E-Commerce

What is e-commerce?

E-commerce (electronic commerce) is the buying and selling of goods and

services, or the transmitting of funds or data, over an electronic network,
primarily the internet.

Types of E-Commerce:

1. Business to Consumer (B2C): B2C e-commerce is the most popular e-

commerce model. Business to consumer means that the sale is taking
place between a business and a consumer, like when you buy something
from an online retailer.

2. Business to Business (B2B): B2B e-commerce refers to a business

selling a good or service to another business, like a manufacturer and
wholesaler, or a wholesaler and a retailer. Business to business e-
commerce isn’t consumer-facing, and usually involves products like raw
materials, software, or products that are combined. Manufacturers also
sell directly to retailers via B2B ecommerce.

3. Direct to Consumer (D2C): Direct to consumer e-commerce is the

newest model of ecommerce, and trends within this category are
continually changing. D2C means that a brand is selling directly to their
end customer without going through a retailer, distributor, or wholesaler.
Subscriptions are a popular D2C item, and social selling via platforms like
InstaGram, Pinterest, TikTok, Facebook, SnapChat, etc. are popular
platforms for direct to consumer sales.
4. Consumer to Consumer (C2C): C2C e-commerce refers to the sale of a
good or service to another consumer. Consumer to consumer sales take
place on platforms like eBay, Etsy, Fivver, etc.

5. Consumer to Business (C2B): Consumer to business is when an

individual sells their services or products to a business organization. C2B
encompasses influencers offering exposure, photographers, consultants,
freelance writers, etc.,

Benefits of E –commerce:

● Convenience: Online commerce makes purchases simpler, faster, and

less time-consuming, allowing for 24-hour sales, quick delivery, and
easy returns.
● Personalization and customer experience: E-commerce marketplaces
can create rich user profiles that allow them to personalize the
products offered and make suggestions for other products that they
might find interesting. This improves the customer experience by
making shoppers feel understood on a personal level, increasing the
odds of brand loyalty.
● Global marketplace: Customers from around the world can easily shop
e-commerce sites – companies are no longer restricted by geography
or physical barriers.
● Minimized expenses: Since brick and mortar is no longer required,
digital sellers can launch online stores with minimal startup and
operating costs.
Advantages:-

● Faster buying process

Customers can spend less time shopping for what they want.They can easily
browse through many items at a time and buy what they like. When online,
customers can find items that are available in physical stores far away from
them or not found in their locality.

For example - Rajesh is a customer who goes to a store to buy a washing

machine. After searching, he realizes that he cannot find the product he
needs. He logs onto a popular ecommerce marketplace and finds the
washing machine. What is even better is that there is a special offer price
and it can be delivered to his home.

This is where e-commerce comes to the rescue for many shoppers. They go
online, search for an item, get a fast response and can buy it just as quickly
as possible.it also includes helping one to choose from a wide range of
products and get the order delivered soon. Searching for an item, seeing the
description, adding to cart – all steps happen in no time at all. In the end,
the buyer is happy because he has the item and doesn't have to travel.

● Store and product listing creation

A product listing is what the customer sees when they search for an item.
This is one advantage in e-commerce meant for the seller. This online
business plus point is that you can personalize your product listing after
creating them. The best part is that creating a listing takes very little time,
all you require is your product name or codes like EAN, UPC, ISBN or ASIN.

Sellers can add many images, a description, product category, price,

shipping fee and delivery date. So, in just one step you can tell the customer
many things about the item. Creating your listing shows the buyers what
you have.

Rules for product listing

• Use high quality resolution images. Blurry images distract and confuse
customers.
• Maintain image dimensions. Usually ecommerce marketplaces will
recommend a resolution format.

• Provide multiple product views. Some sites even let you include a 360-
degree view of items.

• When adding product variants – such as lipsticks in different shades –

ensure each variant has its specific image.

Customizing listings makes them attractive and appealing. Here the seller
has full control over customisation, he can mention offers available,
discounts etc. Other advantages of e-business product listing are that it is
free to upload and fast.

● Cost reduction

One of the biggest advantages of e-commerce to businesses that keep

sellers interested in online selling is cost reduction. Many sellers have to pay
lots to maintain their physical store. They may need to pay extra up front
costs like rent, repairs, store design, inventory etc. In many cases, even
after investing in services, stock, maintenance and workforce, sellers don’t
receive desired profits and ROI.

How is this different with online stores? - With an ecommerce store, a

seller can reduce how much is spent in store upkeep. An ecommerce store is
affordable and requires less investment when compared with a physical
store.

This is also a good opportunity for individual and small scale sellers who
want to earn an income but don’t have the required start-up capital.

● Affordable advertising and marketing

Sellers don’t have to spend a lot of money to promote their items. The world
of ecommerce has several affordable, quick ways to market online.
Ecommerce marketplaces are visual channels – and sellers can really show
off their product. For example, Amazon sellers can use Advertising tools to
add videos, infographics, and good quality resolution images.
 One can add life to plain, boring text using DIY features to create
customized deals, coupons, A+ content and sponsored ads. Many
ecommerce marketplaces offer customer insight tools that can be used to
analyze customers. Usually, this is a page that shows all orders – pending,
unshipped, sent, canceled, returns.

● Flexibility for customers

An important advantage of e-commerce to business is that sellers can

provide flexibility to customers. One highlight is that the product and
services are ready 24x7. The result is that the seller can offer his item any
place, any time.

Customers are always present on an ecommerce marketplace - They are

likely to return for repeat purchases online because of the conveniences they
get. These conveniences include free shipping (usually on a minimum cart
value), express order delivery, deals and discounts, subscription advantages.

They also share reviews on the things they buy. Good reviews result in two
extra benefits of e-commerce. One is that buyers gain trust in your store
based on the number of positive reviews. The other is that it can help you
identify your best-selling items.

