Outsmart your eCommerce rivals, like this!

Your every move towards evolving your business is a strategy for your rival to evolve theirs. A small step taken to improvise your business outcomes and catering to your customers is an idea for your rivals to do something much better than what you have planned.

Quality, price, shipping, and post-shipping support are some of the principles that play a vital role in your eCommerce business. Even though you are offering product ‘a’ at a comparatively lower price, there are chances that your rival might beat the competition with a higher price for the same product but free shipping.

It is always better to understand your customer (your business persona) and studying your rival’s strategies. Try understanding what your customers need, and not what they want. The moment you try to step in to fulfill their requirements, your customer will start to demand and it will eventually lead your business to grow. It’s always advisable to keep your friends (customers) close but your enemies (rivals) closer.

Wondering for the first page to Genesis; the reasons why you are being outperformed and how you can get your head back in the game again…

 

eCommerce with SEO & SEM

When you are listing a particular product on a marketplace, you need to analyze the competitive arena and look at the effort required to get on the top list of search keywords (both generic and specialized). Example, what would be the position of your product when the customer searches for “Sports shoes” or “Red Adidas sports shoes with large sole” The first one is a generic keyword, whereas the second one is more of a long tail keyword. It’s always suggested that you consider a specific long-tail keyword to be an integral part of your product name, product description, and specifications.

This will slowly help you grow on the generic keyword & enable you to be the first choice for niche customers, a win-win strategy for both. Also, as said “improvisation is the key” always keep a close eye on your rivals’ strategy (who are performing well) and try to either adopt the same or improvise the same if you find a scope.

You should also work on a PPC (Pay-per-click) strategy for marketplaces so that your sales can keep running even while your products are still growing. Clicks, Views, Buys, and Reviews are the four most important parameters considered by most marketplaces while helping you with PPC campaigns. Your product title plays a vital role in making your PPC campaign a success.

 

Premium Listing (for e.g. Amazon Prime)

On Amazon or any other eCommerce platform, it’s always beneficial if you are a premium seller. This makes the marketplace to help you to reach out to maximum customers possible, in every way possible. This usually shows that the products that you are selling are relevantly certified and will reach the customer on time, which will certainly carve trust amongst the customers and get you more business. For example, to be a prime lister on Amazon, you can either get yourself certified from Amazon or you can opt for ‘Fulfillment by Amazon (FBA).’

 

Good Product Images

Mind well, the very first thing your customer can judge you with is the image of the product that you have listed. Product photoshoot differs from niche to niche. The main agenda of an image on every eCommerce platform is to throw a spotlight on what is listed. The images should have clarity, detailing and should depict exactly what the customer is looking for. Probably your competitors, although not having a quality product with them, can bag in your crucial customers by listing their products with a perfect image. Matter to think about, isn’t it?

 

Product Delivery and Shipping

As said, to understand your customer, you need to first put yourself into their shoes. If you do so, you will then understand how excited the customer is to get hands on that product the moment it is ordered. The customer is least bothered about who the seller is; all they need is an early-quality-shipping. The one with better eCommerce catering abilities always WINS!

Shipping charges do matter! It won’t take a second for your customer to give you a ‘boo’ and move ahead with another seller. Again, analyze how your rival is catering the shipping. Your shipping should be dynamic enough to reach out to the customers making sure that their location is never a point of consideration. Being a seller, customer satisfaction should be your priority, but by not keeping your convenience aside.

A small insider – whenever you deliver the package/product, the outer package is always of the marketplace where it was listed on e.g.

Amazon; you put that product in your package and then put that package in the eCommerce marketplace’s package. Would make the customer aware of the seller i.e. you!

Next-day Delivery

Well, it rarely happens nowadays that the sellers do not ship the order on the same day. It’s more like a compulsion that whatever the seller has listed on the online marketplace, has to be present in his/her warehouse or inventory; an inventory management system takes care of the in and outs.

When one says brick-and-mortar, more than an entity, it has become a model. Many sellers have now bred their pick-up locations as a brick-and-mortar model which requires less management compared to a retail outlet, is enabling them for the same-day pick-up, but a next-day delivery is something that totally depends on how strong your logistics are.

It’s more like playing a rapid-fire with your eCommerce rivals when it comes to quick delivery of the orders placed. Your ultimate goal is to make your customer say, “Woah!” and you have it all…

 

Easy Returns

Best customer satisfaction is ensured when you stay in touch with them even after the product is delivered. Both, the customer as well as the seller, should have a second chance to rectify or get rectified the mistakes that are made. Every eCommerce marketplace has a return management policy, which every seller has to rigorously follow, but how, that’s up to the seller.

For this, you need to make sure that you have enough feasibility when it comes to delivering the product to the customer and even collect in case it is returned or replaced.

To make the return policy work efficiently, you need to have tight warehouse management. This will make you rectify the order, ship it again and put the incorrectly sent product back at its spot in the warehouse.

 

Solid Customer Support

Being a seller, if your eCommerce customers buy something from the products that you have listed, make sure that you never lose touch with them. Ensure customer satisfaction by reaching out to them and requesting feedback. If at all the customer has any sort of query regarding the product, try to never back out. You will try your best to not, but if at all there is a wrong product delivered, make sure that the right product is delivered replacing the earlier one. This is the best way you can grab some loyal customers, by being loyal to them!

Innovate; Reinvent!

If a new haircut to those same old hairs can help you get all that attention, why can’t an innovation or a sharp thought to that previous idea help?

Customers appreciate and welcome change, till it’s positive! This is what is needed to be analyzed, why and what will your customers like. It is certainly a challenge, but again, your eCommerce rivals are the biggest reference for you. Never forget, a cherry on the top is anyways yet to be added.

There are times when innovation or reinventing a specific idea might not work, you always do have that previous idea intact. Your business will always perform on how well you optimize the ongoings rather than enjoying ‘crushing the candies’ which is now resting in the hall of fame.

Let’s end this with a shining piece of classics…

You must have heard the story of two friends passing through the woods who then get chased by a bear. “There is no chance that you can outrun the bear,” said one of the friends to the other. “Bear? I just need to outrun you!” said the other friend.

We all know how the story ended.

Improvisation is the key, and your business needs it!