Practical eCommerce Podcasts

Contest marketing seeks to get potential customers to register or sign up in exchange for a chance to win a prize. In the context of attracting new customers, contest marketing is similar to email marketing, in that it is a gateway of sorts that introduces customers to a merchant and increases the chances of making a sale by increasing the amount of exposure.

A retail blog can be an effective way to engage customers, improve branding, and boost traffic. Blogs give retail sites content that may be linked to or shared across social networks, via email, or through search engines. Customers who find blog posts informative, entertaining, or helpful may be more likely to make purchases from the merchant responsible for those posts.

For cross-selling, complementary, often competitive, products are offered, giving the shopper the choice between similar products at a similar price point. Up-selling generally seeks to move a shopper to a premium product, potentially increasing the merchant's margin on the sale. Down-selling offers shoppers a similar but less expensive product, and is typically used to help retailers sell overstocked and slow moving items.

Structure your commission rates so that you have additional margin to offer sales incentives. For example, perhaps you are launching a new product line and you want affiliates to focus their marketing efforts on it. If you have room in your commission structure, you can offer a temporary increase — or perhaps sales bonuses — for hitting established revenue targets.

Start your holiday promotions calendar by noting key days and milestones. Mark when your promotions for key holidays and high-sales days will begin, and which days promotional offers will begin and end. Planning your offers, expiration dates, coupon codes, and relevant landing pages ahead of time enables you to keep your PPC and website teams in sync.

Many ecommerce platforms now offer the ability to email shoppers who abandon their carts during checkout or even during the shopping process, reminding them they have an open cart and offer to answer any questions they may have. Respond promptly to any customer requests.

Make it incredibly simple to return unwanted items. This does not mean you have to pay return shipping, but don’t haggle over returns. Also, don’t dispute missing items. It just is not worth it. You are always just a chargeback away from both alienating a customer and losing money on your sale.

Not all ecommerce merchants offer products that are suitable for gift giving or have products that otherwise sell during the holidays. If you simply don’t have a product or service that is in high demand this time of year, proceed with a "business as usual" approach. Otherwise, you could waste time and money promoting your products.

Social media generates large volumes of data because of the interactions between the different users. It is important to analyze this data, in near real time, to gauge the customer sentiment related to your company and the products. Large retailers have customer service teams proactively monitoring the social networks for customer complaints and questions.