Sellers can leverage this customer flexibility to build their revenue. They
can sell on an online marketplace confidently knowing that there are plenty
of buyers

● Product and price comparison

In e-commerce, sellers can compare the products using tools or on their

own. This gives them a good idea of product alternatives available, the
standard rates, if a product need is unfulfilled.

Comparison is faster online and covers many products - It helps to save

time when making this comparison, as all details are available on the
shopping site. In a physical store, sellers may not be able to get access to so
many details –they only have better knowledge about their own inventory.
This is one more benefit for the customer too. When people see many items
ready for purchase, they feel more confident about spending.

● No reach limitations

A seller with a physical store may only be able to reach a certain number of
buyers. They can deliver to the customers’ homes but there can be distance
limitations. Several e-commerce marketplaces have their own logistics and
delivery system.

Reaching out to more customers - Sellers that need to expand their reach to
find new customers can benefit from this. This applies to online-only sellers
and those with a physical store.

Online-only sellers can save on the logistics costs and be rest assured of
customers. Sellers with a physical store begin selling their goods to local
buyers.

Disadvantages

● No One Can Buy During a Site Crash

Fortunately, ecommerce solutions like Shopify offer free hosting in their

monthly fee, allowing you to have one of the best servers on the market. In
recent memory, there was only one time where sites were down. However,
ecommerce stores weren’t the only sites affected. Twitter, Spotify,
Soundcloud, and more were affected by this crash. The issue was resolved
the same day. Yet, site crashes on platforms like Shopify are so rare that it’s
likely not to cause problems in your business.

● Customers Can’t Try Before They Buy

While this is currently a problem for many retailers, this won’t be a long-
term problem. With augmented reality, more stores are starting to add AR
elements to their store to allow customers to try products on. Augmented
reality ecommerce companies offer solutions for businesses to create a more
interactive experience with their customers.
 ● Ecommerce Is Highly Competitive

Battling for customers is another one of the worst ecommerce

disadvantages. The reality is the best niches are often the most competitive.
That’s why so many entrepreneurs are drawn to them. However, the more
competitive a niche is, the more expensive ads for that niche are. There are
a couple of ways around this. First, you can execute a different marketing
strategy than your competitors.

Segmentation

Segmentation means to divide the marketplace into parts, or segments,

which are definable, accessible, actionable, and profitable and have a growth
potential. In other words, a company would find it impossible to target the
entire market, because of time, cost and effort restrictions.

Types of Market Segmentation

There are four primary types of market segmentation. However, one type
can usually be split into an individual segment and an organization segment.
Therefore, below are five common types of market segmentation.

Demographic Segmentation
Demographic segmentation is one of the simple, common methods of
market segmentation. It involves breaking the market into customer
demographics as age, income, gender, race, education, or occupation. This
market segmentation strategy assumes that individuals with similar
demographics will have similar needs.

Example: The market segmentation strategy for a new video game console
may reveal that most users are young males with disposable income.

Firmographic Segmentation
Firmographic segmentation is the same concept as demographic
segmentation. However, instead of analyzing individuals, this strategy looks
at organizations and looks at a company's number of employees, number of
customers, number of offices, or annual revenue.
Example: A corporate software provider may approach a multinational firm
with a more diverse, customizable suite while approaching smaller
companies with a fixed fee, more simple product.

Geographic Segmentation
Geographic segmentation is technically a subset of demographic
segmentation. This approach groups customers by physical location,
assuming that people within a given geographical area may have similar
needs. This strategy is more useful for larger companies seeking to expand
into different branches, offices, or locations.

Example: A clothing retailer may display more rain gear in their Pacific
Northwest locations compared to their Southwest locations.

Behavioral Segmentation
Behavioral segmentation relies heavily on market data, consumer actions,
and decision-making patterns of customers. This approach groups
consumers based on how they have previously interacted with markets and
products. This approach assumes that consumers' prior spending habits are
an indicator of what they may buy in the future, though spending habits may
change over time or in response to global events.

Example: Millennial consumers traditionally buy more craft beer, while older
generations are traditionally more likely to buy national brands.

Psychographic Segmentation
Often the most difficult market segmentation approach, psychographic
segmentation strives to classify consumers based on their lifestyle,
personality, opinions, and interests. This may be more difficult to achieve, as
these traits i.e., (1) may change easily and (2) may not have readily
available objective data. However, this approach may yield strongest market
segment results as it groups individuals based on intrinsic motivators as
opposed to external data points.

Example: A fitness apparel company may target individuals based on their

interest in playing or watching a variety of sports.
SMS Marketing

SMS marketing refers to the act of sending promotional materials via text
message. If you send a text message to your subscriber list saying, “BOGO
only today in store! Come get your savings,” that’s SMS marketing.

Primarily, SMS marketing is a tool you use to communicate offers and other
information to existing customers who have permitted you to send them text
messages. And that’s key — getting permission to send messages.

Top 3 Reasons to Use SMS as a Marketing Tool

1. SMS marketing is designed for mobile commerce.

A recent study found that (46%) of people say they spend between 5-6
hours a day on their mobile devices in their personal time.

This makes it critical for businesses to invest in mobile-friendly marketing.

Fortunately, SMS messages make that easy since they’re designed to be
read on mobile screens.

“SMS is great for sending hyper time-sensitive messages like flash deals and
limited offers. Most people have their mobile phones within reach for most of
their waking hours, and it’s tough to resist the ding of a new text message.
With SMS, you can reach people within seconds.”

2. High open rates can lead to more engagement.

Not only are people opening SMS messages, they’re also engaging with
them.

“The biggest benefit our clients realize is the consistency of open rates. The
message is getting through — and it’s leading to strong click-through rates,
conversion rates, channel intimacy, and attributed revenue numbers to
deliver impactful return on ad spend (ROAS).”

