As November is forecasted to be the most profitable month in 2017 for e-commerce businesses (namely due to Chinese Singles Day, Black Friday and Cyber Monday all falling within that month), many are adjusting their online presence and preparing accordingly.
Considering that online stores will be flooded with visitors demanding quick feedback, purchasing, and shipping, what are the things that online business owners need to do to prepare themselves accordingly?
In order to ensure that they gain as many conversions as possible when the flood hits and catch as many fish as possible, there are several things they can do:
- Use AI
- Offer various payment options
- Social selling
Artificial intelligence
As you can read in our previous post on e-commerce trends in 2017, chat systems have shown positive results when it comes to customer satisfaction, but as the clientele grows larger, e-commerce businesses are finding it harder to be able to meet everyone’s needs effectively.
Enter the AI: chatbots have become an easy solution to this very issue, allowing businesses to at least filter through the contact they have with potential or returning customers and ensure that they are met with a helpful response and care to maintain customer satisfaction. When mega online sales events take place, websites become flooded with customers demanding feedback, input, help, etc.
With not enough people to focus on each customer, the chatbot offers a temporary solution by meeting the immediate request of the customer to be answered while giving customer service members time to get to every customer.
Keeping your payment options open
Another thing that ensures an e-commerce business will reap high sales is offering multiple payment methods. As the online world has connected people from all over the globe and international shipping has become more feasible, many online stores are faced with the task of offering payment options to be able to cover as large of a customer group as possible. Whether it is Paypal, Visa, Mastercard, or Bitcoin, many are looking to throw as wide a net as possible, and with the internet digitizing every aspect of the business world, this task is not too hard to meet.
Social selling
Social selling is the process of using social media platforms to develop relationships with potential and established customers. Unlike social marketing, social sales focuses on the sales aspect of the business, promoting it online through either direct contact with potential customers, promoting services online, listening to feedback from established customers and engaging in communication with them and/or amending their current sales strategy in order to attract as many new consumers as possible.
With November approaching, many will start promoting their special deals and offers through social media to increase visibility and already have a customer group ready to buy their goods the moment Cyber Monday or Black Friday begins. For more information, you can check out the following blog post, which discusses the ins and outs of social selling.
The essence of all of these preparations for November comes down to one motivating factor in the consumer world: efficiency and effectiveness. Whether is it shortening the purchasing time, delivery time, customization, or simply getting an immediate response from a chatbot, the customer wants his or her goods and wants it the way they want it and as soon as possible. With this in mind, any online store can readjust its strategy and continue growing its business.
