time.

Here, you need to track the average delivery time in detail. The average pickup time, the in-transit time and return time.

The delivery service must not involve in any unnecessary delays in delivering the products to the customers.

Their service should be prompt.

Lesser the Turnaround time, higher the efficiency, which ultimately results in the timely delivery of the product to your customers.

Apart from the pointers mentioned above, one of the newest logistics KPIs is customer service. Most e-commerce companies forget to measure the service part they get as a customer from a delivery partner.

You may confuse with the cost and service target with excellent customer service. The service execution does not equal to excellent customer service.

Final word

Don’t put price over value.

For an e-commerce business, shipping costs matter a lot, but you need to look at shipping costs as an investment.

Make sure that lower prices are not affecting the shipping quality of your products.

At the end of the day, you have come too far to get your customers to your website and make them buy your products.

The final job relies on the shipping partner who is going to pick, pack and deliver your items to your customers.

If done on time, with efficiency, the customers are going to keep coming back to your store and vice versa. Read more about delivery trends that gives your customer a positive experience

It is crucial to choose a logistics solution that is fast, safe, secure and trustworthy. Available to solve customer queries and ensures maximum delivery of orders.

E-commerce business in India has flourished like no other since past decade.

Retailers operating specific geographical area got a chance to explore the market nationally and globally.

E-commerce has changed the face of retailing. Everything has become available to shoppers with few clicks and retailers have streamlined their online operations which have helped them to boost the revenue to new highs.

So what holds back you from investing in online store development?

Most probably the e-commerce website development cost is one of the aspects that make you think twice.

Do you want to start your e-commerce business but wondering how much cost is involved in building your online store?

The cost of online store generally depends on the functionality and features you would want to implement on your website.

In India, an e-commerce website would cost you nearly 1,00,000 to 1,50,000. Also, it may vary depending upon the additional functionalities of the store.

The customized, SEO friendly and result oriented e-commerce store has witnessed hundreds of successful e-commerce ventures in the past couple of years.

Have an experienced and a robust team who has expertise in developing an e-commerce website and mobile application which has helped us to achieve the operational efficiency and speed of development.

How much does an overall process of online web development costs?

Five broad factors affect e-commerce website and application development cost.

1. Platform

2. Design

3. Development

4. Domain and hosting

5. Time and resources

1. Platform:

The platform choice depends upon you on what your users expect from your online store and how much traffic you are projecting on your online store.

Generally, for small and medium enterprises the open source platform like PHP is good to go. They are proven a boon and also cost-effective as compared to Magento and other platform frameworks.

I recommend going for a complete package of website, Android and iOS mobile applications. This helps you to manage your business from your hand palm and have a presence where your customers spend their most of the time.

E-commerce android applications are generally built on top of Angular.js and Apache Cordova, Ionic which provides a seamless user experience.

2. Design:

Once you select the platform, it needs to be customized according to your business needs and UI-UX (user interface and user experience) preferences.

Customize the website design, the colour scheme, fonts, placement of various elements.

Learn more about e-commerce website design

3. Development:

The development phase involves the actual structure of your website backend. This phase includes,

1. E-commerce cart development

2. Payment gateway integration

3. Category and product module

4. Checkout and Order processing

5. Responsive shopping website

6. Basic SEO implementation

Many companies in the market opt for customized solutions wherein they want to cover from essential to advanced features to their online store.

The cost of development may vary according to the requirement.

4. Domain and hosting:

Domain and hosting are not as expensive as the development of an e-commerce website and mobile app.

You can find the perfect name for your website and register at GoDaddy, bigrock

The annual renewing charges for the domain, you need to spare 700 to 2000 rupees (which depends upon the extension you choose).

Additionally, you need to bear the hosting charges of your website which again depends on the service provider you choose.

5.Time and resources:

The time and resources required to design and develop your e-commerce website is another aspect of the total cost.

The cost of the e-commerce solution which we provide is an optimized cost of the platform fees, design, development, time and resources involved in making your dream project reality.

Whenever you are starting something new having someone by your side with rich experience in that area really helps.

This is why the value of designers and developers goes far beyond than merely designing and building your e-commerce site.

Their experience, technical skills and in-depth product knowledge will help you to avoid technical and financial pitfalls.

Inventory management for your e-commerce business requires a constant check. As an online seller, at some point of time, you are likely to experience the situation, when your stocks are piled up and not moving as you expected. The question arises how can you get rid of that slow moving inventory.

While you are busy earning profits from your top selling products, do not ignore the slow moving inventory. Because when stocks don’t move, there is a significant amount of costs attached to it.

Basically, a slow-moving inventory is a stock for which there is decidedly less or no sell at all. A catalogue which you have not shipped from the past three to five months and has a relatively weak demand.

Many a time, retailers order goods in a good quantity (more than required) to get the bulk discount and to minimize per unit purchasing cost which ultimately results in excess stock.

There is two major problem associated with slow-moving inventory.

1. It prevents room for faster-selling products by occupying warehouse shelves.

2. Your financial capital gets stuck, and it hinders the profitability of your business.

Do not let the slow-moving inventory tie with the valuable capital of your business. Here are some awesome tips on how to get rid of excess inventory and make a profit out of it.

1.Return to supplier

In case you share good relations with the supplier you can request him to take the excess inventory back. If no return, try exchanging the old stock with other products. You can speak with the supplier to consider any of the points listed below.

1. The product was not as per the market demand

2. Inventory is not damaged and still unpacked

The supplier may consider your return or exchange request if he wants to keep you as a customer.

2.Stock clearance – EOSS

Holding a clearance sale is an excellent opportunity to get rid of the stock that has not sold from past 3 to 5 months. Reach out to your shoppers via email and social media to inform them about the stock clearance sale.

If you have data about the shoppers’ preference (especially style and size), you can pitch them with the personalized emails. This could be the perfect opportunity to drive them to your store to buy the products.

You can also take the help of EOSS (end of season sale). This not only helps you to sell the excess inventory but also give you new customers who might not have visited your site before.

3.Sell items at lower prices (Drop the price)

Price-drop is an old yet effective way to get rid of your products fast.

Offer a deal that your customers can’t resist. Moreover, in case if you find that such products are already in some of your customers’ cart, then 80% of your job is done.

4.Donate

No matter how lucky you get to sell off all your excess inventory, you still have chances of having left with few items in your stock.

So, in such case, what to do?

Simply donate.

Donate the remaining inventory (depending upon the products) to the needy people like the orphanage, old age homes, and there are numerous options you just need to look around.

By doing this, you can get a tax reduction and also stand chances to get your brand noticed by people (brand awareness & promotional benefits).