Additionally, according to a personalization study from Periscope by

McKinsey, SMS messages received high engagement levels with shoppers
across the globe. In particular was the US, where it was the channel most
likely to elicit an ‘open and read’ action.
“SMS can help you reach a highly engaged audience — and that can
translate to more repeat purchases and higher customer lifetime value.”

3. Connect with shoppers using their preferred communication method.

SMS also helps you connect with shoppers in the way they want to
communicate. People like to be in-the-know, and they want to feel like they
matter to brands.

When your business uses text messaging to keep consumers informed about
offers, events, and other news that matters to them, they feel cared for and
part of the process.

“With recent data and privacy changes, reaching consumers on email and
paid advertising is becoming increasingly difficult. SMS delivers what
consumers want, personalized, interactive 1:1 messaging between them and
your brand.

How to Get Started Using SMS Marketing

1. Narrow and define your goals.

Like with most marketing initiatives, make sure you start with a goal in mind
and determine exactly what you want to achieve with this new channel.

“The possibilities with SMS are almost endless — which can easily become
overwhelming. Many merchants want to be ‘in the mobile channel,’ but
haven’t determined the ‘why’ and ‘how.’ So, launch with one main goal,
focusing on quick wins, then build on your capabilities.”

For example, some goals you can start with include reducing cart
abandonment and customer support calls. Then, you can tailor your SMS
text messages to notify shoppers they’ve left items in their cart, or send
them post-purchase order notifications.

2. Find a great vendor to partner with.

Once you’ve narrowed down your focus, it’s time to find the right partner.
Prioritize working with a vendor that makes set-up and launch easy but that
can also scale with you over time as you grow your SMS channel.
BigCommerce’s ecommerce platform integrates with several of the leading
SMS providers, such as:

● Sendlane: Trusted by over 1,700 businesses, Sendlane is a customer

experience-focused email and SMS marketing automation solution that
empowers merchants to turn their first-time shoppers into lifetime
customers.
● Klaviyo: The marketing automation and customer data platform loved
by more than 70K brands, helping them drive more revenue through
building great relationships with their customers.
● Omnisend: An ecommerce-tailored email and SMS marketing
automation platform built to help nimble teams drive more revenue
without increasing their workload.
● Listrak: The integrated digital marketing platform trusted by 1,000+
leading retailers and brands for email, text message marketing,
identity resolution, behavioral triggers and cross-channel
orchestration.
● Attentive: A best-in-class text message marketing provider, trusted by
4,000+ leading brands. Turn SMS into a top revenue channel in
months, and drive revenue through text.

“Some of the things to look for when evaluating a vendor include

complementary integrations, robust list growth tools, sophisticated
personalization and targeting within both automations and campaigns, and
the ability to have real-time, two-way communication with your
subscribers.”

3. Work on growing your subscriber base.

Once you’ve chosen your new SMS marketing platform, it’s time to build
your list of subscribers.

“You can collect SMS subscribers via a form on your website, in one of your
email flows, or by adding a checkbox to your checkout flow on any major
ecommerce platform. You can also have a phone number and signup
keyword that people can text to opt in.”

Of course one of the most important things to keep in mind with SMS is
compliance. It’s very important to ensure all aspects of your program,
especially growing your list, are done in a very compliant manner — since
SMS marketing is a permission-based channel.

4. Launch your first campaign.

In the beginning, take your time to try new things and find what works best
for your ecommerce business.

“Experiment and treat SMS as its own channel. We suggest beginning with a
one-off campaign. If you’re sending an email about the same promotion,
focus on differentiating the messages. Once you gain confidence, insert SMS
into your marketing automations to create an omnichannel customer
experience.”

5. Continue to test.

Don’t assume you hit it out of the park the first time or the second Or the
one-hundredth.

Follow up by reviewing the results and metrics you set for your SMS
marketing campaigns, so you can understand what you’re doing right and
what can be improved. Continue to test new messages, times and days,
deals and workflows to identify the best SMS strategy for your ecommerce
store.

SMS Marketing Ecommerce Best Practices

Now that you’ve got an SMS marketing strategy in place, let’s review some
important best practices to help ensure your efforts succeed.

1. Add value to your customers.

When you reach out, make sure you have something valuable to offer like:

● A unique or special offer — especially one that’s only going to your

SMS list.
● A time-sensitive deal, like BOGO for the rest of the day on items you
need to clear out.
● Information that’s necessary to customers who might want to
participate in an event.
 ● Introductions to new products or services, especially if you’re giving
your SMS list first dibs.

2. Keep it short, sweet, and to the point.

Be as concise as possible. People are reading these messages on little

screens.

Try to avoid sending a thread of texts and stick to one call to action (CTA).
Remember that many people still pay a surcharge on text messages, so they
won’t appreciate you using three messages to communicate one thing.

3. Personalize your SMS marketing campaigns.

At the same time, make sure you’re using your brand voice whenever
possible, and invest in the effort needed to personalize your messages.

You can do that by creating sectioned lists and texting groups about the
things that interest them the most. When possible, include people’s names
in their message with data automation.

Example SMS Marketing Messages to Send

Typically, there are two types of messages you can send to start
communicating with your customers: transactional and broadcast.

Transactional SMS refers to when a text message is triggered after an

action. Just like email, you can set up triggered text messages that follow a
customer action; e.g., signing up to receive communications, placing an
online order or attending an event.

Broadcast SMS are scaled marketing messages that, although not triggered
directly from a past action, should still be super relevant to customers. You
can ensure their relevancy by taking subscribers through a preference center
— once they opt in — and using demographic information to tailor your
content; e.g., based on age or geolocation.

E-commerce success
1. Complement your welcome emails with a text.

Automated welcome email programs can offer many benefits, from

improving customer experience to increasing engagement rates. And adding
SMS to the mix can help boost your success. Also, don’t forget to reinforce
any benefits of signing up — just as you would in email.

