What makes an online business successful? Is it the products you sell, or their price or marketing? The eCommerce industry continues its rapid growth and will continue to do so for the foreseeable future. But today it is packed with a plethora of players selling similar products and most of them engage in price wars to win over customers. But deep discounts and engaging in price wars do not guarantee long-term success. Innovation in product strategy or delivery process is key to success in this competitive industry, not discounts.

Going back to the basics of marketing, that is, focusing on the 4Ps of marketing: product, price, place, and promotion can give you a starting point to create a strategy that will lead to long-term success in e-commerce. Here are some tips that will guide you to success.

1. Develop a USP for your store

The era of general e-commerce store development is over. Amazon and the other key players have already won that war. And if you want to become another Amazon or eBay, that’s a guaranteed way to fail. The future of electronic commerce is in specialized stores. Invest heavily in your brand, which is unique and creative, and never take it easy. In this online age, it is difficult to retain customers.

Therefore, you need to expand your product line in your niche to stay ahead of the competition. You need to store deeply. For example, if you go for footwear as a category to specialize in, stock so many varieties of footwear that even Amazon doesn’t have. Become the destination for people looking to buy footwear online.

2. Choose the right technology platform

Choosing the right eCommerce platform is very important as an eCommerce business relies heavily on technology. It is not enough to have a robust and scalable e-commerce platform. Integration of social networks, good UI and UX, mobile compatibility, SEO, modules for content marketing and customer support have also become the fundamental needs of an online store today.

Based on these factors and an understanding of what it takes to open a successful online store, decide which eCommerce platform best suits your needs. Don’t forget to consider your business goals, budget, and technical expertise.

3. Work on your pricing strategy

Your product pricing strategy can make or break your business. Make a detailed study of your competitors and their prices and then decide the prices (and discounts) of your products accordingly. If you’re in a very competitive category, to make a good impression on the market, you may need to keep your prices low initially. And to attract more customers, you can run regular discount offers. But try to keep a balance. Don’t offer too many discounts; otherwise, customers will begin to expect discounted prices throughout the year.

4. Understand your customers

Understanding your customers helps you sell more. The more you know about their needs, the easier it will be to recognize opportunities to sell them new products and target them with suitable offers. Profiling existing customers also makes it easier to find new ones.

However, you must confirm that you act in accordance with data protection regulations for any personal information about existing and potential clients that you collect, keep and use. There are specific rules for electronic commerce. Understanding your customers makes planning easier. You can forecast what they will buy and guess how much stock you need. Linking customer management with purchases can improve profitability.

5. Get the online promotion strategy right

There are several ways to promote your online store. Having a concrete promotion strategy is important to be successful in an online business. Ecommerce marketing is not easy and requires a lot of effort and work. Your e-commerce marketing should be understood by:

• PPC advertising
• junk mail
• content marketing
• SEO
• social media marketing

Having a winning strategy for each of these online marketing tools, combined with other steps explained above, will definitely put you ahead of your competitors.

6. Improve the credibility of your brand

Your brand credibility is important as it results in loyal customers and repeat business. Give your customers a guarantee that your store is a good place to buy products. Ask for testimonials and comments from satisfied customers. Offer a small discount to your customers for their next order if they write a review. Integrate reviews from third-party sites into your store to make reviews seem more genuine and helpful. Get your website audited by trusted certification companies like VeriSign and display your certificate. Add an SSL certificate to your site to make the checkout process more secure.

7. Make it easy for customers to buy from you

Today, consumers have more places to shop than ever before. If you run an e-commerce business and want online shoppers to buy from you, you need to attract their attention and make their shopping experience satisfying and easy.

There are several ways to do this: make sure your site loads quickly; make your navigation intuitive; Display customer reviews prominently, etc. Aside from this, you can remove the requirement to create an account. Also make sure your default shipping option is easy to use. It should also contain various payment options like credit card, debit card, mobile wallets and net banking.

8. Consider functionality

When it comes to functionality and speed, bounce rates and shopping cart abandonment are directly related to the performance of your website. The slower your store runs, the less money you will earn.

The other feature of the functionality is navigation. Formulate it as easy to use. This is often made up of a well-organized category list, header, and footer. You may also need to add a search field and sitemap to your store’s home page. This will help your buyers find exactly what they are looking for in seconds.