5.Bundle up items

Bundling up products is yet another way to sell your old inventory faster.

There are many ways you can bundle up your products to make it sell faster.

1. Bundle slow-moving products with fast-selling products

2. Combine multiple slow-moving items as a single purchase

Make sure that you combine complementary products. For example, if your slow-moving inventory includes trousers and belts, sell them as a pair.

Alternatively, you can sell 2-3 trousers as a single order.

6.Make slow-moving products more appealing

Check whether some items are actually slow-moving or are there some other reason behind this?

Many a time a product doesn’t sell because of

1. The poor positioning in the website/catalogue

With many e-commerce sites, it’s not uncommon that specific items don’t sell because they can’t be easily found.

Make sure you make them visible and accessible from website’s main navigation.

Try placing them strategically on the website’s homepage and other forefronts of the category page.

2. Low-quality product images

Retailers, mark that product images can make or break the sale. Put a high quality and attractive pictures of products. When consumers buy online, what do they look at the product image? If they do not find them attractive enough, you lose a sale.

3. Lousy product descriptions

The same thing goes with your product descriptions too!

Read them. How do they sound? Do they sound informative and convincing?

If not, change them.

Provide accurate information about the product features.

More importantly, write product descriptions which sell. Resemble product benefits through its narrative.

4. No efforts have been taken for SEO and promotion of such products

Check how do you rank when people find these products.

Optimize product category pages and product pages.

Try using new keywords in the product title and description. As I mentioned in the earlier point, draft excellent product information which drives sales.

Take efforts to promote these products better.

Promote your slow-moving items through social media and paid ads.

7.Advertise as “best-selling” or “back in stock.”

Another way to increase sales of slow-moving inventory on your online store is, market them as best-sellers.

When your customers are browsing through other products, tell them that these are your best-selling products.

However, before trying this, make sure you follow my tips from point seven.

Attractive product images and description is a must to make your customers trust the word “bestseller”.

You can also promote such inventory as “back in stock”. This gives your customers a sense that many want these products and this can be a good choice to try.

8.Sell to factory outlets/marketplaces

You can try selling slow-moving items on marketplaces like Amazon, Flipkart, eBay.

Since these marketplaces have huge visitor traffic with different kind of product needs, you can find a way here to clear your unsold stock.

This might eat-up your little time to create product pages, but can be a great help to sell slow-moving or surplus inventory.

Alternatively, you can sell your surplus stock to factory outlets that specialize in managing inventory from a retailer.

Remember, these companies are generally wholesalers, and they purchase the stock at a comparatively lower price, and you are likely to make no profit out of it.

However, at least you will be able to save yourself from the loss and shelves taking up space.

9.Offer free shipping

Additional shipping charges lead to abandoned checkouts. Offer free shipping on your slow-moving inventory.

Free shipping often reduces the average order value and note that customers love free shipping.

This may not sound too effective strategy to move stocks, but something is better than nothing.

9.Create urgency to drive sales

Urgency and scarcity can be useful to increase sales of slow-moving products.

Here, your customers perceive that there is a limited stock for the goods which encourage them to make a purchase.

With urgency, your customers are motivated to buy the products because they do not want to miss the deal.

Further, you can introduce exclusive offers for early birds.

Put a countdown on the product page or hold a flash sale which makes your customers buy immediately.

10.Freebies on signup or on specific order amount

You can give away your slow-moving products as a gift above a certain order amount.

This strategy works best for products at low cost. When a product becomes tough to sell, you can give away such item to your customers to increase sign up or a free gift above a certain order amount.

These help to increase signups where you have valuable customer data, and alternatively, it increases the order value.

11.Barter with other companies

Not necessarily if specific products don’t sell on your website, will not be purchased by customers from anywhere.

You can try a barter deal with retailer or wholesaler for other products in exchange for your slow-moving items.

Tips to avoid surplus inventory

“Precaution is better than cure” – A wise person.

Rather than investing time to deal with surplus stock and ultimately putting yourself in a “no profit, no loss” situation, why to not avoid it at first place?

To build a profitable and sustainable e-commerce business, you need to understand the importance of inventory management.

No matter your operation expertise, the type of your products that you sell, the size of your business, the number of customers you serve. If you do not pay enough attention to manage your stocks, this can turn into a most significant challenge for your e-commerce business.

1. Forecast demand – Use past data, trends, and seasonality in your business to make informed decisions about ordering inventory.

2. Let the supplier directly ship products to your customers – You don’t need actually to store any inventory at all.

3. Order lower quantities/order in the cycle

4. First-in, First-out method – Sell the oldest merchandise first.

Every e-commerce entrepreneur meets inventory management challenge at some point of time. However, there are multiple ways listed above to deal with this problem and turn a dead stock into a profitable deal.

If you have some fresh ideas on how to get rid of slow-moving inventory, do share with us in the comment section below.

For any queries, feel free to write us at sales@ithinklogistics.com.

E-commerce shipping is already a complex subject and committing mistakes here can cost you a fortune. Packaging, pricing, and delivery logistics are the three fear factors which are driving e-commerce owners crazy.

Save your online business from sinking in this cut-throat e-commerce age. The potential mistakes involved in e-commerce shipping can cost massive damage to your profitability and brand reputation.

Customer complaints can smash your e-commerce business in no time while you are focusing only on selling your products.

These e-commerce shipping mistakes may cost you big if you don’t get them right at the earliest.

1. Relying only on one carrier

Are you relying on one carrier partner?

Order processing and shipping is one of the vital parts of the online business.

When Amazon introduced one-day delivery option, there had been a noticeable shift to Amazon.

People want convenience. One of the significant barriers of e-commerce is customers have to wait for several days to receive their product.

Is your carrier providing convenient delivery options as your customers expecting?

Is your carrier partner competent enough to handle all your shipments at one go? Even during the festive season?

Is your carrier partner providing a delivery location where your customers reside?

If your answer is no, then it is high time to consider services from multiple courier partner.

2. Poor packaging

The packaging doesn’t only pack and protect your product but also builds your brand’s image and identity.

Packaging determines how much your carrier will be charging for the shipment.

We can say that packaging that you send to your customers’ home is a form of communication.

It is very much understandable that not every company can afford to customize their packaging which represents the brand.

However, you could still manage to meet the basic requirement for e-commerce packaging.

Make sure you use a package that fits the product.

Include safety measures inside the box.

Use consistent packaging material for your products.

In the case of fragile products, mention on the box. Put additional safety measures so that the product is not damaged in transit.

Avoid cheap packaging to avoid the product damage in transit.

In e-commerce, the packaging is the first impression of what is inside and the first feeling your customers get when they receive your product.

Tip:

Invest in customer unboxing experience. Make your customers feel as if they are opening a present.

