If your ecommerce store isn’t hitting the sales numbers you hoped for, it’s not because your products aren’t great. The truth is, getting notice online is harder than ever. The online space is more crowded than ever with countless ecommerce stores looking for the same customers.
This is exactly why having a strong brand presence and online visibility are so important; without these, even your best items can go unseen. Adding to that, the constant battle to rank higher on search engines makes it tough to draw in customers. It’s no wonder why so many ecommerce businesses are stuck in a sales slump.
But here’s the thing: the right approach can make all the difference and that’s exactly what you will learn in this guide. We will discuss 16 proven ideas that discuss how to increase ecommerce sales for your business.
16 Ways to Increase eCommerce Sales
Increasing ecommerce sales demands a different approach from traditional marketing strategies. Here are the top 16 ways focusing on how to increase sales on ecommerce website for your business. These ecommerce sales strategies will help you increase brand awareness, drive sales and encourage repeat business.
1. Understand Your Target Audience
Your sales figures can reflect how well you understand customer behavior. When you truly know your target audience (what they want, how they think, and what motivates them), you can connect with them on a deeper level.
For instance, if your target audience is mainly young professionals who prefer convenience, you can market your product as a solution that saves time and effort. Similarly, if your ideal audience believes in sustainability, focus on positioning your product as an eco-friendly solution to catch their attention.
This understanding can help you become more agile in a constantly evolving market where trends change quickly and customer preferences switch accordingly.
Whether you achieve this through targeted email campaigns, personalized product recommendations, or paid ads, the better you understand your target customers, the more effectively you can meet their needs and grow your online store.
2. Invest in the Marketing Channels
Ensuring that your product reaches the right target customers at the right time is necessary to maintain good sales figures. Every channel has its own specialty that offers a unique advantage to help you target a particular customer segment and drive more qualified traffic to your ecommerce site. Here are some of the marketing channels you can invest in:
a. Performance Marketing (Google & Meta Ads)
Performance marketing saves you from paying upfront regardless of the outcome by focusing only on measurable results and ROI-driven campaigns. It ensures that you only pay for a specific action – whether it is clicks, leads, or sales. This makes it a cost-effective approach especially if you are a small to medium size ecommerce business. At Zestard, we take care of all these aspects for you to ensure maximum return on investment for every campaign.
b. SEO
SEO refers to Search Engine Optimization, which is a popular marketing channel that helps you rank higher in search engines such as Google and Bing.
By implementing SEO Strategies, you can rank for popular keywords your customers would search in Google which in turn can help you generate substantial traffic and sales for your website. But it takes some time to bring meaningful traffic from SEO – anywhere between 4 – 12 months.
However, it can prove to be an effective, cost-effective marketing channel in the long run because the traffic that comes from SEO is free. This is a better option than performance marketing, which is an auction-based system where the cost of ads increases year over year.
That’s why, it becomes necessary to bring down the extra cost of acquiring customers by investing in a marketing channel like SEO. With strong keyword research, optimized website content, well-written product descriptions, and technical aspects taken care of, you can rank higher in the results to drive more organic traffic to your ecommerce site.
For instance, one of our ecommerce clients saw 5x more organic traffic and 8x more revenue with our consistent SEO efforts. With an in-depth SEO audit, optimized content, and high-quality manual backlinks, we were able to overcome all the technical and SEO issues the website was facing.
Read here – “10 Benefits of Ecommerce SEO”.
c. Influencer Marketing
Influencer marketing can help you tap into new customer segments by collaborating with online creators with a huge following in your niche. This can be done through barter programs (sending free products to creators in exchange for promoting them in their content) and long-term brand ambassadorships to reach prospective customers. Depending on your needs, choose the right model that can work best for your online store and stick to that until you see some solid results.
d. Email Marketing
Email marketing can help you convert your visitors into customers and generate more sales from your existing customers. With regular newsletters, you can provide both entertainment and educational content to your customers to keep them updated about your latest offerings. Using promotional emails to introduce them to new products and advertise ongoing ecommerce sales is another pretty common-yet-effective strategy to leverage this channel to increase ecommerce sales.
e. WhatsApp Marketing
With billions of users using WhatsApp every day, it has become a favorite channel for marketers and brands. It has one of the best open rates and engagement rates compared to Email Marketing since it is used by people multiple times a day.
