4 Tips for Ambitious eCommerce Business Owners

With 12 to 24 million eCommerce sites in the world, it’s safe to say that online shopping is more popular than ever before. Many people have built their eCommerce business from the ground up thanks to ambition, hard work, and a few useful tips and tricks.

Some online store owners, after they find success, decide to make a profit from their hard work, sell their eCommerce business and give someone else a chance to run their store. This is a great option for those who want to build a new store from the ground up or simply retire, but only if you find a good website broker.

So if your ambitions are to be successful enough to sell your store or live comfortably from your eCommerce earnings, here are some tips to help you on that journey.

Hire a coach

If you never owned an eCommerce store, you’re probably unsure about many things and don’t know where to start. However, you don’t have to be alone in this process, as there are professionals you can hire to guide you through the process and teach you how to be a successful business owner.

Through executive coaching, you can hire an expert who will work with you step-by-step to increase your self-management skills. Above all else, executive coaching focuses a lot on improving emotional intelligence, which is very beneficial for a workplace environment.

Here are some components and benefits of emotional intelligence that a coach can help you with:

• Self-awareness. If you’re looking to grow your store, you need self-awareness. The first step to growth is realizing that there are certain situations, thoughts, and people who trigger emotional responses from you, and you need to be aware of how those responses influence your decision-making process.
• Self-regulation. When you’re aware of your emotions, it will become much easier for you to control them, which will lead to self-regulation. When you are well aware of your feelings, you will also be able to handle any situation that’s uncomfortable or unpleasant.
• Empathy. Not many people realize how important empathy is in the world of business. If you understand your customers’ issues and emotions and empathize with them, it will be much easier for you to sell them a product that will solve their problems.
• Social skills. Nowadays, people want to work with brands that they can have excellent communication and build a relationship with. Through executive coaching, you will improve your social and communication skills, which will make you a better retailer and a better leader for your employees.

Look at other brands for inspiration

When you’re just starting out on your eCommerce journey, an executive coach will help you learn how to be a business owner, but that won’t be enough. You will also need a mentor who will help you create the perfect website and think of advertising campaigns.

Ideally, your mentor should be someone who already has their own successful online business, but sadly, it can be very hard to acquire such a mentor. Many people don’t want to share their ideas and answer questions, especially if they’re asked by a competitor.

However, that doesn’t mean that you can’t look at other brands for inspiration. Find a couple of eCommerce brands you like and model your store after them. Of course, this doesn’t mean you should copy their style and niche. Instead, you need to find patterns you love in their store and apply them to your own.

Implement different marketing strategies

Building the perfect website is one of the most important things any eCommerce business owner has to do, but there’s no use in a well-built website if nobody is visiting it. It’s important to put your store out there so more and more people can discover it.

There are multiple different marketing strategies, and there isn’t one definitive answer to the question of what type of marketing is the best for your business. That’s why it’s important to have a decent marketing budget and incorporate as many different types of marketing techniques as possible.

• Pay-per-click advertising. This is one of the most popular search engine marketing techniques. You can create ads that appear when someone searches a keyword related to your store or niche. It is a very cost-effective way to generate visibility, as you only have to pay when someone clicks on your ad.
• Email marketing. If you want to nurture and convert leads, you can target prospects and customers with email. For every $1 spent on email marketing, $44 is made in return, so as long as you use the proper email marketing techniques, send newsletters, and follow up, you can expect a high ROI.
• Social media marketing. Businesses all over the world use multiple social media platforms to advertise their company and products, communicate with customers, and increase visibility. You can also partner with social media influencers whose following consists of your ideal customers.

Start a Referral Program

For years now, many business owners have debated whether it’s more important to focus on customer acquisition or customer retention. Both of these are essential to business growth, and in your early stages, it’s good to focus on customer acquisition and attract as many people as possible to your store.

However, once you’ve made a name for yourself, you should switch your attention more to customer retention. If you put all of your efforts into bringing in new customers but don’t pay attention to your loyal and repeat shoppers, you’re going to lose a lot of profit.

As much as 65% of a company’s business comes from existing customers, so it’s imperative you show your loyal shoppers how much you appreciate them and reward their loyalty. However, you don’t have to choose between retention and acquisition because you can achieve both with a referral program.

Referral programs offer incentives to customers who bring new business to your store and the customers who sign up to this program become your brand advocates. They invite their friends and family to your store and encourage them to sign up with their referral code.

Referral programs are one of the best ways to bring more people to your business, as they’re based on one of the oldest and best marketing techniques – word of mouth. To put it in simple terms, people trust businesses that were recommended to them by someone they know.

The incentives you offer depend on your type of business and what your customers find valuable. Usually, they come in the form of discounts, free shopping, store credit, and free samples.

And if you want to ensure your program is successful, you need to offer a dual incentive – one to the referral and the other to your new customer.

Final thoughts

Starting an eCommerce business is a great idea, as the demand for online stores keeps growing every year. However, with so much competition, eCommerce business owners need to be smart about how they approach online selling and apply the right strategies.

Every ambitious online store owner is always looking for ways to grow, expand, and make as big of a profit as possible. And as long as you follow the tips you just read about here, you can be sure that your goals will soon become a reality.