Concentrating on customer experience will surely pay out dividends.

3. Inaccurate shipment weight

It is one of the significant issues e-commerce retailers face while shipping their products with a carrier.

Due to lack of proper weighing equipment, it becomes difficult to calculate the accurate weight of the package.

If the weight doesn’t match with the carrier partner, you may end up paying extra for the shipment.

The dimensional weight of the package has a significant impact on how much you are going to pay to the carrier.

Learn how to calculate volumetric weight for packaging your shipment.

Length x height x width / 5000 (for centimeters)

Length x height x width / 305 (for inches)

Normally volumetric weight is a pricing technique used by shipping companies to ensure that they don’t lose money and calculate the actual weight of the package.

4. Incorrect addresses

An incomplete or incorrect address may result in delivery failure.

The shipment could be delivered to the wrong address or return to the origin.

The upset customer in return, want delivery at the earliest and you will be paying for it.

You can avoid such errors by simply verifying the address with the customers.

By doing this, you can also save yourself from the fake orders.

5. Fail to listen to specific customer requests

When your customers give you specific shipping requirement, do listen to them.

If your customers need shipments during a specific time, give them that option.

Some customers need gift wrapping for their orders, especially during festivals and for birthdays.

Customer may request you to hide the product pricing when they are sending gifts.

And many more.

When your customers are requesting something specific requirements, do fulfil them.

It might be a one-minute job for you, but the receiver may have a significant impact from that.

Pay attention to these value-adding services as they might create an adverse impact when goes wrong.

6. Manual shipping process

You can manually fulfill all your orders, create shipping labels all day or automate the process with logistics technology.

The choice remains yours.

I highly recommend e-commerce shipping software to integrate with your online store.

With automated shipping solutions, you stop doing all the shipping related tasks manually and focus on the core business.

Make your product packaging look more professional by just sticking the auto-printed shipment labels.

With e-commerce shipping software, you save your valuable time.

1. You can manage orders and shipping

2. Save time, money and resources

3. Find shipping options quickly

4. Lower shipping rates

5. Bulk printing options

6. Effective return management

7. Fetch orders from multiple sales channels at a single place

8. Integrated multiple courier partners

7. No transparency about shipping costs

Keep it very clear for your customers how much you are going to charge for shipment.

It is recommended to provide shipping charges on the product page itself rather than displaying it at a later stage (at the checkout page). Customers hate that.

Providing transparency about shipping charges helps to reduce abandoned cart.

If your current checkout does not give our customers a clear picture of additional shipping costs, you need to fix this up.

8. Offering only one shipping option to customers

Let your customers choose when they want their shipment.

Sellers, understand that what your customers really value is “choice”.

Buyers want more control over when they want the order; they are willing even to pay more to receive the shipment as per their requirement.

Then why to be too rigid?

Give your customers the freedom to select the delivery options.

image source: Amazon.in

Moreover, shipping date and time is valuable for your customers.

Tell your customers when the product will be available to them with regards to each shipping options. This will give your customers more clarity about what choice is the most suitable for them.

9. No clear explanation about shipping and return process

An unclear shipping and return policy may frustrate your customer or even result in the loss of sale.

Your customers will not wait until they browse through your website and find return policy.

They want to be sure that if they don’t like the product, they have an option to return or exchange the product quickly.

Returns are the vital part of e-commerce customer experience.

Keep the shipping and return policy visible. Such visibility gives your customers a sense of reliability and makes easy for them to make a purchase decision.

10. You end up spending your major time following up with the carrier

Are you spending half of your time on following up on delivery and return statuses with the carrier partner?

Then it is high time for you to realise the need for effective logistics software solution.

iThink Logistics not only provide the software solution but also take care to maximize your delivery with least returns at one go.

Save your time and cost with the complete logistics software solutions where you have your logistics team to handle the logistics operations on your behalf.

Get your delivery right at the first time. Reduce returns with (Non-Delivery Reports) NDR.

Manage your COD remittances and billing efficiently.

You need not worry about pickup return request.

Final words

Fortunately, most of these e-commerce shipping mistakes are easy to avoid.

You need to plan and take proper care to make sure that you don’t commit any such mistakes and make your delivery process smooth with the highest rate of successful delivery and customer satisfaction while not affecting your profitability.

So, what are you thinking?

If you are committing any such mistakes, this article is an alarm for you to get them right.

You are running an e-commerce store and must be juggling with too many things.

If you want to streamline your shipping process and avoid these common mistakes, we highly recommend trying India’s best e-commerce logistics software solution.

To all e-commerce retailers, you can’t afford to take a vacation when it comes to delivering customer experience.

E-commerce delivery trends is exploited almost by every nook and corner in India.

Then what difference do you make to stand out from the crowd?

We are in the new industrial age of “experience economy” where customer experience is uber important for e-commerce success.

Customer prefers not just tangible product and product benefits but the overall delightful interaction they have with your brand.

A study says that the customer experience will overtake the product pricing as a critical competition and differentiation factor.

E-commerce customer experience is the next big thing which you must aim to compete for.

Customer experience is beyond only delivery experience. Delivery is just a part of it. Here I am going to discuss what contributes to providing a positive delivery experience to your customers.

However, what is a positive delivery experience from a customer’s point of view?

A study says that 56% of buyers prefer one retailer over another because of the flexible delivery options.

The delivery options they provided were more appealing and convenient.

Moreover, many of them confessed that they left the cart abandoned because there was no delivery choice.

This has been clear that retailers with better and convenient delivery options get an added advantage over others.

Provide clear communication at every point of purchasing journey

Customers expect a clear communication at every stage of their buying journey.

This includes and begins with the product page itself.

Most of the shoppers expect to see the delivery options clearly on the product page.

This becomes easy for customers to make a decision as per their requirement.

Retailers, let’s face this. Not everyone has time to wait long to receive the product.

There are people who willing to pay more to get the shipment on a specific day and time.

Then why not to give them the options?

More delivery options

Drive customer satisfaction

Reduces order cancellation

Order acknowledgement

Acknowledge once you confirm the customer order. This is to verify that the order has been successfully placed.

Send them the order confirmation email. This reduces the post-purchase anxiety from the customer and gives a sense of reliability for your brand.

Image source: My Gmail

Shipping confirmation

Shipping updates throughout the purchase journey keep your customers tuned with your product and brand.

Let your customers be excited about the order.

Include expected delivery date and time.

Image source: My Gmail

Order tracking

A majority of customers expect you to provide an order tracking facility.

The shoppers’ rate order tracking system as a vital part of the overall delivery and customer experience.