● Conversion rate
Conversion is one of the most straightforward e-commerce metrics to
measure. Put simply, your conversion rate is the number of site visits you
receive divided by the total number of transactions. So, if you receive 5000
site visits and 400 of those result in a purchase, you would have a sales
conversion rate of 8%.

Your success at converting lookers into buyers is one of the biggest

indicators of whether your offerings are attractive to your target audience.
Conversion can also be used to track the success of specific marketing
efforts, such as SEO or influencer campaigns.

How to measure conversion rate

As we demonstrated above, it’s easy enough to work out your e-commerce
conversion rate. However, this doesn’t tell you whether there’s a specific
point in the shopping journey where potential customers are exiting the
sales funnel. This is why it’s a good idea to take a funnel-based view of
conversion and get a better understanding of what’s happening on your e-
commerce website.

An e-commerce shopping journey is made up of a series of step-by-step

touchpoints; entering your website, browsing product pages, checking FAQs,
adding products to the shopping cart, and finally making a transaction.
Knowing where and when you’re seeing a major drop-off in customers will
tell you where to focus your conversion rate optimization efforts.

For example, if your conversion rate drops sharply after site visitors look at
your FAQs, this warrants further investigation. For example, if your e-
commerce returns policy is strict where competing retailers aren’t, you may
need to adjust this to remain relevant to potential customers.

● Customer acquisition cost (CAC)

While the ideal scenario would be to attract customers entirely by organic
means, this isn’t the reality for most businesses. As e-commerce grows more
competitive, brands are forced to spend more on acquiring customers.

But if the cost of attracting leads only results in a handful of conversions, it’s
a recipe for putting yourself out of business. This is because customer
acquisition can cost up to 7 times more than selling to existing customers.

How to measure customer acquisition cost

Customer acquisition cost is expressed as the sum of your total sales and
marketing costs for a specified period, divided by the total number of new
customers acquired. This includes email marketing, paid search, social media
campaigns, and any other investment that’s designed to increase the
number of visitors and conversions on your site.

It’s tempting to approach customer acquisition like spaghetti; chucking it on

the wall and seeing what sticks. But when costs begin to outweigh the gains,
you’ll need to take a closer look at whether or not your sales and marketing
efforts are paying off.

However, there are some caveats. Looking at acquisition cost alone can give
an inaccurate perception of ROI. If a high CAC is outstripped by your
average order value and customer lifetime value, this demonstrates a
healthy bottom line.

● Average order value (AOV)

Your average order value refers to the average transaction that takes place
on your e-commerce site. Merchants should aim to increase their AOV over
time as customer loyalty grows, which means higher customer lifetime
value.

Average order value is a particularly favorable e-commerce metric because

it’s easy to influence without a lot of marketing spend. For example,
customer loyalty programs, upselling/cross-selling, and online sales are all
great strategies to increase AOV. This is much more economical can trying to
add new customers or entice existing customers to purchase more often.

How to measure average order value

AOV is calculated by taking the total revenue over a specified period, divided
by the total number of orders you’ve received. So, if your total revenue is
$80,000 and your total number of orders is 600, your AOV is $133.

● Social media engagement

Social media is a critical marketing channel for direct-to-consumer brands

that don’t have a brick-and-mortar presence. As a major source of referral
website traffic, you want to keep a close eye on how your social media
content is performing.

How to measure social media engagement

Success on social media can be tricky for marketers to measure because it
doesn’t boil down to any one metric. Rather, you need to use a collection of
e-commerce metrics to determine whether your content is resonating with
customers.

As we mentioned earlier, social media metrics such as ‘likes’ are mostly

cosmetic because they don’t indicate that a viewer has taken any further
action. These metrics provide much stronger insights into whether your
marketing efforts are effective:

Click-through rate. This is a great metric to determine whether your

followers are taking action in response to your CTAs. Your CTR is calculated
by the number of clicks on your content versus how many times an ad or
post is viewed. If your CTR is high, then this is a good indication that your
content is effective.

Referrals. Referral traffic refers to users that come to your e-commerce site
from another location i.e. a social media site. Google Analytics can also
break can this down for you into separate social media channels so you can
see which is giving you the highest number of referrals.

Social conversions. If a customer purchases on your site in the same session

as a visit to one of your social media channels, this counts as a social
conversion. It demonstrates that your social channels are playing a key role
in driving nurtured leads to your site.

● Bounce rate
Bounce rate refers to the number of people who navigate away from your
site after viewing only one page. This is expressed as a percentage of your
total visitors.

While it’s desirable to keep your bounce rate as low as possible, a bounce
rate lower than 25% could be an indication that something is going wrong
with your website. The same goes for high bounce rates over 80%. In that
25%-80% range, what is classified as a ‘bad’ bounce rate will depend on
what your website does. For e-commerce stores, a bounce rate of 45.68% is
considered average, as consumers are likely to be browsing multiple product
pages.

How to measure bounce rate

High bounce rates can be caused by a variety of factors, such as poor user
experiences, slow site speed, or low-quality content.

However, it can also be a sign that your customers have found exactly what
they’re looking for. That’s why it’s important to look at your bounce rate in
the context of Average Session Duration on Google Analytics. If people are
consistently spending more than two minutes on your page, it’s a good sign
that they’re interested in your products.

● Return rate

This is one e-commerce metric that many merchants would prefer to ignore.
We all know that returns are a major problem in e-commerce, but ignoring
them certainly won’t make them go away. The average return rate in e-
commerce is 20%-30%, but this can jump as high as 40% for product
categories such as apparel. So, your business must understand why this is
taking place and whether it’s something that’s within your control.

