If the growth curve of e-commerce shows a dizzying rise in the last few years, starting or expanding an e-business is not easy. Many strategies are long-term and require a hefty budget. Let's see what activities could be done in one day, with a minimum budget, and what would have an impact on sales growth.

1. Use high quality and distinctive images

One effective way to instill a stronger emotion is to use compelling images and banners that will appeal to your potential customers. 90% of the information sent to the brain is visual. The first impression is made in half a millisecond.

You may be selling a product that is similar to other providers. So contribute pictures and clear messages.

Unfortunately, most of the successful images from the free photo bank are often already in use on various websites. Get creative and look for distinctive images that relate to your message.

Recommendations:

Choose distinctive and eye-catching images

Pictures of the products work well in context (e.g., a toy in a child's hand, decoration in a furnished bathroom, etc.)

At Unsplash you will find a large number of free and good photos

2. Support sales growth with live chat

A chat window on a website or e-shop can be a significant competitive advantage if you know how to use it for your own benefit and the customer's pleasure. For example, Askly chat costs only 39 euros / month and can be added to your website today.

Why is it important to have a professional customer support center in your e-shop?

Today, the customer no longer wants to wait long for an answer to an e-mail. You also don't benefit from them leaving the e-shop.

It is not possible to transmit images, links or provide sufficient sales support by telephone. In other words, the quality of your customer support work depends on the capabilities of the chat window.

Askly allows you to add the following to a website in 2 minutes:

• multilingual chat
• e-mail form
• call option
• FAQ

We see that these shortcuts help keep the visitor on the product page and help you make a purchase decision more conveniently.

How to make the chat window work for you:

• Set the chat window so that it doesn't pop out, but is in the corner as an icon
• In the chat window, enter the working hours when you can have real-time communication with the service provider
• Don't ask for too much data to start a conversation
• Let the customer choose which language they want the service
• Once you have answered the customer's question, find out if that was enough

If you have a customer support team, reward those who have the shortest response time or leads to a conversion/sale. You can also think of other criteria. For example, Askly has analytics that can be configured with daily accuracy.

Help the e-shop visitor make a purchase decision through the chat window:

• Use your expertise, give a thorough answer and always refer to the best solution with link accuracy
• Ask for feedback on whether the offer met expectations or the customer is looking for more options
• If the desired product is not in stock, do not end the conversation as required, offer the best possible alternative
• Make sure the customer found what they were looking for.

Technology also makes it easy to offer multilingual customer service through a chat window. You can't have 2 phone calls at once, but 3 real-time conversations in different languages is a snap.

Regardless of the language skills of the service provider or the customer, multilingual chat helps to communicate with all customers without language barriers.

Even if you are a local e-shop and you have a website in just one language, there are also many people who speak different languages in Estonia and are pleasantly surprised by the professional customer support.

Read more: Askly chat window

Adding to the page takes 2 minutes

Investment: 30 days free of charge without any obligation. 19 euros/month from then on.

3. Analyze the user experience of your website

Developing a well-functioning e-store requires an understanding of the challenges that visitors face. UX or user experience is a powerful tool to increase online sales. It is extremely important to focus on building a customer-friendly website and creating an impeccable user experience.

What can be done today to improve the user experience?

Test UX and make sure:

• Whether the structure of your e-store page is clear and logical
• How easy it is for customers to navigate the e-shop
• Whether all CTA (call-to-action) buttons are clearly and well placed
• Whether the customer needs support to reach a purchase decision
• That the desktop and mobile versions support the purchase decision and successful payment

To understand exactly what needs to be streamlined and clarified, you can try UX validation services such as Sharewell.

The report will be completed within 24 hours

Investment is approximately 25-90 euros.

4. Increase the value of the average shopping cart.

Cross-sell and increase the value of your average shopping cart. Knowing that the customer is looking for running shoes, feel free to offer, for example, the most popular warm leggings and gloves this season. The weather is cool, it's nice to feel that the e-shop staff care about the customer's health.

Draw the customer's attention to which campaigns are currently running or if an order limit has been set to implement free shipping. You can do this in the form of a pop-up banner on the shopping cart page or through a chat window.

For example, a shopping cart page has a banner with a unique special offer. You can also use a trend setter or influencer, who recommends the season's hit product. Although the client understands that the influencer has been paid for the advertising, recommendations have great psychological power.

A recent study found that the biggest challenge in finding the right turnaround is finding the right ones with authentic tracking and values that match your brand. If you have not yet tried to grow your e-business through direction modifiers, the Estonian direction modifier platform Promoty can help.

Read more: Promoty

Adding to the page takes 2 minutes

Investment: 30 days free of charge without any obligation. 19 euros/month from then on.

4. Increase the value of the average shopping cart.

Despite the rapid growth of online sales, leaving shopping carts is still one of the biggest problems for e-shops. E-commerce sellers lose 18 billion in sales revenue each year due to cart abandonment.

Business Insider writes that last year, about € 4 trillion worth of unfinished purchases were left in shopping carts, of which 63% could have proceeded.

It is very important to create a smooth and fast shopping process.

The less inconvenience and additional clicks, the higher the sales:

• Allow purchase without logging in / user creation could be optional
• Create a user without email verification, enter minimal data
• Offer maximum payment options (cards, payroll links, Google Wallet, ApplePay, Stripe, etc.)
• Make sure your payment solution provider's SLA is the highest

It may take the customer 30 seconds to reach the payment from the shopping cart

Provide real-time sales assistance to customers through a chat window and help speed up the sales process or create confidence when needed!