11 “OMG” Ecommerce Do’s To Embrace

If you ever shopped at an online store and thought to yourself, “Oh My God, this place is awesome, how do I make my store like this?” Then you have arrived at the right place. Getting other visitors to experience the “OMG” factor at your store is not impossible. But you’ll assuredly want to have some help along the way. We’ll deliver 11 impeccable methods that you can use, each with their own corresponding, in-depth and comprehensive guide.

When it comes to returns, the basic facts are all that you should need to be aware of in order to add the OMG to your ecommerce store. So be like MacGyver about them, and realize that your customers want the following elements from returns.

• Automated online returns.
• 60-day or longer return policy.
• Pay-on-use return labels in box.
• Free return shipping.
• Automatic card refunds.
• No restocking fees.

If you can meet these industry standard requirements, you are well equipped to compete with other online stores, even if they are larger than yours. To give you even more insight into this process, take a look at our in-depth guide: How To Be MacGyver About Ecommerce Product Returns.

Did you know that 80 million internet users in the U.S. are from the millennial generation? But the thing is that most retailers are not striving to compete with this heavy-spending one-fourth of the population. But why? They are, after all, the largest demographic that you can sell to.

So what do millennials want?

• Social branding and presence.
• Low or free shipping prices.
• An Amazon-like shopping experience.
• Legitimate online product reviews.
• Multiple and convenient payment options.
• Fast site loading time on both desktop and mobile.

Millennials are pretty picky with where they will shop. They won’t just shop anywhere, and if your store does not meet these basic requirements, you can bet they’ll take their business elsewhere. Learn how to get in touch with this core spending demographic by taking a look at our guide: Turn Down The ‘Suck Dial’ To Lure Millennials.

Getting your store to the top goes a lot further than just offering good products, good service and the aforementioned perks. It also is about how you present your brand to the customer – something that can either serve as a gateway for future sales and referrals for you, or do nothing to help you out with your long term success strategy.

Start with your packaging, and strive to create a unique unboxing experience that can help you score more customers.

To create the unboxing effect, you will want to assure that you:

• Start with premium packaging.
• Use the subconscious appeal.
• Solidify your brand.
• Simplify your design.
• Be consistent with packaging.
• Be bold about your branding.
• Be artistic in your design metrics.
• Inspire a creative response.
• Think outside of the box.
• Be unique but don’t go overboard.
• Be eco-friendly.
• Stick to your brand tenants.
• View packaging as a marketing expense.
• Understand that you have just 30 seconds to impress consumers.
• Understand what your competition is and what they are doing.
• Accommodate for fragile items properly.

Think of profit coming into your store like a radio knob – you always want the volume cranked up so you can enjoy it to its fullest extent. But how do you twist this metaphorical dial to churn out the greatest amount of profit from your online store?

Consider these following imperative elements:

• Pictures of your products matter greatly.
• Branding is indeed everything.
• Customer service is your saving grace.
• You’ll need an online marketing budget.
• Social media brand ambassadorship is imperative.
• The most successful stores are niche based.
• Newsletters do wonders for harvesting instant sales.
• Brilliantly packaged items sell themselves (see our previous points on this one).
• Offering free samples can help you gain massive exposure in the inner circles.

Getting that finicky profit knob to 100% is not impossible. But you will want to have some help along the way. For further insight, take a look at our complete guide: How To Crank Up The Ecommerce Profit Knob.

One of the very best OMG factors that you can add to your online store are product reviews. Did you know that product reviews can improve conversions by as much as 37%? Just one review on a page has the ability to improve conversions by 10% or more. In so many words: you want them.

Product reviews help you:

• Improve your SEO rankings.
• Attract more customers and referrals.
• Influence the buying decisions of customers.
• Provide accurate consumer insight.
• Help you spread social awareness and proof.
• Improve consumer confidence.
• Increase average order value.

If you have ever been hesitant to add these reviews to your site, do not be. A shopper is many more times likely to buy from your store when accurate, recent reviews are in place from real shoppers. We have the complete breakdown of this for you in our guide: How Online Product Reviews Improve Profits.

It’s a content driven online world, which means that if you are not producing a ton of content all of the time, you are missing out on rankings, conversions and sales. Period. Did you know that online businesses that blog daily routinely attract at least 40% more traffic? This is traffic that you are missing out on plain and simple.