How to measure return rate

If you’ve made any changes to your e-commerce return policy, it’s really
important to monitor whether this is having a knock-on effect on return
rates. Remember: High return rates aren’t necessarily a bad thing. If you
have a generous exchange and returns policy, this is more likely to attract
more consumers to your store and even result in repeat purchases; 92% of
shoppers say they would buy something again if they are happy with a
return policy.
However, returns could also be a symptom of something else, such as poor
sizing information or imagery on your product pages that drives customers
to bracket their purchases. So, in addition to measuring your return rate,
you also need to be gathering information from customers about their
reasons for returning.

● Shopping cart abandonment rate

Getting consumers to put items in their cart is one thing, but persuading
them to follow through with a purchase is a much bigger challenge. Just like
returns, shopping cart abandonment is an inevitable part of e-commerce.
But those almost sales can quickly add up to a lot of lost revenue. That’s
why it’s important to investigate what’s causing cart abandonment, such as:

● High shipping costs or additional fees

● A lack of payment options
● Slow loading speed
● Security concerns
● No guest checkout

How to measure shopping cart abandonment rate

It’s possible to drill down on cart abandonment in much more detail to figure
out what’s causing customers to abandon their carts – including at what
point in the journey this takes place.

For example, checkout abandonment looks specifically at how many

customers abandon their cart after beginning the checkout process. This
allows you to focus your efforts on eliminating friction within the payment
process and opt-ins such as email and T&Cs.

● Percentage of repeat customers vs. first-time customers

Your percentage of new vs. existing customers is a reflection of your
customer retention rate and is closely tied to your customer acquisition
costs. If returning customers are already familiar with your brand and
offerings, the cost of acquisition will be much lower.

Ideally, you want to have a slightly higher percentage of returning

customers than new customers. If the opposite is true, this indicates that
you could be having trouble fostering brand loyalty in your customers – and
your CAC will be considerably higher.
How to measure repeat customers vs. first-time customers
You can find the new vs returning visitor report in Google Analytics, which
will also supply information on average session length and the number of
transactions resulting from each user type. This allows you to spot key
differences in customer behavior, such as the length of time they spend on
product pages.

Something you’ll likely spot right off is that conversion rates will be higher
for returning customers than they are for first-time customers. This is
because first-time customers will want to invest more time comparing
options before committing to a purchase.

● Customer lifetime value (CLV)

It’s a serious error to measure the value of your customers one sale at a
time. A customer who splashes out on a high-value item and never stops
with you again will be worth less than one who makes several smaller
purchases over a longer period of time. That’s why we use customer lifetime
value (CLV) to track the revenue that customers generate throughout their
relationship with you.

How to measure customer lifetime value

The easiest way to measure customer lifetime value is to multiply your
average order value by the average number of purchases per year by the
average time a customer is retained for. So, if your AOV is $100, average
purchases 7, and customer retention 5 years, your CLV would be expressed
like this:

100 x 7 x 5 = $3500

However, it’s a good idea to factor customer acquisition cost into this
equation by deducting it from your CLV. This is a better reflection of how
your marketing spend is contributing to CLV.

● Net promoter score (NPS)

Customer satisfaction is a vital e-commerce metric, but also very subjective.
How can you substantiate what customers think about your brand and the
service they receive? Customer surveys are very popular for this purpose,
but getting customers to fill them out can be quite a challenge. Net Promoter
Scores (NPS) offer a much less time-intensive alternative by simply asking
customers on a 1 to 10 scale how likely they are to recommend you to
others.

How to measure net promoter score

Net promoter score segments your customers into groups depending on how
they answer your survey. This allows you to tailor your nurturing strategies
accordingly and help recapture customers who may have had a negative
experience with follow-ups:

● Promoters (9-10)
● Neutral (7-8)
● Detractor (0-7)

How do I know which e-commerce me

● Lack of Cash Flow

For boosting up any business, cash flow is a vital element. It means total
inflow and outflow of money in a business. Moreover, for operating any new
eCommerce startups, you must have enough cash flow. According to your
business plan, you have to decide how much money will spend in your
business. On the other hand, if you spend a huge amount of money in your
inventory, then your marketing sector will decline. As a consequence, your
sales will downfall, and the business will be shut down. So, you have to
ensure a positive cash flow of your business that helps to generate profits
and increase any business.

● Poor UI & UX Design

Proper UI and UX design is an important feature of a good eCommerce

business. As well, customers feel very attractive with a decent user
interface. Moreover, it creates the outlook of your website. When any
customer comes to your site, then they will first notice your user interface
design. If it is comfortable and easier, then they will visit your site again,
and purchase from it. In the present world, around 60% of people are using
a smartphone. Indeed, most of the time, they do purchase through their
mobile phone for saving their time. So, in your system, you must have a
mobile-friendly UX design. That helps to increase your sales and also helps
to grow your business.
 ● Selling Wrong Product

Choosing the right product is the key strategy of all businesses. When you
want to establish new eCommerce startups, then you have to know the
customer’s choice and demand. If you do not prioritize the customer’s
preferences, then they will purchase nothing from your website. After that,
you will face an enormous loss, and your startup will fail.

● Bad Quality Photos

When any customer comes to your website, then they will see the product
photos for purchasing products. If the quality of your product photos is low,
then it will create a negative impression for the customers. Some customers
dislike reading the product description. Moreover, they can understand your
product quality by looking at the picture. So, you have to ensure the best
quality pictures on your site. Otherwise, you will lose several customers, and
your eCommerce startups will fail.

To Increase Your E-Commerce Revenue

1. Focus on Your Market

If you’re selling to the wrong people, you’ll only be wasting money. It is
important to know how to reach out to your target market, recognize what
they want in a product or service, identify how they search for what they
want, and understand how they compare their options.

ConversionXL lists out ways on how you can zero in on your market:

§ If you don’t have data to begin with, talk to your prospective customers
and start doing your own research. You can do this by meeting them in
person or by sending out surveys to customers who purchased in the past
month.