Image source: My Gmail

It helps to meet your customers’ need for accuracy. It keeps your customer informed throughout the entire fulfilment and delivery process.

Be proactive

Communicate at every fulfillment and delivery stage for a better E-commerce delivery trends

An active communication throughout the order journey builds customer trust.

This sets clear expectations about when the order will arrive. Effective communication helps to reduce the potential for order cancellation.

It boosts customer confidence and satisfaction.

Communicate when a problem occurs

Inform your customer when there is a delay or any other issue while delivering their shipment.

Communication is the key.

Let them know what exactly has happened and justify them. Apologize for the same.

Image source: my inbox

Increase successful delivery at one go with reminder and updates

“Deliver once, deliver right”

Deliver on-time as promised, this can make or break your brand’s reputation.

It is highly essential to the profitability of your online store.

Inform your customers clearly about when they can expect the shipment so that they can be present to collect the order or make necessary arrangements for the same.

In the end, the customer wants to receive their order on time with least hassle.

Moreover, keeping your customers informed is a plus point for you as well.

Frequent communications will help you to deliver the shipment at one go successfully.

Record post-purchase experience and improve the e-commerce delivery trends

Once you have successfully delivered the product to customers, request them to give feedback.

This gives your customers a feeling of being heard.

Furthermore, it helps you to improve your service and work on the areas which your customers have highlighted.

Image source: My Gmail

Rectify poor delivery experience

Poor delivery experiences hurt your online brand badly.

You can potentially lose customers who had lousy delivery experience with your brand.

In this digital age, disappointed customers will not mind broadcasting their reviews on websites and social media.

Moreover, when fulfilment goes wrong, it costs you an additional customer service cost to make it up for the bad experience.

In addition to this, 56% customers agree that online reviews influence their purchase decisions.

When a customer is raising their concern, respond to them. No matter whether you or the delivery partner is responsible for the bad experience, it is ultimately damaging your reputation.

Tips to handle negative customer reviews

1. Respond to every comment and review for your products and services. Listen to the customer patiently and make a sincere apology.

2. Be proactive. Do not frustrate your customers by asking them to contact you back.

3. Consider customers’ need and preferences and deliver the product as promised.

Search out and eliminate the areas where you are lacking.

Streamlining e-commerce delivery trends

Here, note that communication is the key. Your profitable online business can go wrong when you fail to provide a satisfactory product delivery.

I highly recommend considering logistics aggregator to streamline the delivery process for your online business.

Why logistics aggregator?

1. Choose from multiple courier partners

2. No platform setup fees

3. Sync orders with easy API integration

4. Shipment tracking from your dashboard

5. Receive COD remittances weekly

6. Competitive shipping rates

7. No minimum order commitments

So many more

Final words

Exploit every opportunity to maximize successful first-time delivery. Your online profitability is highly dependent on the successful delivery at one go.

Having the lowest price or sound quality products only won’t help you gain the customers. It takes more than just quality and price to beat the competition and stand out from the crowd.

Start thinking about how you can create an exceptional delivery experience for your customers when they visit your online store.

This can be made possible through the seamless integration of your e-commerce store with a reliable delivery partner.

Why do you need to know about e-commerce growth hacking? Unlike marketplaces, sellers with their own online stores have a different game. They have complete control over their business and its operations. Starting from brand building to the customer experience, they have the freedom to shape and maintain their image.

However, with this freedom, store owners may not have the expertise to scale it up and outperform.

In today’s world of e-commerce, there are thousands of ways to scale, some focus on product margins, whereas some focus of delivering better customer experience, some focus on the specific product line and the list go on.

Neither way is necessarily right or wrong.

Here are some of the best e-commerce growth hacking tips to make your online store a super success.

These tips cover how to shape buyers experience while opening new doors for the future of your online store.

1.Artificial intelligence and machine learning

One of the most important e-commerce growth hacking tip, AI and machine learning is the one that will have outrageous implications the way online sellers sell their products and the way customers buy them.

The visual search engine is one of the most talked about trends in e-commerce.

The key here is to utilize the combined power of the machine learning and Natural Language Processing (NLP).

This will help to understand the context of how your customers express their needs and requirements.

Image source: Slyce.it

Above image is equivalent to a thousand words explanation.

Personalised product recommendations:

Give your customers personalised product recommendations through recommendation signals which identify the preference of each customer. What products they are searching for, which category they prefer, the price they are comfortable with and so on.

Image source: Myntra

Make the shopping experience for your customers more interactive and pleasant with voice-powered personal shopping assistance.

“At Amazon, we’ve been engaged in the practical application of machine learning for many years now. Some of this work is highly visible: our autonomous Prime Air delivery drones; the Amazon Go convenience store that uses machine vision to eliminate checkout lines; and Alexa, our cloud-based AI assistant. However, much of what we do with machine learning happens beneath the surface. Machine learning drives our algorithms for demand forecasting, product search ranking, product and deals recommendations, merchandising placements, fraud detection, translations, and much more. Though less visible, much of the impact of machine learning will be of this type – quietly but meaningfully improving core operations.” – Jeff Bezos, Amazon CEO, Letter to Shareholders (2016)

AI and machine learning in e-commerce will profoundly impact the success of online stores.

With the introduction of artificial intelligence in e-commerce, it will change the way we buy and sell online.

2.Once your customer is ready to buy, remove every barrier

Dear e-commerce entrepreneurs, chasing abandoned cart is not at all easy.

Work on your checkout page. It is essential to keep the checkout page easy to go for your customers.

When it comes to shopping online, your website’s checkout page surpasses any other element concerning customer conversion.

Keep it extremely simple for your customers to reach to the order confirmation.

Once you have a customer, who is ready to buy from you, remove every obstacle that could stand in the way. This includes,

• Unnecessary form fields (keep them short)
• Consider using auto-completion of fields
• One-page checkout
• Keep it mobile optimized

Convert your site visitors into customers with a streamlined checkout page.

Let your checkout page least painful part of your customers’ e-commerce journey.

3.Get the basics right before jumping into new trends

Let me tell you, no tip will work if you miss the basics.

Before jumping into something new, do not forget what features are most important to your business?

So, what are the basics of an online store?

1. Good experience for mobile shoppers

2. Easy checkout process

3. Content management capabilities

4. High-resolution product images

5. Clear return policy

6. Detailed product description

7. Clear design and easy navigation

8. Search engine optimised code and layout

9. Multiple payment options

10. Promotion and discount code tools

11. Website security

To take your e-commerce website to the next level, you need to understand what is important and what not.

You might be excited to jump on new trends, but many e-commerce sites still struggle to meet the basic needs and make errors which affect their performance.

4.Talk to people

It is really really important to talk to your customers and respond to people fast on social media channels.

