eCommerce tools to take your retail business online
If you're the owner of a retail business, you may be thinking about taking your business online.
eCommerce websites have become extremely popular over the past 10 years, to the point where it's estimated that there will be 2.05 billion digital buyers across the world in 2020. However, taking your retail business online requires a bit of work. Below are some tools you can use to make the transition easier and help get your new online business started on the right foot.
A great website
The first thing you need is, of course, a great website. Yes, you could sell all your products through sites like Amazon or Facebook, but a website is a better choice. Your website is where most of your sales will happen, so it needs to do a lot of work for you.
It needs to display your products well, entice users to browse your website, and provide all the information customers need to make a decision. When taking your retail business online, you should spend the most time focusing on your website.
Start by choosing a good hosting provider. If this is your first time making a website, you may want one that comes with a free eCommerce website builder. You'll also want to make sure that this provider is able to handle a large amount of traffic and that it doesn't cost too much. Here is a list of some great eCommerce hosting providers to get you started.
After you have a provider, you'll want to think about the design. Choose a design that is clean, easy to navigate, and matches your brand’s colour scheme. Also, don't forget to make sure your website looks great on mobile devices, as plenty of people will be shopping from their phones.
Shopping cart software
Once you have your website set up, you'll need a way for customers to complete their purchase. For this, you need shopping cart software. Shopping cart software will allow your customers to add items to their virtual cart, then it will process their transaction when they're done shopping.
There are a lot of different shopping cart software options to choose from. Look for ones that are easy to install on your website. You should also make sure that the cart is easy for your customers to use and accepts multiple payment types. This list of the best shopping cart software options is a good place to start your search.
Too many websites choose the wrong shopping cart software and end up losing customers as a result. Take your time with this decision and choose the one that works best for you.
Inventory management
Next, you'll need a way to manage your inventory that syncs up with your website.
If you only have one product left, and someone buys it through your website, you want a way for other customers to know you're currently out of stock. To track your inventory across your store and website you'll need inventory management software.
When looking at software options, there are a few features you'll want to consider. First, you should see if the software places any type of limit on how many products you can manage with it.
Second, you should see how well it can sync up with your website and your store, so you don't have to manage two different programs.
Finally, look to see what kind of reporting features it come with, so you can get advanced information about your inventory. To learn more, check out this guide by Apparel Magic on inventory management.
Customer Relationship Management
Just like you need to manage the inventory on your new eCommerce website, you also need to manage your customers. Customer Relationship Management (CRM) tools will allow you to store information about your customers, such as their name, email address, and purchase history.
This type of information is invaluable when trying to generate new sales. It's much easier to generate a return customer than it is to generate a new one. So, for example, with a good CRM you could see what type of clothing a customer bought last Spring, then make suggestions they may like the following Spring.
The more information you can gather and track about your customers, the better your marketing efforts can be, and a good CRM will allow you to do just that.
Social media
Unfortunately, you can't just create a great website and hope that people will show up and buy your products. You need to get the word out and for this, you'll want some good social media tools. You should start by creating accounts on the major social media platforms - Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram. On these accounts, you'll want to start promoting your online store, including the products you're offering and any sales currently running.
But as you get busier, managing all these different social media accounts will become too time-consuming. You should then look for social media management tools. With these tools, you can set up post scheduling so you can plan things in advance, manage multiple accounts from one location, and track customer interactions. They make social media marketing much easier so that you can spend your time focusing on other things.
Split testing tools
Finally, you should look into using split testing tools. Split testing is when you create two nearly identical versions of your website, then randomly display one of them to each visitor. You then track the success rate of each page to learn which one performs better.
For example, you could create two versions of your home page - one that has a product recommendation popup and one that doesn't. Over time you would then be able to see which page generates a higher click-through rate and use that design choice going forward.
Split testing is a great way to try new things on your website and learn what works best. For more information on how to get started with split testing, you can visit this guide.
Take your retail business online with the right tools
Having the right tools by your side makes the transition online a lot easier. There are tons of tools available to you, but some are more helpful than others. Spend some time exploring all of your options, then pick the ones that work best for your situation. Doing so now will set your new online store up for success for the years to come.