Top Tips for e-commerce Success 2017

[engine]

Anyone in e-commerce is in a battle with the brands. When we all started out we were as equal as any business, but it's clear that a number of the battles are won.

How can a small e-commerce business succeed in today's challenging market? What are your top tips for a small-to-medium-sized e-commerce site success in 2017. Are you using SEO, PPC, banner ads, word-of-mouth, social media, etc., and what's actually working for your business? What have you done that brings in the buyers?

[keyplyr]

The beauty of Social Media is if you're willing to do the leg work, the payoff is real. Social Media is an efficient and cost effective method of advertising and company/product branding. It can be done with little or no money if you're will to do the manual & tedious work.

[Essex_boy]

I used to run an ecom store that sold Elizabethan style jams etc, sold next to nothing so I;

Added several phone numbers west, mid and east coast as well as UK - 4 calls a day - converting.
Added a historic recipes that enable users to download them with my URL right across it.
Added Fact pages about people and events of the time.

Then the sales came in.

In future I would set up a site to with fact and info THEN stocked products for sale that just happen to fit in...

[tangor]

As with any commerce, you have to have a product that customers desire ... and to make that work better, to be exclusive in that product to maximize sales. Anything else and you're just part of the crowd. The only way to shine there is to provide a better customer service/satisfaction than the others, AND to stand out by any method possible (which is where SEO might come into play)

[Januar]

I think e-commerce without advertising is nothing, as giant e-commerce websites do advertising too, even though they have been at the top most popular ones. So, just be creative and make some unique strategies to reach the market. If a small e-commerce relies on SEO only, it takes time, and there probably a large volume of competitors. So, for a newly started e-commerce, consider about advertising the business, and learn the movement of the conversion rate.

[mack]

A well deployed social media presence and a consistent user experience on your site regardless of the user's device is the foundation you need to start off with.

Listed to users and use analytics well to understand how the site is being used. Optimise the UX by understanding where things could be improved.

Mack.

[tomshark]

Incremental improvements across 5 areas of an ecommerce business can make a big difference in revenue: average revenue per visit, conversion rate, average order value, checkout completion rate, average cost per order. When the first four increase and the last decreases, you are growing!

The KPI that can trump all others: Customer life-time value