Updated on November 18, 2020
Would you like to be a successful eCommerce seller? Here are the qualities that would help boost sales by attracting more leads to the company.
What Does It Take to Be A Successful eCommerce Seller
Have you noticed that the sales climate has inevitably changed within the last decade? Indeed, global changes, especially the ones resulted from Covid-19, have transformed our shopping habits forever. The Internet has become the place for research, product and price comparison, purchase, and even showcasing new merchandise to the world. The buyer can get a product shipped directly to their doors from Europa, China, or any other part of the globe within several clicks of the button.
Buyers have become smarter and no longer rely on TV commercials or website ads. They would like to get to know the brand, keep in touch with it, and then make a purchasing decision based on the communication experience. Yes, those old days of direct and straightforward selling are far gone. Buyers are pickier now and sellers have to boost their skills to respond to a new sales landscape. At this point a question might pop up in your mind: ok, and how does that enigmatic modern seller look like? Let us share what we think about this.
A Modern eCommerce Seller: a Fantastic Beast or Everyman?
Being a successful salesperson has never been easy. Especially today, when the market is abundant with juicy offers and engaging selling pitches. So a good rep knows the tricks of the trade to stand out and successfully implements them to meet a modern client and turn them into loyal customers and brand fans. Since today’s buyers do not depend on the merchants any more and can get to any piece of information about the product they are interested in, what’s the point of a seller then?
Our answer is: to help the buyer make the beneficial decision (in favor of their product, of course). Below we’ll jump into tips on how it could be attained.
-
Know the buyer’s persona
Today it’s not enough to follow the principles of 5Ws when getting to know your target audience. By 5 Ws we mean understanding:
- WHO are your customers (age, gender, social background, job, etc.)?
- WHAT do they want or need to buy to tackle one of their problems (related to your product)?
- WHY should they consider your product?
- WHEN do they make a purchase?
- WHERE can you reach them?
This classic formula is a proven way to attract new leads to your business. But if you want to stand out in the sea of seemingly similar products, you’ve got to get into the buyers’ heads. How do they make purchasing decisions? Are there any other participants in the decision-making process? What information do they ignore and what will impress them? How can you break through the informational noise and send a message they won’t be able to ignore? You’ve got to find answers to these questions before you start your selling journey.
-
Have a great understanding of the product
How can you sell if you actually do not know what you are selling? This criterion might sound odd, but in fact, too many reps do not know what the product is about. They try to impress the buyers with the features of the item and fail to deliver the most important thing — its value. of course, features add persuasiveness and credibility to the seller’s story, but translating them into benefits might bring more results. For example:
FEATURE BENEFIT The triple camera of the phone You’ll capture more precious moments with high-resolution and crisp images. Hybrid memory foam mattress The mattress will combine the softness of memory foam and the support of an innerspring mattress to let you have a more rejuvenating and recreational sleep so you feel well-rested in the morning -
Switch to the human-to-human business
Just put yourself into the buyer’s shoes and ask yourself: whom are you more willingly shop from? An impersonal corporation or that chap Steven, a sales manager from the ‘Tech World’ who knows what type of a laptop you need and what Play station games your kids will love? Modern businesses build strong relations with their customers through the persona of sales agents because that helps evolve dedication and trust in the company through interpersonal relationships with brand representatives. So, a salesperson should thrive on building a long-term connection with their clients to create a certain degree of trust and get to know what the customer truly needs to make an offer they can’t resist.
-
Become well-versed in the promotion instruments
Did you know that there are about 2 billion websites and 3.80 billion social media users as of 2020? It means that it’s getting harder to break through the jungles of web pages and social media profiles. Search engines, social media platforms, marketplaces develop their own algorithms for showing corresponding profiles, websites, shops to the Internet users.
A good salesperson knows how to make use of different promotion strategies like PPC, targeting, link building, and many more to drive more traffic to their website or marketplace profile to increase brand awareness and close clients for sale.
-
Engage with the audience through social media channels
Why do almost all brands have active social media accounts? Because that’s the way to stay in the clear sight of the audience, build a strong connection with them, and then push them to buy without being too sales. The easiest way to gain good results is by sharing valuable and beneficial content. However, many merchants make the same blunder that keeps them away from selling more. It’s blasting their account with only company-related content and no value at all. What to share in your social media profile then? Find the balance between informative and educative content, general business and your brand news.
As people benefit from so you feel well-rested in the morning. the information they receive from you, they subconsciously feel grateful for this and will be more willing to pay you back with their purchase.
-
Sell on multiple marketplaces
Offering your customers different sales channels to purchase from you can be highly beneficial. As you sell through retail stores, online shops, eCommerce platforms (Shopify, Walmart), third-party marketplaces (Amazon, eBay), social media (Facebook, Instagram), you actually offer more ways to buy from you. The buyer then decides what channel is more convenient for them. This might give your business a competitive advantage over other one-platform sellers. Especially in view of the fact that those brands who show care of their customers and offer multiple platforms for the purchase are perceived as responsive. This quality might want them to come back to you again in case of a successful shopping experience.
Since you can reach more people through different selling channels targeting buyers of different locations and social statuses, you increase your revenue in the long run. You’ll be popping up into the customers’ view more frequently, thus they will be getting accustomed to your brand. You probably know that people need more time to decide on the purchase now because they want to make sure you are not a fraudster. So, browsing through your store on different platforms, comparing you with other sellers as they carry the research will give you a significant advantage over a single-channel business.
-
Use third-party applications
Probably the biggest challenge of multichannel sales is the management of inventory, listings, and orders across all the platforms. Because each marketplace is independent and requires individual attention, none of the changes made on one channel wouldn’t be reflected on another. What we mean here is if you store products in one place (let’s say in your warehouse) and ship the packages directly from this location, you’ll need to update inventory on all marketplaces manually as the purchase happens. This is time-consuming, especially when you have high turnover rates. If you fail to do that, you’ll end up having an inaccurate inventory that might lead to overselling. The same goes for orders. Switching between different marketplaces to manage your orders might be a real mess if you don’t use an app that would sync all the data and help you run the eCommerce business without the hassle.
Wrapping it up
Your sales strategies should cater to the modern buyer, who is digitally connected, mobile, and hunger for good content. They want to get to know the brand and people standing behind it. They want you to prove that you deserve their attention and hard-earned money. If you are a seller who understands it, you are a rockstar! But if you realize that one or several aspects are missing in your selling techniques, that’s not a big deal. It just means that you have what to work on now.