Brands can use WhatsApp to send promotional messages, informative messages & even provide customer services.
f. Affiliate Marketing
Brands often use affiliate marketing as a channel to collaborate with individuals or companies who promote their products on different online platforms. In this structure, the affiliate earns a commission for every successful referral (typically, a sale) to help the brand reach a broader audience. This, in turn, brings more traffic and increases conversions all while making it a highly efficient and scalable marketing strategy to reach new people.
g. Social Media Marketing
One of the best ways to get organic traffic to your ecommerce site is by using social media marketing. With engaging and fun content around your niche, you can bring in more followers, which eventually build up a whole community of potential customers that can be later converted into paid ones.
h. Build an Online Community
An innovative strategy to boost deeper engagement with your target customers and position yourself as an expert that has evolved in recent times is building ‘online communities’. This strategy focuses on genuine engagement rather than direct sales by developing a space where members can connect over common interests.
For instance, Raghav Somani – the founder of Headphone Zone saw great success by creating The Indian audiophile forum. This is a Facebook community where people can share their experiences and knowledge about headphones and related topics. It doesn’t allow any promotions because the focus is to create a non-spammy, helpful space.
This Facebook group currently has more than 15,000 members and people connect with each other to discuss their experiences and other hobbies in this area.
By building a community around your niche, you can position yourself as an expert and build awareness about your brand which eventually can help you in generating online sales.
Similarly, you can build an online community on any platform that works best for you and use it to build brand awareness for your business.
3. Focus on Improving Your Brand Awareness
While building an online community is a great way to increase brand awareness, continuous improvement in how you approach it is equally necessary.
When target customers know your brand as a trustworthy source, they are more likely to trust you and choose your products over others even if they’re equally good. This trust is necessary to build credibility among people as they are naturally drawn to ecommerce companies that they recognize and feel comfortable with.
When you succeed in this, it is easier to make more sales as your existing customers would be happy to shop from you and even recommend your products to their circle.
4. Improve the Website User Experience of Your eCommerce Store
When it comes to the overall website user experience, everything from page loading speed to image quality matters. These become the first impressions of your online store whenever someone lands on your ecommerce site.
Core Web Vitals (CWV) are critical aspects of this experience that consist of certain key elements that affect your website’s performance. These key metrics are:
- Loading performance: Your website should load quickly (usually under 3 seconds) for lower bounce rates as website visitors are likely to stay on a page that loads quickly.
- Interactivity: Your website should feel responsive and quick to reduce the time it takes to respond to user interactions.
- Visual stability: Your ecommerce site should have a stable layout to give your website visitors a smooth browsing experience.
When these three areas are addressed, your UX improves, making your ecommerce site more accessible and user-friendly. However, optimizing different sections of your product pages is equally important to boost ecommerce sales as they showcase necessary details about your product. These elements include:
- Personalized product recommendations: Recommend products based on what they have previously viewed or purchased.
- Product reviews: Add a separate section in product pages for customer feedback to show potential buyers that others have had a positive online shopping experience with you.
- High-quality images: High-quality product images help customers visualize the product better and remove any hesitation they may have. Make sure your images are real, clear, and clicked from multiple angles.
- Social proof: Add customer testimonials, social media links, and other user-generated content to build credibility for your online store.
- Competitive pricing: Show the original and discounted prices to highlight how much a buyer can save on an order to motivate faster purchase decisions.
Addressing these areas is critical to ensure the effective development of your ecommerce store for better sales. So, make sure to keep these elements on track to improve the website user experience on your ecommerce store for optimum results.
5. Identify Gaps in Your Sales Funnel
A buyer goes through different stages when they make a purchase. This journey is visualized as a sales funnel that captures a broad audience at the top and the bottom narrows with only the most interested and ready-to-buy customers moving through.
The concept is simple: at each stage of the sales funnel, a potential customer gets closer to making a purchase. This process is divided into 4 stages based on the action a buyer takes:
- Awareness: Customers discover your brand and learn about what you offer.
- Interest: They might be interested in your product and compare your offerings to others for more information.
- Decision: They consider whether to buy from you or a competitor.
- Action: This is the bottom of the funnel where the potential customer is ready to make a purchase.
Statistics show that about 96% of website visitors are not ready to buy on their first visit which means that you need to nurture these leads through each stage. This can be done by spotting any weaknesses in your sales funnel to bring in more customers.
