How to win against your competitors in the e-commerce battle: Practical Insights

Instead of trying to fight your competitors, study carefully their strategy on the way to success. The main thing is not to focus on the winning positions. Your task is to find your client and gain customer’s trust. Several techniques may be so helpful.

Know your advantages

There is a huge competition in the e-commerce market. Therefore, you should know what makes you stand out from the mass of identical companies. Even if your business is not unique, build your business plan according to your strengths. It can be any specific service. For example, your company is specialized on anonymous flower delivery. Make your service perfect, and customers will know that you have no equal.

Use various marketing strategies

Try to attract new customers based on traffic analysis and metric data obtained in questionnaires, chatbots. Social networks are the best way to expand customer bases, as you can set up filters so that only a target audience sees your ads.

Customize interaction with clients

Pay special attention to the quality of customer service. Among the main articles are

• delivery issues,
• questions about the product and its availability,
• calculation of the cost of services,
• confirming the information.

The main thing to understand is that the client should not wait. Otherwise, people will turn to competitors. Therefore, it’s critical to set up a convenient and prompt support service (preferably by phone or with a chatbot). The more communication options you specify, the better.

Tip. Use CRM systems (Customer Relationship Management). Such software can analyze the dynamics of your business processes using user data and their estimates. Subsequently, you will be able to analyze the current situation on the basis of pie charts and graphs and predict sales in the long term.

Do not underestimate the value of reviews, opinions and ratings of your customers. It is the customers who help your business become better every day.

Remember the weaknesses of your competitors

What may be someone’s weakness can become your advantage. For example, many large trading platforms can’t personalize their processes. At the same time, this factor is key for many users, since this approach allows you to purchase only the necessary goods and feel special. This also allows you to expand the user experience.

Brand DNA

The brand philosophy is what allows large corporations to stand out favorably in the market. Your company’s ideas must be clearly defined in order to attract your audience. Even if the goods and services are designed for the general consumer, the company must still adhere to a certain philosophy. Perhaps, your company is for people who appreciate comfort and convenience, or maybe you are trying to attract enthusiasts of the latest technologies? Decide on this as early as possible. This way you will understand how much finance you are ready to invest in the company, and also think on the positioning of the business.

Attention! This parameter is crucial in the development of any company. The thing is that customers associate themselves with your products and services. Therefore, take care of maintaining loyalty. Challenging campaigns can alienate both current and future clients.

Attention to content

Share with users the successes and achievements of your brand. High-quality content can be posted not only on the official website, but also on third-party web pages. Set up SEO for your informational texts – this will help you move forward.

Tip. A blog can be an ideal solution. There are many examples when small but captivating Internet projects have grown into a profitable business. This option is especially relevant if you share a unique experience and have no equal. Use this benefit to your advantage.

Equally valuable are the reviews about the company. They must be fair. It’s better to place them both on the official web page and on sites with reviews of various products. This will help customers to form their own opinion and make a deliberate decision.

Order path

Not all buyers are decisive about purchases. That is why the process of making shopping should be as easy and enjoyable as possible. A lot of actions with the shopping cart can distract and interfere with the picking of the items you like. This leads to the fact that users leave the site at the stage of order formation, and some do not even seek to go to it. Abandoned carts and incomplete orders cause big losses to business. Therefore, in some cases, it makes sense to integrate a one-click purchase option.

Tip. To choose the most reliable way to interact with customers and a winning order page design, you can use split-run testing.

Features of online stores

When working with online trading platforms, special attention should be paid to the logistics system. There should be enough products in stock. It is desirable that the client immediately understands whether he has the opportunity to purchase a particular item. Automated solutions and reservation systems can help in this.

Fast delivery

Every client strives to get purchases swiftly. Well-established delivery system will help in this. You can use specialized services or hire your own shipping service. However, please note that it will take time to set up such processes. It will pay off in the future. Separately, it’s worth considering the pricing policy. Most clients make their choice based on the availability of free shipping. Therefore, you can include this benefit in your strategy, but set limits. So, the cost of supply service can be included in the cost of the goods, or set a specific rate, starting from which such a bonus will be available.

You should be aware of the latest trends in your field. Even in this case, you may not be able to target a wide range of customers. But this is not an essential condition: it’s enough to keep at least a niche position, and you will achieve the goal. Think about what product and how you can implement it, and success will not take long.