What is your average response time on social media channels?

Do you know poor response time is harming your social media engagement with your potential customers?

Research says that approximately 77% of people say that valuing their time is the most critical thing they expect from the companies.

Improve your social media average response time, because an instant response gives your customers a sense of responsibility towards your brand. So if not instant, at least respond within 30 minutes.

For Facebook, “very responsive to messages” badge is what you should aim for and to get this badge, you must follow these two things for seven days.

1. A response rate of 90%

2. An average response time of 15 minutes

This is a bragging point which your customers look at your website.

It represents that you respond consistently and quickly to the people’s queries.

Tips to improve average response rate & time:

1. Monitor your page inbox regularly throughout the day

2. Have a dedicated resource to manage social media page

3. Setup email alerts

Apart from social media engagement, you need to communicate to the audience, customers through emails.

Inform customers when their shipment is out for delivery, when delivered and so on.

It is imperative to talk to people no matter wherever they are and be there when they need your support.

Solve each query, no matter how negligible it may sound to you.

5.Protect your customers’ data

In the world of e-commerce, a number of transactions are taking place. For which you need access to consumers’ personal and financial data.

However, many users have concerns about providing such information.

It is highly recommending to take necessary steps to protect your customers’ data.

Avoid misusing, advertising purpose and unlawfully supplying customer data to third parties.

Stay on the top of the subject of customer data protection.

General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) is the European Union’s new data protection law which will impact how big and small companies collect and manage users’ personal data.

There are some tips to ensure the safety for e-commerce owners and customers.

1. Collect only data which is necessary

2. Avoid storing customers’ credit card information

3. HTTP + SSL = HTTPS

4. Be PCI DSS compliant

5. Stay up to date regarding data security and protection laws

6. Demand strong password from customers

6.Take advantage of user-generated content

User-generated content allows online users to communicate and express their personal experience and opinions they had with your product.

SHIEN is one of the excellent examples of this.

Image source: Shien.in

It’s not only about Expressing the emotions; Online customers often create content because in return they get a reward that business offer.

If you have a tight budget, user-generated content allows you to develop fresh content on a regular basis with no additional cost involved.

Apart from this, there are many other reasons to consider UGC for your online store.

1. It helps to understand the target audience

2. Increases customer engagement

3. Builds community

4. Customer spends more time on your website

5. People trust online reviews as much as personal recommendations.

If leveraged correctly, user-generated content promotes customer engagement and also boost your brand visibility and reliability.

It improves site SEO and lead generation efforts.

7.Focus on re-engagement

Why do companies use “loyalty program”, “come back and receive a “free gift” programs?

The answer is customer re-engagement.

Alternatively, should I say repeat purchase?

Companies use these programs to re-engage/attract their existing customers.

Research says that attracting new customers is four times costlier than retaining current customers.

Well yeah, that is true.

It is easy for you because you already had multiple interactions with your customers in the past.

Moreover, if you have been successful in delivering a great shopping experience to them, then you are more likely to get a yes as an answer.

Also, it is easy for the customers too.

Because they already have made up their mind for your brand and its products.

Start win-back campaigns for your customers.

Reach-out to customers once they have stopped shopping from you.

Send them friendly reminders about your new products, styles.

Tatacliq is an excellent example of this.

Image source: My Gmail

Remember, conversion takes more than one touch-point. Recart is a recommended tool to engage in customer re-engagement activities.

8.Stick to four pillars

Trying to run and scale your e-commerce business is a big undertaking.

However, the irremovable factor to your success story is the aim for the ongoing growth.

I recommend the four pillars you need to stick to drive success.

1. Be obsessed with customer experience

Take care of your customers. If you do not treat them well, someone else likely will.

2. Innovate

Focus on being a company that creates value rather than merely transferring value.

3. Optimize every aspect of the business

Not only the sales and customer experience, but you also need to focus on every aspect of your business.

Optimization helps to reduce costs and lead to higher profits in this competitive era.

4. Repeat every single day

1. Do not underestimate the power of content marketing

Many retailers make the mistake of concentrating only on product benefits and functionality while selling their products.

Online retailers often forget the importance of an emotional connection with their audience.

Look for stories which customers can relate to your products.

Build your brand’s credibility with great storytelling efforts.

Look at each story from your customers’ eyes, keep it interesting, relevant and informative.

Those brands are easily ignored by people who are only interested in selling their stuff because people seek value as much as your product.

Do not brag about your company and products. Sell solutions. This will help you to make a real connection with the audience.

Great content is not about how great your products are.

Curate your content in such a way that demonstrates an understanding of customers’ problem and how your products can solve them.

Read more about e-commerce content marketing strategy.

Final words

The success stories which you hear about people, making e-commerce success and earning in five, six-digit figures, are so real.

What you need is to figure out what can work the best for you.

Besides that, You have already taken a big step with the launch of your online store.

Just keep going. The e-commerce industry in India has immense potential in the coming years.

So what are you waiting for? Pick the best e-commerce growth hacking tips from above and make your dreams reality.

Make it happen.

We wish you all the best.

What different are you doing to boost your e-commerce business? Share your views on the comment below.

It had become quite old when people used to buy online because of the lower prices of products. Nowadays people order online because of many reasons including product quality, delivery speed, in short, the overall experience with a brand.

Today customers demand both choice and flexibility when it comes to receiving their online purchase. Your customers won’t mind leaving the shopping cart abandoned if they don’t find satisfactory delivery options.

A purchase is made to satisfy a need or want, and delivery is the key to how quickly this need is fulfilled.

Today, your e-commerce delivery strategy is more critical than ever. Unlike the previous generation, today people are seamlessly integrating with digital technology and choices in everyday life. This is the reason they also expect fast and seamless customer experience in e-commerce.

Online retailers today are competing mainly on delivering excellent customer experience.

While making an online purchase, people are not only comparing the product price and quality; they compare the shipping services too! Then, How to fulfill shipping expectations of online shoppers?

Not all retailers are meeting customer expectations.

Not all customers feel that retailers are meeting their expectations regarding delivery speed and options.

Let’s have a look where retailers are failing to do so.

According to industry research, 68% of consumers would like to opt for guaranteed delivery within 2 to 3 days while only 30% retailers offered this option.

80% shoppers are expecting to see the expected delivery dates for the products they are selecting.

Your customers find delivery dates essential while checking out.

It is equally important to provide enough delivery information and delivery options. It has an enormous impact.

1. You build trust in your customers’ mind

2. There is a less chance of loss of sale.

Nearly 35% online shoppers left the cart abandoned due to shipping time was too long or not provided at all.

One out of five shoppers mentioned that speedy delivery is the main reason they prefer to shop from marketplaces.