For example, if you have a high conversion rate but not many people are visiting your website, consider boosting your efforts to attract more visitors with SEO, social media platforms, or Google ads. But if you have a lot of website visitors but only a few of them make a purchase, you need to improve their online shopping experience and turn them into loyal customers.
6. Improve Your Customer Services
If you don’t provide excellent customer service, people won’t have a good online shopping experience with you, which will automatically drive them away.
To avoid this, focus on providing exceptional customer service by live chat on your website to answer questions, suggest products, and solve problems in real-time. Make it a priority to respond to customer emails or messages at the earliest within 24-48 hours to show that their concerns are important to you.
Your approach to returns and replacement also matters. Offer a simple, no-hassle return policy because the easier you make it for them to return or exchange a product, the more likely your website visitors are to make a purchase. It assures them that their money won’t be stuck if it doesn’t meet their expectations.
To improve your ecommerce sales further, keep the shipping process free and as fast as possible because customers expect their orders to arrive quickly without any extra costs. So when you provide excellent customer service along with all these facilities, sales will follow naturally.
7. Focus on Customer Retention
Harvard research shows that increasing customer retention by just 5% can lead to a profit increase of 25% to 95%. That’s a substantial impact that happens due to the compounding effect of customer loyalty because your existing customers are more likely to spend on each purchase compared to new buyers.
They already trust your brand, which makes them more willing to try new products or make higher-value purchases and bring you more repeat business. And when you keep customers coming back, the return on your initial investment in acquiring them maximizes and helps you make more profits.
8. Reduce Shopping Cart Abandonment
If you are failing at increasing ecommerce sales, one reason could be your customers dropping off their decision last minute. This usually happens due to a complicated checkout process.
This can be unexpected shipping, taxes, or other charges that show up late during the checkout process, which can make all the difference between a happy and dissatisfied customer. A complicated checkout process, fewer payment options, and mandatory account creation are other reasons that add to poor customer experience.
So, if your website lacks a smooth checking out process, here are a few ways you can fix this:
- Re-engage with customers who left items in their cart to encourage them to complete their purchase
- Offer up promo code or discount right when a customer leaves the cart or checkout page
- Provide multiple payment options like credit card, PayPal, Apple Pay, Buy Now Pay Later services
- Allow visitors to complete their purchase without creating an account to simplify the process
All in all, try not to complicate the checkout process and keep it as user-friendly as possible at each stage to avoid missing out on a potential sale.
9. Expand Your Product Range
When your product range is limited, your revenue heavily depends on a few items. This indirectly puts a lot of pressure on each product to perform well in sales. However, there is a limit to how much even your most loyal customers can purchase a single product. That’s the drawback of having a limited product range – all your eggs stay in a single basket.
Expanding your product range removes this pressure by distributing the sales across a broader portfolio. Customers are more likely to find something for every need when they have more options, leading to more purchases and ultimately higher overall sales.
A good example of this diversification is Hershey’s, which expanded beyond its main product – the classic chocolate bar. The company introduced a wide variety of chocolate items over time including chocolate chips, syrups, and toppings. This expansion allowed them to target different market segments like desert lovers, home bakers, and health-conscious people who prefer sugar-free options.
According to Euromonitor International, Hershey’s strategy for extending its product portfolio and improving its market position is to maintain strong sales growth even in a highly competitive environment. The result of this expansion is also evident in the company’s annual report for 2022 which highlights how their North American sales increased by 10.4%, which was largely driven by the growth in the new product line of baking products segment.
10. Create Helpful Videos and Share Knowledge
In 2024, 89% of consumers want to see more video content from brands. Clearly, the audience is more interested in watching videos than other content formats and you tap into this opportunity to position yourself as a thought leader and build trust among people by offering something of genuine value that they can apply in their daily life to solve day-to-day problems.
Educational videos naturally encourage sharing, which means that your content would reach new people. This ripple effect is powerful because it is rooted in trust and value rather than simply marketing. When people share your content, it’s an endorsement and that kind of organic growth helps you attract more loyal customers in the long term.
11. Cross-Selling, Upselling, and Sample Products
Enhancing the value of each customer transaction to build stronger relationships with them is the key to better sales. Strategies like cross-selling, up-selling, and offering sample products are some powerful strategies that leverage this approach to drive more conversions.