§ Learn the ins and outs of Google Analytics. It’s a free, powerful tool that
you can immensely benefit from, if you know how to use it. Here are
 customized configuration for Traffic Sources, Keywords, and Ecommerce
Channels reports to get you started.

2. Reach Out to Repeat Customers

Spend time and resources on acquiring new customers but keep your loyal
customers happy.

This is what the new data from Adobe’s The ROI from Marketing to Existing
Online Customers show:

§ In the US, repeat clients only represent 8% of the visitors

§ Repeat clients contribute 41% of the revenue and the figure goes
higher during the holidays

§ Revenue from the purchase of 1 repeat customer is equivalent to

orders from 5 new shoppers

§ What does this mean for marketers? Your repeat customers bring in
the profit.

§ Build relationships. Keep in touch. Send them emails or messages

whenever you have a new campaign. Be personal in your approach
and send them greetings on their birthdays.

§ Show them gratitude for being regular customers through

personalized notes and if they have special requests for their orders,
go out of your way to find out ways to meet their needs.

§ 3. Use Brilliant Product Descriptions

§ So how do you make product descriptions that make the sale?
 § First, think of it as writing to one person who completely embodies
the buyer’s persona.

§ What are this person’s hobbies? What are their interests?

§ These are some of the questions that you should answer to know
the tone of writing that you should use. Should you be funny and
conversational or should you be business-like and direct? This will
depend on what your buyer finds engaging. MailChimp has come up
with a guide on using the right voice and tone depending on your
users’ needs.

§ Next, focus on the format. Research suggests that users only scan
words on websites and rarely reads the entire page content. This
means that you should make your product descriptions easy to read.
Use subheadings, bullet points, large, readable fonts, and lots of
white, uncluttered space that will make reading a breeze.

§ 4. Stop Forcing Users to Register Before Buying

§ Based on this article on KISSmetrics, 23% of users don’t proceed
with the purchase if you ask them to register before checkout.

§ It does not matter whether your users don’t have the time to do it
or they don’t just like the process of creating an account. The point is
they will leave your site and get their stuff elsewhere. You should be
after making sales, not increasing the membership list.

§ To address this, provide an option for Guest checkout.

 OSI model layers

§ The Open Systems Interconnect (OSI) model is a conceptual

framework that describes networking or telecommunications systems
as seven layers, each with its own function.

§ The layers help network pros visualize what is going on within their
networks and can help network managers narrow down problems (is it
a physical issue or something with the application?), as well as
computer programmers (when developing an application, which other
layers does it need to work with?). Tech vendors selling new products
will often refer to the OSI model to help customers understand which
layer their products work with or whether it works “across the stack”.

Types of OSI layers

The 7 layers of the OSI model

The layers are: Layer 1—Physical; Layer 2—Data Link; Layer 3—Network;
Layer 4—Transport; Layer 5—Session; Layer 6—Presentation; Layer 7—
Application.

It wasn’t always this way. Conceived in the 1970s when computer

networking was taking off, two separate models were merged in 1983 and
published in 1984 to create the OSI model that most people are familiar with
today. Most descriptions of the OSI model go from top to bottom, with the
numbers going from Layer 7 down to Layer 1. The layers, and what they
represent, are as follows:

● Layer 7 - Application
The Application Layer in the OSI model is the layer that is the “closest to the
end user”. It receives information directly from users and displays incoming
data to the user. Oddly enough, applications themselves do not reside at the
application layer. Instead the layer facilitates communication through lower
layers in order to establish connections with applications at the other end.
Web browsers (Google Chrome, Firefox, Safari, etc.) TelNet, and FTP, are
examples of communications that rely on Layer 7.
 ● Layer 6 - Presentation
The Presentation Layer represents the area that is independent of data
representation at the application layer. In general, it represents the
preparation or translation of application format to network format, or from
network formatting to application format. In other words, the layer
“presents” data for the application or the network. A good example of this is
encryption and decryption of data for secure transmission; this happens at
Layer 6.

● Layer 5 - Session
When two computers or other networked devices need to speak with one
another, a session needs to be created, and this is done at the Session
Layer. Functions at this layer involve setup, coordination (how long should a
system wait for a response, for example) and termination between the
applications at each end of the session.

● Layer 4 – Transport
The Transport Layer deals with the coordination of the data transfer between
end systems and hosts. How much data to send, at what rate, where it goes,
etc. The best known example of the Transport Layer is the Transmission
Control Protocol (TCP), which is built on top of the Internet Protocol (IP),
commonly known as TCP/IP. TCP and UDP port numbers work at Layer 4,
while IP addresses work at Layer 3, the Network Layer.

● Layer 3 - Network
Here at the Network Layer is where you’ll find most of the router
functionality that most networking professionals care about and love. In its
most basic sense, this layer is responsible for packet forwarding, including
routing through different routers. You might know that your Boston
computer wants to connect to a server in California, but there are millions of
different paths to take. Routers at this layer help do this efficiently.

● Layer 2 – Data Link

The Data Link Layer provides node-to-node data transfer (between two
directly connected nodes), and also handles error correction from the
physical layer. Two sublayers exist here as well--the Media Access Control
(MAC) layer and the Logical Link Control (LLC) layer. In the networking
world, most switches operate at Layer 2. But it’s not that simple. Some
switches also operate at Layer 3 in order to support virtual LANs that may
span more than one switch subnet, which requires routing capabilities.

● Layer 1 - Physical
At the bottom of our OSI model we have the Physical Layer, which
represents the electrical and physical representation of the system. This can
include everything from the cable type, radio frequency link (as in a Wi-Fi
network), as well as the layout of pins, voltages, and other physical
requirements. When a networking problem occurs, many networking pros go
right to the physical layer to check that all of the cables are properly
connected and that the power plug hasn’t been pulled from the router,
switch or computer.

Why is a market segmentation strategy important?

According to Bain and Company, businesses that tailor strategies to

customer segments generate yearly profit growth of 15% vs 5% for
businesses that don’t. In short, market segmentation can drive significant
growth.

