Thanks to modern technology, consumers are now increasingly opting to buy their products online, rather than make a physical purchase. In fact, Internet Retailer expects online sales revenue to exceed $400 billion by 2018.
To gain better insights on e-commerce, Inflow, an award winning Denver-based e-commerce marketing agency recently published their annual Best-In-Class research for e-commerce websites.
The research uncovered the conventions and best practices of the top performing e-commerce sites. More importantly, the research also shed light on the up and coming trends in e-commerce, expected to gain traction and help boost online sales in 2017.
Here are a few of the trends to take note of, if you want to increase your conversions and add more to your bottom line this year.
1. Offering Free Returns
For most business owners, offering free returns sounds like an unsustainable business model. Many ecommerce companies view it as a surefire way to lose revenue. However, an overwhelming number of the best-in-class ecommerce sites have used free returns to their advantage.
Consider a buyer who is unsure whether an item fits them or not. They will not have a chance to try it on without taking a risk, unless you offer free returns.
By assuming some of the liability for customers who are unfamiliar with your brand, it makes it easier for them to purchase from you and become a repeat customer.
If you’re still concerned about lost revenue due to free returns, there’s a work around. Many online stores protect themselves against returns by charging a premium when they offer this service. Your products will not necessarily be the cheapest online, but you will still attract a loyal following due to the extra confidence you avail customers while offering free returns.
2. Developing Mobile Friendly Platforms
Today, increasingly more online buying activity is done via mobile devices. To adapt to this, the most successful online retailers have put in a variety of efforts to be more mobile friendly.
These include; coming up with mobile friendly sites and the creation of new website designs that are adaptive for mobile. With these design modifications, more online platforms are also adding a “tap” to call rather than text on their mobile sites.
All these efforts are meant to accommodate a client shopping on mobile, with the goal of getting clients to checkout as quickly and as effortlessly as possible.
3. Keeping Exit Offers
Though not entirely a new trend, a significant number of online sales platforms are still not taking advantage of exit offers. Exit offers can be easily implemented by using a variety of test tools to determine when a visitor to your site is just about to leave and present a sale offer to him or her.
Exit offers might not always lead to a sale, but they are excellent at capturing emails for lead generation, which can help you make sales in the future.
With the many competitors in the e-commerce space, running a successful online business is expected to become even more challenging. Launching a website and seeing how much traffic you can get isn’t enough to master the ecommerce game.
With more discerning consumers and an increasing number of competitors, growing your e-commerce sales will require strategy and targeted efforts, both onsite and off. Implementing the above trends is a great place to start boosting your conversions, and ultimately, your sales.
