How to Increase Your Online Store Sales in 2022

Increasing online store sales is one of the most important topics for anyone who has recently entered the world of e-commerce, especially after the huge explosion in the number of online stores following the COVID-19 pandemic.

It is important to know that the number of online stores around the world today has exceeded 24 million sites, yet the number of sites that generate more than 1,000 dollars in sales per year does not exceed one million, that is, only 4% of all stores.

This means that the success of e-commerce ventures is not as easy as it is painted by the sellers of “earn 500 dollars a day from dropshipping with no mentor” courses, and there are many factors that affect a store’s sales.

How Do I Increase My Online Store Sales?

• Simplify the user experience
• Offer free shipping
• Provide new payment methods such as installments and deferred payment

Simplify the User Experience

We have noticed that a large share of online stores offer a difficult, poor user experience, from confusingly labeled buttons to jarring colors and a lack of visual harmony between them.

Site speed is also one of the factors that most affect a store’s conversion rate, and every extra second of load time means losing more customers.

Likewise, a difficult and complicated checkout process pushes users to abandon the order altogether.

To solve these problems you should bring in a UX specialist to study and analyze your site and offer suggestions to make the experience easier for your users.

These issues usually start with redesigning the site, and can extend as far as switching the software that powers your store, or even the hosting company, which may be the reason the site is slow.

Offer Free Shipping

30% of users increase the size of their order to reach the free-shipping threshold.

50% of shoppers abandon a purchase from a store because it does not offer free shipping.

77% of shoppers abandon their cart and leave because of extra shipping costs that appear on the checkout page.

84% of shoppers placed an order from an online store simply because shipping was free.

Source: a study conducted by the BigCommerce platform on 3,000 shoppers, whose results were published on Forbes.

These numbers show how important free shipping is in encouraging users to shop, so it is essential to set a minimum spend to qualify for free shipping. Most stores offer free shipping on orders starting from 100 dollars, while other sites add the shipping cost fully or partially into the product price so they can present shipping as free.

Easy Payment Methods: Installments and Buy Now, Pay Later

Installments and deferred payment have become part of the lifestyle and core shopping habits of the new generation (Gen Z), especially in Europe with the rise of companies like Klarna, which lets users buy from online stores and pay in comfortable installments, or pay 14 days after ordering.

Other services such as Tabby and Tamara have started offering solutions similar to Klarna in the Middle East, and they too are seeing strong uptake among users, especially in Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates.

Offering cash on delivery (COD) also encourages another segment of shoppers who do not own credit cards to shop safely online. However, offering COD carries significant risk for store owners: if the buyer does not receive the order, the store loses the shipping cost, pays again to retrieve the order, and, if the shipment is international, may also have to pay customs fees. Sometimes it is cheaper for stores to have the shipment destroyed than to recover it. That is why you should pay close attention to the cases in which COD is enabled, and verify the quality and legitimacy of an order before shipping it.

Conclusion

To increase your online store’s sales, you must be worthy of the fierce competition, deliver more added value to your customers, and keep pace with the latest digital marketing strategies, so that your store does not end up among the 96% of stores that make virtually no sales.

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