Online sales grew by 17% on average in 2022 and are forecast to grow by 20% in 2023, according to CEPYME. This makes online sales very attractive for SMEs which, however, face numerous challenges such as high competitiveness, the end of third-party cookies, supply problems and an increasingly saturated and demanding consumer.
NoFakes, wants to help you understand and address these challenges to grow your sales. In addition, it offers you a series of functionalities that will provide you with tools to grow and measure your online sales.
The trends that will shape online sales in 2023
- Changes in shipping and return policies: many online sales are incentivized with free shipping and return costs. Now that online sales have grown and have taken hold, e-commerce companies are starting to charge them to avoid losing that income and to compensate for the rising prices of raw materials, transportation, etc. But this may pose a risk of lost online sales, as indicated by a study conducted by Tenerity through the consulting firm Ipsos.
- Lack of stock: due to inflation and the crisis resulting from the war in Ukraine, stocking up must be a priority to avoid supply problems, with the consequent loss of customers or additional costs due to not being able to meet the demand for online sales.
- Importance of reviews: 450,000 reviews are consulted daily by Internet users. If they are positive, they can grow online sales by 270% to 380%. Therefore, reviews will be another essential to increase the reputation of businesses and increase their online sales.
- Presence in marketplaces: 100% of Spanish online shoppers have made purchases in some marketplace in the last year, as confirmed by the “Annual Study Marketplaces 2022 Spain” conducted by Tandem up. This makes it almost essential to have a presence in one of them, regardless of whether you promote your online sales on your own site.
- Expansion into new markets: six out of ten Spanish eCommerce companies want to expand internationally by 2023, according to Hubbo’s “Business Behavior Report”, It is therefore one of the main strategies to achieve scalability.
- Re-commerce and Up-cyling: online sales of second-hand products and/or recycled items are becoming more important. According to a study by La Red del Cambio, 1 out of every 3 Spaniards purchases this type of product. For this reason, brands such as Zara are exploring this market.
- Payment flexibility and financing options: due to the current economic crisis, it will be necessary to provide more payment options, with guarantees and confidence, in order to continue to boost online sales.
- Elimination of third-party cookies: these have made it possible to obtain information about users and to segment them by audience. However, major changes are on the horizon that will have a direct impact on e-retailers’ marketing strategies, although solutions such as the implementation and use of the walled garden are already being considered.
- Hyper-personalization: mass strategies and generalist campaigns are no longer effective. The objective is to achieve total personalization of advertising campaigns, of the products offered to each consumer, of the way we address them… to improve important metrics such as ROI or brand awareness. Adsviu can help businesses achieve this with ease, security and guarantee.
Strategies to increase online sales
- Encourage reviews: fundamental when it comes to attracting users, which has a direct impact on conversions.
But it is key that these reviews are authentic and validated, to comply with legality and to generate trust.
NoFakes helps capture those reviews, certifies them, turns them into a loyalty system and helps you viralize them. - Run promotions on key dates: select moments that encourage purchase, instead of launching discounts without any link to any date. Schedules launches and prepares stock, shipping strategy, communication, etc. Weeks in advance to be ready when the time comes. There are many universal dates such as: winter and summer sales, Valentine’s Day. Father’s Day, Mother’s Day. Black Friday, Christmas… but depending on the online sales of your business you should identify more specific ones (e.g. if you sell books, you should take advantage of the Book Day).
- Take advantage of email marketing: email marketing allows a 1 to 1 communication, totally bidirectional, between the company and its user. It conveys privacy, intimacy, improves the open and read rate of the message, and generally users do not feel overwhelmed compared to other kinds of strategies to increase online sales. To get more leads to impact with emailings and improve online sales we can offer free gifts, discounts, free subscriptions, ebooks, etc. for registering, and once you have a suitable database, plan your email promotions in advance.
Look at what products or promotions have performed best in the past, how your competitors are doing, key seasonal dates, etc. and use them to organize your emailing plan to continue increasing your e-commerce online sales. It is an effective and almost zero-cost communication, but if it is not done well and spaced out, it can cause the user to block.
- Create online product catalogs: although they may seem old-fashioned, catalogs are effective. Prepare photos and descriptions of your products and group them in a catalog. This will boost online sales by making it easier for users to view all products very quickly.
- Promotions, sales and offers: that are attractive and have a limited duration. This makes the user’s FOMO (fear of missing the opportunity), drive him to purchase. It also works very well to liquidate at the end of stock or put a countdown so that your online impulse sales grow.
How to publicize your e-commerce to increase online sales
If you don’t get people to see what you offer, your discount strategies, or your reviews and the user doesn’t get to your site, it’s difficult for your online sales to grow. Here are some ways to make yourself more visible:
- Digital advertising campaigns: Segmented ad campaigns allow you to reach the users most related to your offer. From your customer database, you will be able to search for similar profiles to impact, either through Google campaigns or social media ads campaigns, which are affordable and effective.
- Display reviews: whether in your e-commerce, on review platforms, in emails to your customers or in your own product ads. NoFakes allows you to capture and manage reviews at all times and in all places.
- Presence in Social Networks: apart from promotional campaigns, through content creators that show your product or service and talk about their positive experience with it.
- Presence in a marketplace: a complementary channel where you can sell your products, which already has a lot of traffic, and allows you to make yourself known among users who are looking for your product but that in an organic google search, it is difficult for them to find you.
NoFakes is a platform that makes your online sales grow, how?
- It offers you digital advertising, so you can increase your visibility in a simple and affordable way.
- Capture reviews, with user content (photos and videos) that increase conversion to sales
- It offers you an exclusive seal, which certifies that these reviews are authentic thanks to its unique Triple Validation System, with its own algorithm and EY certification, which allows you to comply with the current regulations of the new European Directive.
- It helps you to build user loyalty through a system of rewards for giving opinions. Cuanto mayor sea la calidad de la reseña, más se recompensa al usuario, con el objetivo de que las reseñas sean muy completas
- It offers you a unique tool, FakeMeter, so you can analyze reviews on any review platform, and determine the percentage of fake reviews, quality of users and more items to help you improve or discard those reviews.
- It allows you to capture reviews through its platform and your own emalings:
- Mejore su reputación en Internet
- Comply with the new European law against fake reviews and avoid penalties
- To hinder unfair competitors, who only seek to damage your reputation and sales