The global eCommerce market is slated to become bigger than ever in the upcoming years. Past statistics indicate that in 2021, retail e-commerce sales amounted to approximately 5.2 trillion U.S. dollars worldwide. With the growing profitability of the online eCommerce market, old and new businesses are flocking towards setting up their own eCommerce business. However, establishing an effective eCommerce store from scratch can take time and effort.

With many organizations needing more expertise to do so, outsourcing the task to an eCommerce solution provider that can deliver a wide range of expert eCommerce services from consulting, development, optimization, and long-term maintenance can streamline the implementation process. Most eCommerce solution providers offer their expertise around popular platforms like Magento, Shopify, Odoo, and Shopware, whose functionalities can be further expanded through end-to-end integration with ERP systems.

The digital world is now flooded with options, so staying on top of eCommerce trends is crucial for any enterprise hoping to excel in the industry. So, to help your online business stand out, we have compiled a list of actionable eCommerce strategies for 2023 to help you and your business leverage your online presence and ace the new year. 

Adopting eCommerce Strategies Best Practices

When it comes to eCommerce strategies, there is no formula for success. It depends on numerous factors like market needs, industry trends and an in-depth understanding of your own business. However, some of the best practices to follow include: 

  1. Know your customers – Chalk out your buyer persona, sales funnels, and customer journey maps. Use data to analyze their past behavior, offers and promotions were most availed, what time of year sales peaked and what customers complain about. 
  2. Communication is the key – Establish a two-way communication channel with your customers and a platform to take feedback and post reviews. Feedback and reviews help your brand to improve itself and establish authenticity. 
  3. Set your objectives – eCommerce strategy needs to contribute to your overall business goals. So be sure to set clear marketing objectives that will benefit your brand. 
  4. Know your competitors – Your competitors change in accordance with the platform you operate on. Identify the key competitors and examine their strategies to stay ahead of the competition. 

Top 8 eCommerce Strategies for 2023 

Offer Personalization 

Whether you operate in the B2B or B2C industry, your target audience will expect some degree of personalization. According to Accenture, 91% of consumers are more likely to shop with brands that recognize, remember, and provide relevant offers and recommendations.

It is predicted that in 2023 eCommerce brands will use data for more than just insights. Customer data would not only improve their service or expand their product range, but they will also use it to see where and how they can better the customer experience. 

Some of the best strategies you can implement to deliver personalized experiences to customers include:

  • Offering customized deals based on customers’ preferences and behavior.
  • Providing product recommendations through email marketing or, alternatively, sending customers valuable information about the products that they have recently purchased.
  • Creating targeted content that can be shared through videos.
  • Providing a free guide on how a product can solve the challenges faced by the customers

Go Omnichannel

As eCommerce continues to boom, omnichannel solutions should be the go-to strategy for your eCommerce business to provide flexible shopping options across both physical and digital channels. Omnichannel shoppers spend an average of 4% more every time they are in a brick-and-mortar store and spend 10% more when shopping online. Therefore, investing in omnichannel tools would give retailers the opportunity to capture a boost in sales and attract a larger audience. 

Having said that, it must also be considered that omnichannel strategy also includes creating a strong omnichannel presence. For example, having a consistent brand identity and message across all channels, including your website, mobile app, social media, and more.

Focus on Mobile Commerce 

Buyers heavily rely on their smartphones to conduct product research and shopping. It is safe to say that a mobile-friendly site would generate more traffic and lead to better sales. By 2025, retail mobile commerce sales are predicted to more than double themselves to reach $728.28 billion, and account for 44.2% of retail eCommerce sales in the US.

This is how your business can grow with mobile commerce:

  • By launching a mobile app 
  • Ensuring that the website loads quickly and is compatible with all devices
  • Using social commerce as a part of the marketing strategy as social channels like Facebook, Instagram, TikTok allows merchants to integrate inventory and overlay products on live streams.
  • Simplify the process by aiming for almost one-click ordering. Buyers tend to abandon their shopping cart as soon as the process feels lengthy and complex.

Automation 

Automation has proven to be an effective eCommerce strategy to accelerate growth and will continue to do so in 2023. As an eCommerce merchant, you may be interested in using an integration platform to connect various systems and tools you use to run your online store. eCommerce integration will help you efficiently manage your inventory, process orders, track shipments, and analyze sales data. Automation can be the key to streamlining your business processes and providing a better experience for your customers. This not only cuts the cost and effort involved in manual work but also saves time, increases accuracy, and improves efficiency.