Blogging routinely helps your online store:

• Get more SEO rankings.
• Attract more targeted, organic traffic.
• Attract premium organic back links (improve rankings and get more traffic).
• Position your niche products for consumers.
• Add unique content to your site that’s fresh.
• Engage users with a personalized approach.
• Help improve social awareness and reach.

We all can’t be expert writers. But there are some tricks that we have up our sleeve that we are happy to share with you. Learn everything that you need to know in order to become a master blogger in our guide: 9 Ways To Blog Like A Ninja.

The infamously hilarious Zoolander comedy starring Ben Stiller focuses on an inept model who fashions the most stupid-simple stare called “Blue Steel.” It is the lack of complexity whatsoever that ends up propelling him to fame and adventure in this satirical masterpiece.

There are some elements that can be borrowed from this approach.

• Turbo charge your fulfillment process to make orders easy and fast.
• Be eco-friendly about the packaging materials you use and advertise it.
• Go above and beyond to protect packaging to reduce damaged items and returns.
• Get personal and include handwritten thankyous in each package you send.
• Lure customers back for a new sale by offering them a deal on their next purchase.
• Be sure that you include information about your return policy in the package.
• Use custom packaging to add more flare (we can’t emphasize this enough).

Getting your store on top may take some work. You’ll assuredly be working harder than Zoolander does for his modeling antics. Get a head start with this complete guide: How To Add Zoolander’s “Blue Steel” Appeal To Your Brand.

Ah the free shipping threshold. What does that mean? It’s a minimum order value that you set to encourage more sales and to help offset the cost of shipping at your online store. Makes enough sense, right? It makes even more sense when you realize that 65% of shopping cart abandoners left the cart simply due to the cost of shipping.

It’s not so funny now is it? But worry not, we have all the information that you need and even a shipping threshold calculator in this guide: Yes, You Can Boost Sales With A Free Shipping Threshold.

The truth is that ecommerce only accounts for just 7% of all retail. Simply put: it’s an offline shopping world. The iconic term “Rick Rolling” has been used for years as a definition of tricking someone to click a link, only to fool them into seeing something they did not expect after the fact. In ecommerce, this means that you have to work your butt off to get offline shoppers visiting your online store.

To attract more shoppers you need to:

• Improve security and offer assurances on privacy.
• Counter offline immediacy of products with fast shipping.
• Curb your shipping costs and offer economy or free shipping options.
• Counter the inability to touch or feel products with good imagery and videos.
• Make the shopping experience unique at your online store and cement your brand.
• Let consumers know that it’s just as easy to return items to your store as it is locally.

There is a lot more that goes into this method than meets the eye. That’s why we took the time to write a complete breakdown on it to help you out. It’s available here in our guide: Rick Rolling Sales In An Offline Shopping World.

In one of our final remaining points, we arrive at the precarious “Wow” factor. How do you wow customers when they arrive at your online store? Shoppers have a long list of choices as to where they can shop, and they are all just a few clicks away. Wowing them from the get-go is the best chance that you have at making a sale, but most retailers are miserably failing in this category.

To add the “Wow” factor make sure of the following.

• Searching for products should be easy and fast.
• Offer simple product recommendations to boost sales.
• Feature a persistent and present shopping cart.
• Make it easy to find your contact information.
• Brag about your awesome partners.
• Avoid using product carousels.
• Make sales effortless to find.
• Update shoppers using your header.
• Create a section solely for savings.
• Offering amazing live chat support.
• Use a dazzling background.
• Offering amazing security with badging.
• Showcase your bestselling wares.
• Urge immediacy with limited products.
• Know and tout your unique value proposition.
• Make it simple for shoppers to share what they found.

We already know what you are thinking… “This is way too long a list! How will I ever get this done?” Worry not, dear reader. We’re here to help. Create a checklist using our help with this complete guide: 18 Ways To Add More “WOW” To Ecommerce.

Last but most certainly never least is the most dreaded aspect of operating any online store: shopping cart abandonment rates. Did you know that the average shopping cart abandonment rate exceeds 97%? Let that little factoid be an eye-opener for you here. But there is a light at the end of the tunnel. There is a way to decrease these rates and convert more shoppers using a tried and true method. Learn tricks the top retailers use in our guide: 7 Steps To Reduce Cart Abandonment Rates.

Need even more info? We thought so. This infographic can come in handy. So bookmark this page and show us some social love along the way. Like, share and tweet your way into ecommerce karma!