5 tips to make your eCommerce stand out
Faced with the wide range of services and products that we can access thanks to the Internet, eCommerce today has to constantly renew itself to gain more ground against others. It is necessary to ask the question: how to differentiate yourself from the competition?
Standing out from the competition will not only help you to get more customers and have better profits, for your business it also means laying the groundwork for it to be much more durable, because a business that stands out is a business that has created loyalty among your customers. Standing out among dozens of businesses like yours may seem like an almost impossible job, however there are some strategies that guides employ to achieve this goal, here are 5 actions to start to stand out from the competition.
Break out of the mold
Each musical genre has a well-established composition structure that characterizes it from others, all groups or artists that identify with this genre use the same structure, just change a couple of notes and lyrics and have a new song, this guarantees that their song will work and give them ephemeral fame.
The musicians who achieve greater and more lasting success are those who decide to drastically change that structure, use other instruments, combine elements of other genres, in short, reform that structure.
Just as in music, surely in your market niche there is a well-established structure or business plan, the same that your competitors follow. In fact, you probably follow it because it is the safe path, a well-proven path that assures businesses like yours to have some sales. However, if you want to stand out from your competition and have higher sales, you should try to get out of this mold and try new things, do something different in any of the sales processes that others follow. Here are some tips to change this strategy and with which you can break out of the mold.
1. Target a specific customer
Even though all companies have a well-identified market sector and target their advertising to that sector, the best thing you can do is to segment that sector, that is, to narrow it down a little more so that your goal is to focus on meeting the needs of a more specific population.
For example, if you have a company dedicated to makeup and skin care products, let’s say that in general your goal is to reach women, but instead of targeting all of them in general, consider specializing only to an age range, for example, consider focusing on selling to young women between 16 and 25 years old, so you can focus on creating colorful and youthful makeup, while you can leave aside a line of anti-wrinkle care. In this way, a 20-year-old woman will be more likely to consume your products than those of a makeup brand that caters to both a teenager and a 60-year-old woman.
Following the example above, you can target your company to women over 40, this will allow you to focus on a more formal range of colors and anti-aging items, you can also create advertising for women who require more specific skin care, this will help you stand out among women in this age range, you will also generate more confidence because you know perfectly what their skin needs.Â
If you want to start targeting a smaller audience you have to evaluate well if you have the capabilities and materials you need, because you may have to start manufacturing other products, as in the example of makeup, or build a new inventory, so in addition to making a market study it is best to weigh your chances for this change to lead you to success.
2. Improve quality
This seems obvious, improving the quality of your products or services is one of the first things you think of when you want to stand out from your competition, and the truth is that it is a good strategy because no matter what kind of product it is we all want to acquire something of better quality, so it is a good idea to think about improving the quality of your products.
If you are not the manufacturer of your products then you can consider changing suppliers. It doesn’t matter if you are a manufacturer or if you are just a distributor between the producer and the final consumer if you want to improve the quality of what you sell you should always consider the cost-benefit ratio, because if you end up raising prices considerably customers may end up buying cheaper options.
3. Offer exclusive services
Another aspect that attracts customers is to offer exclusive services, these can be in two aspects, on the one hand they can be services that only you offer and not your competition, these can be something like free deliveries, express deliveries, affiliate plan, free items or similar services that you can afford.
On the other hand, you can offer exclusive services for your frequent customers and if they are attractive enough more customers will seek loyalty with your brand.
4. Change your prices
One of the aspects that can help you stand out from your competition is to offer competitive prices for your products or services. So consider lowering your profit margins to allow a considerable reduction of the price to the final consumer, but being careful not to lose the quality of the product, in this way we can be characterized by offering low-cost services.
Of course, you can also be on the other side of the coin and position yourself with a high price segment, to cater to a public that seeks exclusivity. If you decide to go this way, make sure you offer high-end products that meet the expectations of the public you hope to reach. If you have doubts that this strategy works, you can take as an example Apple who decided to take this path and made it stand out from its competition.
5. Customer service
Consumers prefer one company over another for many reasons. Sometimes we think that to stand out from the competition and attract more customers it is only necessary to lower prices or offer innovative products or services.
However, this is not everything for customers because they value many other aspects, and one that is always taken into account is customer service or customer care. It is always well valued that in a store the customer can approach to ask anything, from more specific prices, details of shipping or delivery, stock in inventory, or any doubt related to their consumption.Â
Feeling that someone can solve any problem when we are shopping is something that your customers will value much more than you imagine and often this can be the reason why they choose you over your competition, even if your prices are higher.
Luckily to offer an optimal service that meets all expectations there are a variety of technologies and applications that we can use in customer service in our eCommerce to make this task a little easier and much more efficient. The best thing is that many of them you already know because we refer to the business version of messaging applications such as WhatsApp or Messenger, this gives you the advantage that you no longer have to learn to use complicated software, because you already use them in your day to day.
As you can see, standing out from your competition is a job that involves making major reforms in your business model, it also involves constant and hard work, which in the end translates into having loyal customers and attracting new customers. We hope that these keys will help you find that aspect that you need to change to start differentiating yourself from the competition. Tell us, do you know another tip to stand out from the competition?
