In the years to come, we will no doubt look back at 2020 as the year that fundamentally changed e-commerce. The pandemic brought dramatic growth in the digital and e-commerce sectors, creating a boom in the online space – from information platforms to online shopping.
Internet sales as a percentage of total retail sales rocketed from 19.1% in Feb 2020, to 36.3% in Nov 2020 and Jan 2021*. Each time physical shops began to open again, the novelty of being able to go into a shop did cause this percentage to dip somewhat – but never back to pre-2020 levels.
As a result, online retailers have had to massively scale up, taking on additional costs, new staff, getting in extra stock and so on.
With life now returning to something more like normal – how should e-commerce retailers consolidate and build on their 2020 growth, and how can they avoid dropping back to previous trading levels?
We will be discussing this topic at our webinar on July 21st – but if you can’t wait that long, here are a few quick tips.
If traffic to your website starts to drop backwards once the economy reopens, what can you do?
Increase your market share
Even if traffic is currently falling in your market, you can still grow if you can win market share from competitors 🙂
- By increasing your advertising budget
- By managing your online advertising more effectively
- By improving your organic SEO
- By reviewing your pricing to ensure it is competitive, and running great promotions
Get more out of your existing traffic
There are many ways you can encourage customers to increase their order spend, including:
- Giving people who order over a certain amount a discount
- Offering free delivery for orders over a designated amount
- Offers such as 3-for-2
- Creating product bundles
You should also be working hard to keep your existing customers coming back – email is key to this, and is often under-used by businesses. Discount codes or new product announcements can be key here.
You could also create remarketing campaigns within your Google Ads account to retarget these customers, ensuring you are remembered and visible when they search for products you sell.
Review your costs and create efficiencies
There are always efficiencies to be made – if you had to grow in a hurry last year, I’m pretty sure you will have had to make some snap decisions due to not having the time to shop around.
One area to look at is the deals you have with courier companies, and whether they are right for the number of parcels you’re now sending out – see our recent blog on this very topic.
Don’t forget to grab your tickets for our Wake up your Online Sales event on 21st July!
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