What delivery options are you offering and what your customers are expecting?

1.Expected delivery dates

It is a fact that users care about the date of delivery. The primary concern of buyers while checking out is “when will I receive my order?”. Users are more concerned about delivery dates than shipping speed.

It is also advisable to mention the date and not to mention “next day” or “three days”. Such information ends up misleading customers.

2.Customers want reminders and updates

Update your customers when and what time they can expect the order. Frequent communication will help your customers to prepare for receiving the shipment.

Prioritize proactive communication with your customers so that they need to check for the delivery updates and they do not have to take the pain to track the shipment. This builds trust for your brand.

3.Rectifying poor delivery experience

Poop delivery experience damages the reputation of your online shop badly. Today’s digitally empowered customers will not hesitate to share the poor experience they had with your brand on social media and forums.

When fulfillment goes wrong, retailers need to rectify that by providing additional customer service and making things right for the satisfaction of a customer.

4.Provide enough delivery options

Keep shipping options that will vary based on the price and customer needs. Some people may choose the longest delivery time to save some bucks and others may prefer the fastest delivery in spite of the extra charges.

Give your customers the freedom to choose the preferable delivery options as per their needs.

A fast and convenient return process

What customers expect while returning an item online?

As little effort as possible

As low cost as possible

Receiving the refund as quickly as possible

Transparency about whether the return was accepted and when they will receive the money back

What problems are customers facing regarding online order delivery?

1. No timely delivery
2. Delivery of wrong product
3. Not addressing the customer complaint
4. Product damaged/lost
5. Fake updates/status from courier partner

See these problems as an opportunity.

Implement all possible solutions to your online store’s shipment strategy.

It is crucial to understand that shoppers’ shipping desires play a significant role in a final purchase decision.

Shoppers are willing to buy from the brand that gives them the most convenient and customised options.

Unless you are Amazon, you probably do not specialise in supply chain and logistics operations, and more likely you are not going to have the infrastructure and resources either.

Then why not try a logistics aggregator to solve all the problems at once? Get your shipment right for the first with the services of logistics aggregator to maximise your delivery and utmost customer satisfaction.

Consider logistics aggregator to streamline your e-commerce shipping.

1. Choose from multiple courier partners

2. Timely COD remittances

3. One-point support contact activated 24×7

4. In-depth shipping efficiency analytics

5. The automated inflow of information through API integration

6. No minimum volume commitment

Moreover, maximise your delivery percentage and

7. Smoothly manage your NDRs (Non-delivered report)

Read 7 ways to reduce e-commerce shipping cost

Final word:

The point is, online buyers are fickle by nature. If it takes too long to reach the product, you may never get it to them. Give them the options they want to see while browsing through the products at your store. Make the delivery right at the first time and turn first time buyer into a regular customer.

Order delivery can make or break your brand reputation and getting it right is essential to the profitability of your online business.

When there is no competition, there is no business either. Every business has competition regardless of its size & product.

Also, when there is a competition, there is a price war.

When your products are selling for the same or lower price on Amazon, it is difficult to meet the break-even point and make a profit.

Forget about marketplaces; you are not the only seller for particular products unless you are selling something really unique which no one has thought of.

Cutting off the product price doesn’t guarantee to beat the e-commerce price race.

Lowering your prices to beat these big e-commerce giants is foolishness.

You might end up making massive losses and eventually step out from the market at all.

In this article, we are going to discuss how to win when your competitors drop their price.

Competing on price is a bad idea.

By lowering your price, you may get customers who buy from you but let me tell you it is not a strategy that works in the long run.

When someone is buying because of the cheap price you are offering, they are not loyal to your brand. They are more likely to switch to the alternate option the moment they find it at a lower price.

Competing over price is a never-ending fight.

Remember, your competitor will also be prepared to sell at lower prices.

As soon as you undercut your price, your competitor will do the same to beat you, and this goes on, and you may end up incurring a loss.

The customer psychology plays a huge role.

It is buyer psychology that you get what you pay for. When people see a low-cost product, they are likely to assume that it’s a poor quality item and vice versa.

Buyer equates low price with cheap quality.

They may think that something is missing.

They may even doubt on having hidden costs involved.

Not to forget,

Once you start cutting down your price, you need to sell more products to make the same amount of profit.

Here, you are you are playing fool.

You need to understand that your competitors’ prices will fluctuate. Your business operations should be independent of that.

What you can do instead, is find smart alternatives to competing on price.

There are numerous ways you can compete with your competitors besides price.

However, at the centre of all of those tactics is “Value”.

Focus on providing more value to your customers and chances are high that they will come back to you for the next purchase.

Make your customers feel that your brand is offering more than just a product!

Price is a financial reward for your product wherein the value is what your customer believes the product is worth to them.

Show the worth of your products to your customers.

Differentiate your products by offering the benefits and emphasize on product benefits instead of its features.

Imagine a conversation wherein you are stuck with someone who just talks about themselves and has no interest in your say.

Understand that people are least interested in you and your product. So stop bragging about your company and brand when you are trying to sell them your products.

Buyers want to hear about what they will be getting from your product. They want to know what value your product will bring to their lives.

I would suggest following the below steps before communicating your product benefits to your audience.

1 – Make a list of your product features

2 – Determine what each feature actually does

3 – Learn how these features will fulfil the desire of your audience

4 – Connect these features emotionally with buyer’s persona

5 – Highlight the emotional impact

It is uber important to understand that your product features are important but do not brag about them from the selling point of view.

Present them from the buyers’ perspective. What impact your product will have in their life.

How your product will make their life easier?

By highlighting what is essential to the user, you are creating a distinct stand from the competition.

If you learn this art, you have already won half the race.

Strike an emotional chord in your pitch to grab the attention of your audience.

You can pair your products with complimentary service.

Think about the services you can offer that pair well with your products.

Differentiate from your competitors.

Not in terms of different products but by offering a distinct value attached to the product.

People like convenience.

Make it super easy for people.

Right from browsing your product till the after sale service.

One key to understanding the shoppers’ buying behaviour is the “importance of convenience to your customers”.

People like simplified things. They purchase online to save time because it’s comfortable and convenient.

Prove them right by offering the utmost convenience. They are even willing to pay more for that.

Provide them with excellent delivery options.

Introduce customer-friendly policies such as 30 days’ free returns, quick refund, Easy exchange options, etc.

Use the power of online reviews

Nearly 75% consumers claim that online reviews influence their buying decision.

What you can do is,

Simply ask your customers to give a review. Do take polite and friendly follow-ups.

Offer a discount on the next purchase. It’s a win-win situation for both the party. You are retaining a customer for the next purchase.

