What your customers expect from your ecommerce business
Love to run a successful ecomerce business? Find out what your customers will expect from you.
It has become ever easier in recent years to run an ecommerce business. To the point today where, if you have the right software, you can go from idea to launch in under a day. (Note, you can do that, but being better prepared is usually a good idea.)
People who wish to run a successful ecommerce business have plenty of tools available to them to make it work – but of course, it takes more than the raw materials to turn a concept into a thriving brand.
There is no one thing that makes a business successful – it takes a collection of circumstances that build into something larger. There are, however, some things that you absolutely cannot do without, and perhaps the prime example of this is customers.
Unless you have a customer base that trusts you to meet their needs, your ecommerce business is going to struggle. This is worth bearing in mind, so that you can meet your customers on their terms and give them the experience they need.
You’re expected to deliver on time, every time
It’s understood that as many as 87% of UK customers have made an online purchase in the last 12 months. That’s seven in every eight people. Which means you, yourself, have almost certainly bought online, and will be familiar with the experience. Chief among all of our concerns is that the things we buy arrive, in usable condition, when we expected them.
If you run a smaller ecommerce operation, this could mean a lot of time spent at the post office sending items. For a larger business, it may be about consulting with conveyor manufacturers and ensuring that you have a strong warehouse operation and delivery fleet. In any case, you need to make sure that your delivery operation gets things there on time.
You should be accessible on social media
People expect the social media accounts of huge corporations to be relatively anodyne and unremarkable. They expect that if small “Mom ‘n’ Pop” operations even have a Twitter account, it will be sparsely updated and fitfully monitored. For an ecommerce business, whose entire operation is online, being hard to reach on social media is a bad idea.
Customer service issues and item-specific questions may well come to you via social media, and someone should be there to handle them. If people don’t hear back quickly, they can easily go elsewhere, so be prompt, helpful and human; you’ll see the benefits.
You should know how to drop a freebie or two
A major aspect of online shopping in this day and age is the prevalence of voucher codes. If you’re selling items through an ecommerce setup, you’re largely expected to have promo codes available to customers, who can use them to make savings.
Let’s put it this way: your competitors will have giveaways and promos, therefore so should you. Free delivery is particularly popular – people will spend more than they intended to, adding items to their cart just to get more bang for their buck.
If you want your ecommerce business to grow wings, it’s worth bearing all of the above in mind. Customers will expect certain things from you, and you’ve got a much better chance of success if you give them what they need.
Photo by LinkedIn Sales Navigator