With cross-selling, you can recommend complementary products to customers to help them find additional products they may need or appreciate. Upselling, on the other hand, encourages customers to purchase a more expensive version of the item they are considering.
Offering sample products can also work well, especially for new or less familiar items. We at Zestard created the Sample Products app to help Shopify merchants offer sample products to their customers with orders meeting a specific total order value.
12. Invest in Your Personal Brand
One of the smartest ways to establish trust and credibility is by building a personal brand as a founder to connect with your audience on a deeper level.
When customers see the person behind the company, they are more likely to trust the brand itself. This trust is particularly important for startups that need to quickly build credibility in a competitive market and truly connect with their audience.
As the face of your business, you can share your journey, values, and experience through social media platforms, newsletters, blogs, and other channels. This adds a storytelling element to your branding as it appears more organic and people are naturally drawn to stories and experiences they can truly relate to.
When people see a founder who is open and genuine, and most importantly wants to connect with and understand the audience – it makes the entire business feel more trustworthy and approachable. This direct engagement develops a sense of authenticity that traditional marketing efforts often lack.
13. Use Discounts and Coupons
Discounts and coupons are evergreen marketing strategies to boost sales for any online store. For an ecommerce store, it gets a bit more lucrative because you can apply these differently on various steps of a buyer’s journey.
For instance, you can offer a discount right before checkout to motivate the user if they might be hesitating to complete their purchase. You can also set up scheduled push-up notifications offering a percentage off or free shipping to nudge further.
Bundling products together at a discounted rate is another great strategy to increase the average order value while introducing the customer to products they might have not considered before. Tiered discount systems work great for such offers because as customers spend more, they unlock higher discounts. Here are a few examples:
- Get 5% off on a minimum purchase of $100
- Buy one, get 12% off on a complementary product
- Free shipping on a minimum order value of $200
Discount codes are equally effective, especially for customers who usually wait for the best possible deals. This creates a sense of getting an extra deal especially if you combine it with an existing promotion. Since they are easy to track, you can get insights into how well your marketing efforts are performing and shape your next strategies accordingly.
14. Use Live Chat
Your “Contact Us” page has its importance, but adding a live chat feature on your website can bring in more customers.
When a potential customer visits your website and if they’re interested in making a purchase but have a question that needs urgent attention, a quick chat with your team can instantly address their query.
This also works great for customer retention. Studies have shown that about 60% of customers are more likely to return to a website that has a live chat feature. The reason is simple – they know their online shopping experience will be smooth as their questions will be addressed immediately.
So in a way, integrating live chat into your website will not only help you meet these expectations of your potential customers but also create an environment where your sales can thrive.
15. Offer a Loyalty Program
A loyalty program is one of the sales strategies that recognizes and rewards the most loyal customers of a business by offering them incentives like discounts, points, exclusive access, and other perks. This approach encourages more repeat purchases among the existing customer base by developing connections and appreciation for the brand.
In fact, 68% of customers in loyalty programs strongly feel that brands that take this initiative better understand their buying preferences. Here are a few ways you can leverage loyalty programs for your ecommerce store:
- Use customer data from past purchases to send targeted discounts for new products in the same category.
- Encourage customer feedback by offering them points or discounts in return (this enhances customer satisfaction).
- Use referral data to track frequently purchased products from new customers to understand which products have a broader appeal.
16. Increase Your Product Prices
When you offer products at a premium rate, it shows that your products are of higher value. This shows the perceived value of your products because customers often associate price with quality and strongly believe that premium prices = premium quality.
Increasing product prices can boost sales and drive profitability for your online store, but this strategy should be approached cautiously because it can lead to a negative perception if the new value proposition is not loud enough.
So, how exactly can you approach this?
The first step is to justify the price increase to ensure that the increased price speaks for the extra value added to the product quality, its features, or the exceptional customer service.
You can first try out the price increase for a selected range of products (on a small level) to see how the customers react. This can help you fine-tune your marketing strategies before increasing the price for products that are comparatively more popular and have a broader customer base.
Conclusion
To boost ecommerce sales, you need to know your customers inside out and be smart with your strategies to position your brand in the market. Whether you opt for community building or strategically build brand awareness through SEO, every approach seeds the next and creates a powerful cycle of growth that can be leveraged to generate sales and bring more customers. So, if you’re still wondering how to increase ecommerce sales, just focus on these core strategies, and adapt as you go to not only grow but sustain that growth in the long term.