Leverage customer reviews not just customer acquisition, aim to increase customer retention.

Online reviews have the power to influence and manipulate customer opinion even before they have visited your store and make a mind to have a look at your products.

Send thank you notes to your customers. Show gratitude for their purchase.

Make them feel special by sending them a handwritten thank you notes.

People love to be acknowledged.

It may not work for a long run, it may not be convenient for you to send a personalized handwritten note to all your customers, but it can get you a few loyal customers at the beginning and spread a positive word of mouth about your brand.

Change your product’s positioning

Understand what your customer needs are and position the product.

Craft the key message carefully.

Convey the differentiating value-added aspects of your product.

Remember it has a significant impact on the ultimate purchase decision.

If people do not find any value in your product, they won’t mind dismissing it in a heartbeat.

On the other hand, product repositioning is not a small change.

You need to research the buyers’ persona and consumer psychology carefully.

Apple has positioned its products as premium products. They always focus on featuring product benefits and the value they add to people’s lives rather than the price.

In case you are positioning your products as premium, learn whether your target market has enough purchasing power to afford your products.

Determine the cost and resources attached to the product repositioning.

You may have to change your product quality, packaging, website design, etc. which might require a reasonable amount of time, effort and money.

One of the best positioning strategies is content marketing.

Take help of content marketing

Content marketing can prove a boon to your business.

People love to read useful and relevant content which solves their problem.

Content marketing builds brand awareness, trust and loyalty.

Quality content helps people to engage with your brand and make sound buying decisions.

Good content fosters the healthy relationship with customers.

You can win an entire game if used this marketing strategy effectively.

Learn more about e-commerce content marketing

Show product scarcity

Scarcity is one of the ordinary yet important tactic of converting your website visitors into customers.

Scarcity can be of several types.

1. Displaying a very limited quantity of products.

2. Offering a discount for a limited period.

3. Providing additional benefits associated with the product for a limited time.

When you are using this tactic, make sure you are keeping your words. If you are converting customers with a limited period discount, keep tour words and end the discount period as you have mentioned.

If you fail to do so, it can damage your brand reputation severely.

Here, you need to be true to your word.

Explore new market

Do you sell in a specific state or region?

Try exploring the new market for your products.

Consider expanding your business nationally/ internationally.

Expanding online is a great way to access new markets and experiment with different pricing quickly. It opens up a new market, new customer base, new strategies, and considerably higher revenue.

Conclusion

The best way to avoid price war is not to get in at all.

You are going to make a huge loss by continually dropping your price.

Instead, focus on providing value to your customer. Win customers by improving the overall user experience.

Showcase the product quality and benefits while marketing your products instead of prices.

E-commerce in India has come a long way. E-commerce business opportunity in India is higher than in any other country in the world as India is the fastest growing market (being the youngest country), and hence the e-commerce success factors matter a lot.

The purchasing power of the Indian population is increasing drastically.

People are becoming more tech-savvy, smartphones, internet usage and launch of the 4G network have become a necessity especially for people from cities and small towns.

E-commerce provides ease of doing shopping, and this is the central aspect behind the growth in online shopping.

Launching a new e-commerce venture can feel like an impossible dream when we look at Amazon or Flipkart. However, more and more sellers are looking to sell online and capture the untapped Indian market.

E-commerce businesses are breaking the barriers and enjoying the success point.

You need to understand the success factors of sound e-commerce businesses which are directly contributing to the e-commerce economy and also forming customer perceptions about online shopping.

Having great products to sell is one thing but offering them to your customers in a way is extended inference.

The majority of businesses fail to understand the fundamentals of e-commerce success.

Fundamentals of e-commerce success

You can apply them to your e-commerce business strategy to stay ahead in this competitive market.

When this e-commerce economy is stepping towards growth in the coming months and years, you need to follow some basic yet critical fundamentals to approach it in the right way. In this article, we are going to discuss the ten e-commerce success factors which will prove boon for your business.

1. Pick a simple business name

It is essential to have a unique yet easy to remember the name of your business. It helps your customer to recollect your company and its products easily.

• Keep it short and memorable.
• Stick to .in if you are targeting only Indian market. Go for .com if you are targeting the global market.
• Check with google if the same or similar names come up.

It is not necessary to have a brand name which has a definite meaning. Brands like Google, Flipkart, eBay are instantly recognizable and easy to remember.

You can try a different combination of short words, two short words that rhyme is quite easy to remember.

You can also give your personal name to your online store. It makes your store easy to identify even on a personal level.

Do not use similar words as your competitors. Think something different to stand out.

Another important thing is to make sure you are not copying any name which already exists. Check with copyright and trademark office India for the copyrights before picking any name for your business.

It is crucial to find the right name while launching your online store. It becomes the very first identity of your e-commerce business, and customers recognize and recollect you with the name.

2. Test before the launch

It is uber important to invest in testing and analysis. It is important to find and solve issues that could probably go wrong before it goes live.

There are a few common things which one must test pre-launching.

• User forms – User registration forms allow you to capture leads, it is utmost essential to check that they are fully functional, Is the information relevant you are collecting from the user and so on.
• Help customers to make decisions with clear calls to action.
• Social media integrations – Social media is one of the valuable sources which contributes to your online store’s success. It plays a significant role to make your brand visible, help you connect with your customer and solve their queries at a personal level.

Make sure you create social media accounts and mention them on your website with an accurate link.

• Favicon icon – Before you launch make sure you have created a favicon icon. A favicon icon is the one which reflects on the address bar of the tab.
• Check SEO elements – It is uber important to make your website SEO friendly. Put SEO elements on your websites like meta tags, meta descriptions, title tags, and keywords. This helps your site recognize and rank on google.
• Test your entire website with all possible minor things like spelling mistakes, active links, navigation and what not!
• Test website speed, whether it loads quickly or not. GTmetrix is a free tool that analyzes your page’s speed performance.
• Check browser compatibility for multiple browsers like google chrome, Mozilla Firefox, Safari, internet explorer, opera, etc.

3.Take advantage of m-commerce:

Mobile commerce is basically e-commerce that involves wireless the use of a wireless device like smartphones and tablets.

The first and most important thing to use m-commerce is the fact that more and more people are using smartphones and tablets to make the purchase as it is more convenient than using desktop and laptop.

You have to elevate your design to replicate the same user experience as a desktop or even better than that.

Mobile users are more concerned about ease of navigation and interaction they have with your website. If you already have a website, first you what need to do is to check its display and interface on multiple platforms, Not only various platforms but also for numerous devices with different screen size for smartphones and tablets.

Your website should be fast, easy to navigate & mobile responsive.

Your website visitors should not have to spend much time to find what they are looking for.

