Improve Online Sales in the New Year

The New Year is almost upon us, so you should start making preparations. The total eCommerce revenue for 2017 is expected to shoot past $400 billion, showing why it is so important to have a strong online presence. The online shopping space is always changing, so if you want your online store to succeed you need to be on top the current online shopping trends. Below are a few trends you should take advantage of if you want to improve your online sales next year. Be sure to check out the hottest eCommerce website design trends as well. 

Omni-Platform & Omni-Device

An important thing to note when you are going into the New Year is that customers want a consistent shopping experience across all platforms. One customer may place something in his or her cart while shopping on the phone, and may complete the purchase on the computer later on. If you want your business to succeed you need to provide your customers with a seamless shopping experience on every platform.

Setting up cookie-enabled ads is a good way to do this, as they will give potential customers ads for your products even after they leave your website. You should also make sure your website provides a seamless visual experience on all devices, including phones and computers. Long story short, every aspect of your online business plan must have consistent design so you can keep customers engaged with your brand.

Video Content

Over the past few years, video content has become much more prominent for people who own online stores. Marketing Insider Group stated that 78% of people watch videos online every single week. Online users love videos, mainly because they provide information in a way that is more visually interesting than plain text. Incorporating video content into your online store can help your business in a number of ways.

Videos can show customers how a product works, which is very helpful when they are unable to see the product in person. In addition, videos keep people on your website for longer periods of time and help increase the website’s rank on search engines. In the end, if you are not planning to incorporate video content into your online store, you should be.

Want to learn more about how video content can improve your online store?

Additional Fulfillment Options

Another trend that you should be aware of is the addition of more fulfillment options for online sellers to work with. Online sellers fiercely compete with each other by trying to get their products shipped to customers as quickly as possible. Being able to fulfill orders as quickly as possible is important if you want to stay ahead of your competitors.

Delivery companies like DHL are able provide delivery services on par with ones provided by UPS and FedEx for cheaper prices. Try to work with companies that cut off shipments later in the day, so you can make sure products go out the day they are ordered. Being able to quickly ship out your products will make your brand very enticing to potential customers.

Increase in Mobile Users

You can expect mobile shoppers to play a huge part in the online shopping scene next year. ECommerce expert Kate Semizhon believes that 50% of the revenue made through online shopping in 2018 will be from people who shop on mobile devices. If your website is not optimized for mobile, then mobile users will have issues visiting your website and will leave without buying anything. If you let this happen you will be missing out on a huge market of people.

Try incorporating responsive design into your website, as this will allow it to change size to accommodate for differing screen sizes. Test your website on different phones to make sure it runs well, since customers have no patience for websites that do not load quickly. Make sure mobile users can easily navigate your website on mobile devices, and check to see if all the icons are big enough so people can easily tap on them.

Logicblock users can use the Mobile Theme tool to create a streamlined design for their websites that can be easily viewed on phones or tablets.

Searching & Shopping with Your Voice

Thanks to the advances in technology, people can search for things online using only their voices. A decent amount of people use smart speakers and smartphones to search for information about products and shopping options. According to Salesforce, 40% of millennials have used voice assistants to look up information while shopping online this past year.

As an online seller, you can take advantage of this trend by optimizing your site for voice searches. Similar to traditional SEO, as you need to make sure the content on your website is clear, concise, and is relevant to the queries your customers will ask. Long-tail keywords in particular are effective at catching people who use voice searches.

Keep these trends in mind and you should be able to find financial success in 2018.