You’ve found a product that your market needs, you’ve built and tested an e-commerce website. You’re either going live soon or have already done so. What’s missing?
There are a few final touches that you may have missed when building your e-commerce store, including some that can help increase your income. Unfortunately, most people don’t find out about these ‘final touches’ until they’ve experienced a problem.
We’re going to give you some insight into some helpful resources that will help you completely avoid certain problems – or at least lessen the likelihood of them occurring. Keep reading to find out what these tools are and how you might implement them on your own website!
Creating a Logo
Your e-commerce store might have a great name, a well-designed website, and offers a product that people want. However, if you don’t have a memorable logo, people often won’t associate your brand with the product you offer which can make it hard to build a connection with your customers.
Unless you are a graphic designing whiz, you may consider hiring a professional. Unfortunately, hiring a graphic designer is usually expensive and they may miss their mark completely – creating a logo that doesn’t capture your brand at all!
Instead, you may choose to use a free business logo maker to help create the perfect design to represent your company. You can choose to go as simple as you’d like or create something a bit more artistic without the hassle of describing your vision to another person.
A logo is important because it quickly communicates who your business is without the need for a long explanation. With the right marketing, it becomes synonymous with your company and people tend to trust the products that bear your logo. It’s also perfect to place on marketing materials that you’ll use to help increase brand awareness.
Subscription Services
Subscription services are a relatively simple business model: a customer pays a fixed price per month, quarter, or per year to receive a product or service without the hassle of having to continually reorder. Whatever it is you’re choosing to offer, customers often see a benefit to signing up for an auto-draft/auto-renewal due to the cost savings.
Whether you’re choosing to offer a monthly shipment of an assortment of your products or offering access to exclusive content and software, people are typically more than happy to sign up when they see that the offer is a great deal.
The drawback to offering a subscription service is the fact that many people will often sign up and forget that their card expires in a few months or maybe they’re running tight on funds. Once their membership lapses, it might be more difficult to recover them as a customer which usually means a loss in sales.
To prevent this from happening, you may choose to use a system for failed payment recovery. These systems help alert customers to the fact that their method of payment is no longer valid, allowing them to continue using their subscription while keeping money coming in.
Amazing Customer Service
Chances are, your e-commerce site already has a ‘contact’ page. That page may include a contact form, an email address, a phone number, or all three. However you choose to allow customers to contact you, there should be a system in place to easily reply and solve issues.
$75 billion is a lot of money – and it’s what businesses lose due to poor customer service. Obviously, when you or your employees respond to inquiries, there is a need for empathy and respect. There is also a need for timeliness: people will find another company to do business with if they find that response time is too slow.
If you begin to find that you’re overwhelmed with emails or phone calls, you may consider using a live chat option on your website. Live chats are great due to the fact that a customer can receive a response quickly, without needing to pick up a phone or wait on hold.
Live chats also can be manned by fewer people: a single representative can typically handle multiple chats at once keeping wait times and costs low.
Keep Your Mission Statement in Mind
You had a reason for starting your business as well as ideals and goals in mind. If you haven’t done so already, you should turn those reasons, ideals, and goals into a well-written mission statement.
Aside from letting others know what your company stands for, a mission statement can help you with major decisions as your company grows. Your mission statement should reflect your values and what you wish to achieve within your company; it can also help build your brand.
Ideally, your mission statement will be constant as your e-commerce site grows but it doesn’t have to stay exactly the same, especially if there are major changes within your company. It is meant to give you a sense of direction when things get tough but that doesn’t mean it can’t evolve to reflect your business’ growth!
Getting Ready to Launch
Whether you are still working to launch your e-commerce site or if it has already gone live, consider whether each of these final touches has been addressed. If you’ve not thought about some or all of these tips, look to see where they fit within your business and how they’ll become important over time.
Each one of these suggestions may seem currently unnecessary (or possibly even frivolous) but it is far better to implement them now than wait until you’re in dire need of them!
