We’re still in the first quarter of 2020 and the world has already seen a pandemic like never before. With COVID19 impacting nations across the world, all businesses whether big or small are expected to go through a change. Now if the change will affect your business positively or negatively depends entirely on how you decide to deal with the situation.
It’s truly said when life gives you lemons, you better make lemonade. If you’ve toiled hard to create your online business then why let it suffer just like that. It’s inevitable to avoid change so why not take it in our stride and make the most out of it. As the world combats coronavirus we’ve managed to put together some practical steps that you must take so that your business sails smoothly through the crisis and manages to come out a winner once everything settles.
There are two aspects to focus on:
- How to deal with the present scenario
- How to prepare for the future
We’ll deal with each, one at a time:
How to deal with the present COVID19 scenario?
In the current situation, your primary objective should be to bring about stability in your business. To not let it affect much in this critical time. Be it the concerns of keeping your cash flow coming in, to the issue of ensuring safe deliveries of essentials goods, to planning an effective content marketing strategy all need to be taken care of.
1-Struggling with cash flow? -Gift cards to the rescue
Have you been struggling to keep sales running like before in this time? With strained business flow, you’ll not only need to keep your business running but also required to support other operations that need finances. If you are going through a rough time you must consider providing gift cards on your eCommerce website. Gift cards are an excellent way to ensure future sales and free up the cash flow in the current situation. Gift cards will also aid your business in the future. In the year 2016, over 75 % of gift card recipients spent around $28 more than the value of the card, this was 6% more than the statistics last year. Not only will gift cards help generate better sales prospects for your e-commerce store but it also ensures bringing in new customers to your website.
2-Offer for payment through contactless means
E-Wallets have been popular since long now but are even more relevant in times like this when social distancing has become imperative and physical currency acts as the most common carrier of germs. Malaysia even saw a 74% reduction in cash reliance.
Allow payment through e-wallets on your e-commerce website and ensure the safety of your customers and the delivery personnel.
Offering alternative modes for payment will not just be of value in COVID19 but also help your business boost sales in the future. Cart abandonment could also be reduced to a large extent if people are given access to their preferred payment methods to make purchases. The conversion rate could be improved by over 13% by providing alternative payment methods.
3-Leverage social media
Social media activity in India alone rose to 50X in the lockdown period. Digital media consumption has increased multiple folds since lockdown came to effect across the world. You could deploy the immense power of social media to work on your brand presence.
With an ever-increasing number of social media users, it isn’t surprising that over 60% of people research goods and services they seek to purchase on these social platforms. In search of reviews that help establish a brand, credibility customers tend to visit social media often before making purchase decisions. It need not be stressed more how effective social platforms can be for establishing your online presence in front of your target customer base. How often will you find a platform that gives you access to such a huge number of people in one go? Time to think and improve your brand awareness.
How to prepare for the future?
Credits to the ever-changing demands and technological advancements online businesses need to keep pace in order to stay relevant with the times. Remember all those times when you avoided taking big steps for your website customization and optimization because the sale season was in full swing? Well now is the time to do it. Focus on enhancing your eCommerce website so that you may ensure amazing customer experiences and eventually better conversions.
As the world continues to be in hibernation you can begin to build the capacity of your online marketplace to be back with full force when this time of crisis is over. Here’s what you can do:
1-Take care of your website aesthetics
As they say, the first impression is the last impression, indeed it is.
A presentable looking website with a clean structure not just looks appealing but also makes it extremely easy to look around for desired products.
It’s important to make your website look visually appealing for your customers to get a positive vibe from it. You wouldn’t want to risk it with a cluttered website and have the customers immediately click away.
If you have time at your hand amidst the covid19 crisis you better utilize this time to give a fresh look and feel to your website. Theme customization of your eCommerce store will not only help build aesthetics but also improve navigation making it easier for customers to browse through products. Observe what’s currently the customer favorite and have your theme renewed.
Your website is your chance to present your products and you must make full use of the chance at hand. The website shall be clear in its approach and convey the USP of your business effectively.
It’s only a matter of the first 3 seconds when a customer lands on your website for them to form an opinion. If the first impression doesn’t work out the customers would probably never want to return.
2-Work towards making your eCommerce website mobile friendly
Trends point out that in recent times a larger number of sales are made through mobile devices such as smartphones and tablets. It’s crucial to have a mobile-friendly website for your customers to have a good experience browsing on their mobiles.
- As per a recent study over 52% of customers said they would not want to engage with a company that doesn’t offer a good mobile experience.
- Search engines too prefer mobile-friendly sites. Google tends to prefer mobile-optimized sites. So even if you have an amazing website but it fails to runs smoothly on mobile devices you may experience a downfall in your ranking.
3-Work on speed optimization
After only 3 seconds of waiting for a site to load over 57% of users will abandon it. That’s all the time that you get, and that is exactly why the speed optimization of your website is of utmost importance. Amazon found that even an extra 100ms of loading time was costing them 1% in sales. Imagine the potential impact every delay could cause in the present era.
The user experiences that you’re delivering through your website will ultimately impact the traffic you’re getting, the response you get over your paid and non-paid promotions and everything eventually impacts the sales you’ll generate.
It’s the ideal time to utilize in speed optimizing your website. Go and have all those loopholes fixed that have been for long pulling down the performance of your eCommerce business.
4-Add extensions for capacity building
Be it that one payment method you’ve been contemplating on having added to your e-commerce website or adding the one that allows your customer to refer their friends or a bunch of others, the time to do it is now. Extensions support your eCommerce website in multiple ways. They add that little extra that makes your website stand out from the rest or maybe come at par with the best in the industry.
The time is right for you to contemplate and decide on what your website needs most. Once you zero in on the extensions that you need to build the capacity of your online business it’s time to get going and have it done right away by a trusted extension customization service.
Final thoughts
No situation is entirely good or bad. Though we cannot deny the difficult times the world is facing in the present moment, what cannot be ignored is that once life begins to run on full speed businesses will have to jump back and rise to the occasion. It’s almost mandatory to be prepared for a better future. What better way to do it than working on your venture that you’ve toiled hard to build. Time to pull up your socks and get ready to deliver the best experiences to your customers in the times to come and CedCommerce is here to help you at every step of your journey. In order to extend support to businesses in these times, we have slashed prices of our extensions. We are committed to empowering eCommerce through every means.