Segmentation techniques are major profit drivers because they help you
define your target market and qualify customers as users of your product or
service. You can then provide the personalization that 73% of shoppers now
expect from brands – sending the right message, through the right channel,
at the right time.

Market segmentation also helps you to:

● Enter new markets

● Build products that solve customer pain points
● Streamline sales processes
● Drive more revenue from email marketing
● Drive more revenue from social media marketing
● Increase customer retention
 ● Demographic segmentation: The who

Widely used by D2C ecommerce brands, demographic segmentation is one

of the most simple yet effective kinds of segmentation. You can use
demographic segmentation to split your audience and create customer
personas based on objective information, such as:

● Age
● Gender
● Income
● Level of education
● Religion
● Profession/role in a company

For example, if you segment your audience based on your customers’

income, you can target them with products that fall within the constraints of
their budget. If you’re a small business or new to ecommerce, this is a
straightforward type of segmentation with three key advantages:

● It’s easy to collect information

● It’s simple to measure & analyze
● It’s cost-effective

Luxury goods manufacturer Montblanc worked with Yieldify to present a

selection of offers across their website. They lifted conversions by 118%
with a Father’s Day deal offering a free gift to customers spending over £200
– a threshold that took the spending expectations of Montblanc’s target
audience into account.

● Psychographic segmentation: The why

Psychographic segmentation is the process of grouping people together

based on similar personal values, political opinions, aspirations and
psychological characteristics.

For example, you can group customers according to their:

 ● Personality
● Hobbies
● Social status
● Opinions
● Life goals
● Values and beliefs
● Lifestyle

Because these characteristics are subjective, psychographic is a harder

segment to identify – but it’s also the most valuable. The best places to
gather data for psychographic segmentation are through your audience
analytic tools and social media, but you should also use surveys, interviews
and focus groups to strengthen your customer understanding in this
segment.

Through psychographic segmentation, you can get a deep insight into your
customers’ likes, dislikes, needs, wants and loves. You can then create
marketing campaigns that resonate with their psychographic profile.

Yieldify’s personalization technology helps you create on-site experiences

that capture more psychographic information about your customers. For
example, Heidi, a leading online travel agency, collected information about
their customers’ preferred skiing style with layered lead capture experiences

● Geographic segmentation: The where

Geographic segmentation is the process of grouping customers based on

where they live and where they shop. People who live in the same city, state
or zip code typically have similar needs, mindsets and cultural preferences.

The real advantage of geographic segmentation is it provides an insight into

what your customers’ location says about a number of geo-specific variables,
such as their:

● Climate
 ● Culture
● Language
● Population density – (urban vs rural)

As with all market segmentation methods, you’ll need to analyze your data
to understand how each factor influences your customers’ shopping
behavior. For example, people living in colder climates are likely to be in the
market for winter clothing and home heating appliances.

You can also use geographic segmentation to solve practical problems. With
Yieldify, global fashion brand Nautica used geo-targeting to show different
customers when they could guarantee Christmas delivery. Customers in
rural areas had to order earlier than urban areas, so Nautica’s delivery
countdown timers adapted according to the customer’s location.

Behavioral segmentation: The how

Behavioral segmentation is the process of grouping customers based on

common behaviors they exhibit when they interact with your brand.

For this type of segmentation, you can group your audience based on their:

● Spending habits
● Purchasing habits
● Browsing habits
● Interactions with your brand
● Loyalty to your brand
● Product feedback

Gather this objective data through your website analytics and you can
identify patterns in your customers’ behavior that help predict how they’ll
interact with your brand in the future.

Then you can leverage this hypothesis to provide personalized

recommendations that address your customers needs. For example, Spotify
provides its users with curated daily mixes based on the types of genres and
artists they’ve listened to previously.

At Yieldify, we use behavioral segmentation to deliver highly relevant and

targeted campaigns based on behaviors including:

● Number of sessions to your website

● Number of pages visited
● Time spent on site
● URLs visited
● Page types visited
● Exit intent
● Inactivity
● Shopping cart value
● Campaign history
● Referral source

For example, Petal & Pup tailor their email lead generation messaging for
visitors arriving from Facebook.

CUSTOMER RETENTION MARKETING

Retention Marketing

In ecommerce, retention marketing are the activities that make customers

shop from you repeatedly. It aims to maximize the return from a customer.
Retention marketing proactively uses data for ongoing engagement,
personalization of the shopping experience and winning the loyalty of
customers.
Retention marketing effects compound over time, bringing costs down and
boosting profits every time a customer returns.

Benefits

● make customers happier thanks to the conscious effort to serve them

well resulting in loyalty and word-of-mouth referrals
 ● strengthen your brand – the more loyal fans you have, the more
attractive it looks to others as well
● will be able to invest in growth – retention saves you money while
generating better profits so you’re able to put them back into new
products, markets or customers
● cut down cost per sale because retention relies on owned channels
(emails) where you have full control
● don’t rely only on acquisition to make sales – you don’t need to invest
in driving traffic indefinitely to grow.

When do I need to start working on customer retention?

Naturally, at launch, you have to get some traffic and traction first. But you
should start out with retention in mind. You should set up for it from
customer #1. How you start out treating your customers will impact long-
term retention and loyalty.

Note: Unfortunately, retention is tied to your products. It’s applicable to

most but not all products. If you sell things like wedding items or boats, we
suggest you work on a referral strategy instead to make sure people spread
a word-of-mouth on your behalf even if they’re not likely to buy from you
again (for obvious reasons).

Key retention metrics

How to know if your customer retention efforts are working? Just like you
monitor your traffic, conversions

● Retention rate

Also known as repeat purchase rate, this is the share of returning customers
out of all customers. It shows whether you manage to retain customers or
let them slip away after 1 order.
 ● Order frequency

That’s the average time between orders or how often people shop from you.
It can be days, weeks, months, even years.