There are several integration platforms in the market, which offer end-to-end business process automation capabilities to expand enterprise productivity. Some of the critical functionalities of an integration platform are:

  1. Delivering real-time bidirectional data sync across all connected applications. 
  2. Driving efficiency by eliminating manual data exchange and automating business workflows.
  3. Offering a complete bird’s eye view of all aspects of the business and providing advanced analytics for making data-driven decisions. 
  4. Enabling unified internal communications by removing data silos and offers a clearer view of how a company performs across all departments.
  5. Improving cost efficiency for eCommerce businesses that are just starting out. The subscription-based cloud solution effectively removes the need and cost for any external developer or added software or hardware for integrating the applications. 

There are smart integration solutions available in the market that help businesses connect their eCommerce platforms with back-end systems like ERP. They help organizations streamline business processes, improve data accuracy, increase efficiency, and enhance decision-making capabilities. New-age integration platforms also provide user-friendly, no-code workflow designers and pre-built connectors for allowing businesses to deploy and launch quickly.

Loyalty Programs

It is rightly said that a retained customer adds more value to a brand than acquiring a new customer. Loyalty programs not only help buyers save money but with every repurchase a customer makes; it gives the businesses a competitive advantage over their competitors. The programs can be as simple as coupons, vouchers, and rewards programs, necessarily followed by a straightforward process to redeem them. 

Having a loyalty program for your eCommerce business has multiple benefits, it makes the customers feel recognized, and in turn, they act as brand advocates, referring to their friends and family. This creates further scope for the brand to introduce referral programs. 

Multiple Payment Options 

Providing a wide variety of payment options for your eCommerce store reduces the chances of abandoned carts and boosts conversions dramatically. According to Statista, “In 2021, digital and mobile wallets accounted for half of global e-commerce payment transactions, making the digital wallet by far the most popular online payment method worldwide. This share is set to increase to over 53 percent in 2025.”

Payment preference can change dramatically based on demographics. While the older generation prefers debit and credit cards, the younger generation would opt for mobile wallets or flexible financing with Klarna to purchase easier. Similarly, geographic location also has a crucial factor to play. While PayPal is popular in the US, Apple Pay is the go-to contactless payment option in the UK, and UPI payments are the most popular payment method in India. 

Choosing the Best ECommerce Platform 

Starting an eCommerce business requires a webstore to allow vendors and customers to sell and buy online. As data drives the modern world forward, it also stands to be the most vulnerable asset in today’s world. Thus, using a trusted eCommerce platform is the key. eCommerce platforms come in as pre-packaged solutions with all the necessary features to seamlessly set up an online webstore, without the need for complex coding or an eCommerce expert. 

With the complete set of features provided by eCommerce platforms, your business can get started faster and improve its time to market. Thus, eCommerce platforms offer more operational flexibility, improved ROI (Return on Investment), and better business scalability. Another benefit of eCommerce platforms for your business is that it allows you to deliver effective multi-channel shopping experiences to your customers through both desktop and mobile platforms thereby leveraging the omnichannel approach. 

Utilize the Power of Social Media 

Social Media platforms like TikTok, Instagram, Facebook, Twitter, and now WhatsApp can help your eCommerce business skyrocket growth. Businesses can get a range of benefits from these platforms like product marketing, social media marketing, influencer marketing, and running shoppable ads, that not only add credibility to the product sold but also gives the brand a better visibility. Regarding eCommerce strategies, even WhatsApp has brought their A-game forward. By simply adding a WhatsApp button on your website, you can drive 5x customer engagement.

It is also highly recommended for brands to venture into live commerce. Live commerce creates an opportunity for the brand to interact with its audience in real-time, answer their questions, offer personalization, instill a sense of trust, and improve the overall customer experience. Mckinsey Digital states, “Blending entertainment with instant purchasing, live commerce offers retailers, brands, and digital platforms a new channel with enormous scope for creating value.”

The Wrap Up

Following these 8 strategies will surely bring success to your eCommerce business and help skyrocket your growth. Moreover, through the cooperative association between APPSeCONNECT and BSS Commerce, the customers receive a complete package of a feature-rich eCommerce platform with out-of-the-box integrations.