4. Checkout & Returns: Keep it easy for your customers

Make sure your customers have a good experience at every point of interaction with your online store.

Optimize your checkout page with these simple tips.

• Create a mobile-friendly checkout page.
• Show steps included in checkout through progress indicator.
• Give your customer easy & multiple payment options, also give them the option to save the card details for one-click payment.
• Allow guest checkout. This results in a reduced abandoned cart and helps customers to checkout without logging in to their account for making a purchase.
• Make your customers feel secure at checkout. Ensure that the payment options are secured and trusted.
• Request the information which is actually required and essential like the name, shipping address & contact number. Do not ask for any extra information at checkout. This will make your customer frustrated and leave the cart unattended. Even if you are asking for additional information, keep it optional.

Returns:

• A study shows that 67 percent of customers are more likely to be repeat customers of the brand.
• 75 percent of customers complain about the experience they have in the return and exchange process.
• E-commerce businesses need to have a customer-friendly return policy which allows your customers to return the products without any hassle.
• It is uber important to define and explicitly mention the return policy of your online store.
• Your customers are more likely to refer your store and products to their friends, family, and colleagues once they gain trust not only for your products but also to the quality of your service.
• Lastly, 78 percent of online shoppers said that comfortable and hassle-free return policy convince them to buy from an online retailer.

Guidelines for creating a customer-friendly return policy

1. Put yourself in the shoes of your customers.
2. Make sure your customers can find a return policy easily. Keep it visible.
3. Include information regarding refund, exchange and store credits.
4. Highlight the return timeline.
5. Clearly outline the return fees that may apply.
6. Provide contact information in case your customers face any additional queries regarding returns.

5.Great website design

There is one principle to website design, keep it simple!

Ask yourself one question. How easy is your website to use?

Let your customers find quickly what they are looking for.

The only metric which defines your website’s success is the actual conversion rate.

“Website design is a plan for arranging elements in such a way as best to accomplish a particular purpose”.  – Charles Eames

A good website design can be one thing that pushes you above.

So what is a good web design anyway?

If you ask different web designers to define good design, you will end up getting a variety of answers.

However, if you have a close look at some well-designed e-commerce stores, you will be able to find the similarities they have concerning user experience and customer satisfaction.

Make sure that your website is tidy and not confusing or chaotic. Read the complete list of UI-UX problems with solutions.

However, while the design and navigation of your website play a significant role, not to forget about the high-quality product images and product description. While browsing through your site, people should be convinced to buy from you.

6. Providing top-notch customer support is an important e-commerce success factor.

Unlike offline stores, online players do not get a chance to interact with customers personally. Excellent customer service is the only way you can capture your customer attention.

Not all customers are willing to give a second chance if they have bad service experience.

What are the common mistakes that lead to bad customer service?

• Unprepared customer service staff
• Unable to meet the order volume
• No action plan to respond to negative customer reviews
• Third party mistakes (e.g. Delivery partner)

Learn the power of “customer-first” mentality.

In the online world, customer loyalty is the key to success. Persuade your customers to return to your store to make more purchase. For this, you need to build trust and rapport with your customers.

Let your customers speak about your products and service level commitment.

“If you do build a great experience, customers tell each other about that. Word of mouth is very powerful.”- Jeff Bezos, Founder of Amazon.com

7. Make your site SEO friendly

Let’s have a look what are some of the Google’s most common ranking algorithms.

1. Optimize your website for mobile marketing
2. Demonstrate a strong online presence with social media extensions
3. Add high-quality images and rich snippets
4. Clean code with HTML navigation and transparency
5. Include long tail keywords that precisely define your products and services
6. Creating user-friendly UI-UX
7. Publishing high-quality original contents that follow SEO guidelines
8. Develop high-quality links with authoritative websites
9. Publish product reviews, FAQs, customer testimonials
10. Avoid broken links
11. Add meta title, meta tags and meta description on every page of your website

In today’s highly competitive online market, Simple website design is not enough to guarantee the success of your e-commerce store.

You need to have a strong SEO & content marketing strategy to be found when your potential customers are searching for products that you sell.

8. Communicating your discounts and freebies is an important e-commerce success factor.

Needless to say that Indian consumers are price sensitive and always looking for a way to save money.

One thing you can do is to offer excellent and genuine discounts at your store to attract more traffic.

Discounts are not only/always beneficial to customers, but it can do a lot for your business.

Here are a few ways of offering discount codes.

• Offer discount code while launching a new product.
• Send promotional discounts to your email subscribers.
• Give the discount code to a new customer in a welcome email.

Discounts not only attract people and increase sale but also persuade them to look for another exciting stuff at your store.

Another important aspect is to communicate your promotional discounts and freebies with your audience.

There are numerous ways you can reach out to your audience to let them know about the offers going on at your online store.

• Leverage the use of social media. Reach your target customers through Facebook ads, Instagram posts, LinkedIn ads in case of the corporate audience and any preferable social medium where your audience spend time.
• Spread word of mouth
• Engage in various community forums to discuss the trends, problems, and solutions.

When it comes to e-commerce marketing, discounts are undoubtedly significant but how you leverage the use of discounts and how you put them in your strategy is uber important.

9. Regulating your product pricing is an important e-commerce success factor.

You must be thinking; the price is such an essential factor for your store’s success, then why am I mentioning this point at the end of this article?

Because if you fail to regulate your product pricing, all points which we discussed earlier are of no use.

65% of consumers stated that product prices are one of the significant factors that affect the buying decision.

This is why pricing makes a massive difference in this competitive e-commerce industry. Price not only attract new customers but also improve the overall performance of your websites like website visitors, conversion rates, profit margins, and total market share.

Prices are essential to any business regardless of its size. Setting a product price requires a considerable degree of analysis and competitive research.

There are nearly thousands of ways to set pricing for your online business. It is advisable to test your e-commerce pricing strategy.

Balancing your price according to its value and competitive pricing will create a product and brand value what a customer perceives in your product.

10. Evolve continuously

Once you’ve implemented your store idea and secured a steady stream of sales, make sure that you keep up with optimizing your e-commerce website and marketing as you go.

Every day, visitors’ experience with the online market is becoming more mobile, social and visual. This helps to improve the experience for customers and makes it complicated for the e-commerce business owners to stay up to date with the latest developments.

E-commerce is a process which demands continuous improvement but is also essential to focus on the scalability of your online business.

Focus on customer-centric evolution by improving customer value continuously.

Final Thoughts

Starting a successful e-commerce venture is not an easy task, but by following the basics, you can build a solid foundation to build a successful e-commerce business.

You can always set a benchmark by studying the top players. Do not just blindly follow the trends, learn what can work the best for you.