The development of new digital tools is happening at an incredible pace, and that can be both a blessing and a curse for small business owners. New digital tools give you the opportunity to compete in the ecommerce marketplace, but it can also be a challenge to keep up. While this initially may seem like more than you can possibly handle, staying competitive in ecommerce may actually be easier than you think. You don’t have to jump on every new innovation as soon as it comes out, but what you do need to do is continue adopting strategies that make your business stand out from the competition.
Increase Your Knowledge
Learning is a lifelong process, and this is especially true for entrepreneurs. Whether you’re brand new in business or you’ve been around for a while, the number one strategy for being competitive is to continue building your knowledge base. When you go online to seek this information, target your search to resources and wikis that are dedicated to ecommerce topics.
If you’re new to the business, you may want to search topics like how to provide excellent customer service or build your brand through public relations. If you’ve been in business for a while, however, you may want to search for how to boost sales through brand equity or grow your business with growth hacking. Whatever you’re looking for, these resources gather all the most critical information you need, and taking advantage of this knowledge is how you can stay one step (or two steps, or three steps) ahead of the competition.
Operate More Efficiently
One of the top ways to ensure your site blows the competition away is to ensure it’s easy to navigate. Besides being user-friendly, your site also needs to be mobile-friendly, include social profile links, and have easy-to-use payment options. Customers need to find what they’re looking for and be able to complete a sale easily and from any device.
Getting your website up to these standards takes time and energy, not to mention the right expertise. To accomplish this goal while saving time to focus on other essential business tasks, you may want to work with freelancers. There are online job boards you can search to be matched with qualified freelancers for all kinds of roles, whether you need a designer to create an infographic or a writer who can create blog posts for your website.
Offer Personalization
While you may be tempted to try competing with major companies like Amazon, Retail Dive recommends key areas where you should and should not try competing with these ecommerce giants. No small business can compete with their infrastructure or selection, but where you can compete is on experience and convenience.
Convenience comes from an easy-to-use website, and you can provide a better shopping experience through personalization. Even in an age where you can buy whatever you want from a screen with no personal interaction, people still appreciate personal service. Entrepreneur explains how one way to do this is to capture data like a customer’s shopping history and trends in your industry. This way, you’re in a better position to make customized recommendations.
Provide Value
Specializing in a niche rather than competing with Amazon in selection is one way you provide value. This is because you can offer a curated selection that meets your customers’ exact needs — eliminating the chore of sorting through products they don’t want. And while you may not be able to compete on price, another way you can offer value is through customer incentives. Annex Cloud recommends creating a simple loyalty rewards program to encourage repeat shopping and increase customer appreciation.
As a small business owner, you can’t always do what Amazon is doing, but that can be a good thing because small retailers can offer quality that large retailers can’t match. We all have choices for where we do business online. Just remember that not all websites are created equal — and this is what gives you the chance to make your business the one customers choose.
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