The sun’s out, the grass is growing, a gentle breeze is blowing the warm air about – it’s finally spring time! It’s almost time to think about cleaning up the place, as nobody likes to sit amongst dust bunnies and old mothballs now that the leaves are growing back.
But those dust bunnies aren’t just in your living room, they’re also gumming up the works with your online store! If you haven’t taken a look at your selling process all winter, it’s time to change that. Take a look at these suggestions on how you can get your ecommerce business into tip-top spring-time shape in no time flat.
Website Redesign
News flash: your website or your store stinks! It’s outdated and you have dead links everywhere. Your customers can literally smell mold when they click on the link to your page.
Ok, maybe it’s not all that bad. But there are certainly some things you can update to keep everything smelling (and looking) fresh and clean.
Always check for broken links first. You may think it hasn’t been that long since you last checked or that you regularly update, but you may have missed SOMETHING out there. And if a customer finds a broken link it may send them running the other way, costing you a sale. Click everything on every page just to double check.
Next, the weather’s changing, so why are you still focusing on winter items? Whether or not you actually sell season items, you’ve undoubtedly got some opportunity to take advantage of the sunny days outside. Make a spring landing page, for example, or at least change the background of your website to a nice springy green.
Item Restructuring
Try not to get too hung up on the items you usually sell. They may be moving all fine and dandy, but something out there will sell even better than that. What you have to do is just go poke around.
Maybe there was something you’ve always wanted to focus on – custom tea sets, for example – but were always afraid to try it out. Well, now’s your chance! Find out how much it will cost and get to work. This is an especially good idea if you’ve been struggling to find a solid niche for your store.
Another spring cleaning idea for your store items is to reposition them on the website. Think of it like moving stuff around on endcaps and shelves in a store – you want the best stuff to be featured. Try adding new and exciting product on a featured page so customers see them first!
Streamline Your Business
What clutters up a business worse than having a messy operation? If your daily tasks are taking up most of your day and getting in the way of selling, you have a problem. It’s time to sort them out with a little streamlining.
One thing that can really eat up time is handling bills. Get all your utilities and such on an auto-pay so you never have to worry about them again. Also, try
Manilla
for keeping track of exactly what’s due instead of poking around your desk drawers.
Are emails roughing you up? Get control of your email with a program like
AwayFind
that helps you streamline those pesky notifications you get all day long. They can help you figure out which ones are important versus emails you can ignore until you’re not scrambling about.
Take a look at what’s causing you the biggest headache and figure out how to eliminate it as a problem. If all else fails, call in some help with a personal assistant for even more spring cleaning power!