Knowing how often your customers shop from you, you can time your
marketing campaigns perfectly and get more orders with less effort.

● Orders per customer

Naturally, more orders mean stronger loyalty. This metric tied to others like
CLV and order frequency may mean that people stay with your brand for
years and/ or shop very often, both of which are great.

● Customer lifetime value

That’s the all-time amount spent by a customer in your store. It’s probably
the most important retention metric in ecommerce. It helps you set
acquisition budgets and estimate revenue goals.

● Customer satisfaction

Customer satisfaction is at the core of customer loyalty.

If customers are unhappy, though, your retention rate will be low. Ratings of
the shopping experience and direct feedback will explain why you lose
customers or why they love you.
 Feedback score in Metrilo

Looking at all these ecommerce retention metrics, you should be able to

map your customer lifecycle stages:

how often people buy and for how much, when do they become profitable
repeat customers, how much you can spend on their acquisition, why are
you losing customers, and more.

Customer segmentation
You hear over and over that you should not be doing one-size-fits-all
marketing but segmenting customers and tailoring messages instead.

Why?

Because segmenting customers based on their behavior eliminates the

guesswork – they literally show you what marketing works with them so you
can just replicate it and get results.By ecommerce customer segmentation,
you categorize your customers into smaller groups of people that have
something in common and that makes thinking of offers and calls to action
easier.Being relevant and responding adequately to their actions is the basis
of personalized marketing. It starts with acknowledging the differences in
your customers’ behavior and working with them, not in spite of them.

The most important customer segments for an eCommerce brand:

● high spenders
● cart abandoners
● coupon lovers
● thrifty shoppers
● one-timers
● newsletter readers / ebook subscribers
● registered browsers (leads)
● special segments by location
● indecisive shoppers
● idle (inactive) customers
● curious browsers
● loyal customers
● the trendy customers

Ok, but how do you do ecommerce segmentation? How to segment customer

data and how to target different consumer segments?

High spenders

Every online shop should have some customers that spend a lot more than
the average. They can either shop very often or they make large orders.
Either way, they’re valuable for you because they make you far better profit
than others who cost the same to acquire.

High spenders should be treated probably best of all customers and kept for
as long as possible. They are the most important target customer segment.
Your communication and offers for them should show appreciation and make
their shopping experience pleasant and convenient.

How to identify them?

Filter your customer base by revenue (sales, CLV, LTV) -the simplest way is
to take everybody who has spent more than the average CLV.
To make the list even more exclusive, you can select a revenue number a lot
greater than the average – this, of course, will narrow down the selection.

What special things you can do to delight them and keep them around?

● Premium products and special editions

● Early access to new products
● Free shipping, express shipping and so on
● Free gift wrap
● Surprises in delivery packages
● Guarantees and maintenance
● Dedicated support, fast way to reorder
● Offer special bundles and value-packs

Cart abandoners

The tough bunch. You probably use special tools to fight – send a “Come
back” email and that’s it. Well, not quite. While it’s true many carts get
abandoned because the shopper got interrupted, other people leave because
they decided they didn’t want the product or saw an extra shipping fee.

To recover those orders, it’s a good idea to tailor the message and increase
the chances for conversion. How?

Segment cart abandoners by product or category of interest

Of course, you want them to go back and finish the order. But, if they had
reasons not to, you need a plan B.

By using the interest they showed in a certain product or category, you can
add more related items in the same email and give them more options. After
all, your goal is an order, no matter the product, right.

Coupon lovers

If you use coupons, there are probably customers who only buy with a
coupon and never pay full price. While this is kind of annoying, you can turn
it into an advantage and stimulate more orders from these people – the
coupon lovers.How to nail who they are?

Here’s the trick: filter your customer database by the action performed –
“used a coupon”. At this point, it doesn’t matter which one. Then, add
another filter – the number of orders equals 1.

That’s a workaround if your CRM can show you customers who only buy with
a coupon directly (like 2 coupons used, 2 orders), go for it.

The last option is to tag them for each coupon and explore if the number of
tags matches the number of orders.

I know it’s a bit far-fetched, but it’ll save you giving away coupons to all
customers and will make this group happy without hurting your margins so
much.

What to do with coupon lovers?

Keep sending them coupons, but cut it back for people outside that group.
The idea is not to devalue your products so much with constant promotions
while keeping the sales coming from price-sensitive people.

Thrifty shoppers

Shopping habits matter a lot if you want to do effective marketing and not
annoy your customers. Your customer segmentation strategy should try to
cover any kind of shopping behavior and target consumer segments
accordingly.

Some people like the big spenders buy a lot in one sitting, while others
prefer coming often, but buying only as much as they need at the moment –
one bag of dog food, just a pair of leggings or a bottle of shampoo.

The good thing is that it’s easier to predict when they’re going to be needing
a new item – shampoo lasts for about 2 months, so you know when to send
a reminder.

How to define the segment?

Choose a number of orders around or above the average and a low CLV
(customer lifetime value, total revenue from a customer). This would give
you a list of people who shop regularly enough but don’t spend too much.

Possible tactics

● Watch product cycles and send an offer shortly before their time to
buy again (retention analysis will help you know when that is)
● Offer bundles of related products (not separately)
● Expose to content on new trends and products
● Ask for feedback
● Use wishlists to make targeted discounts

One-timers

Your favorite kind, am I right? Fear not, every customer had only 1 order
once. Segmenting by the number of orders=1 is quick and easy.

What to do after that to get repeat sales?

● Upsell and cross-sell

● Use content to keep brand in mind
● Make a game with a new product so they need to buy it to enter.
● Ask for a review on the 1st purchase in exchange for a discount on the
2nd.
● Use seasonal changes to present new collections.

Newsletter readers/ ebook subscribers

If you invest time and money in content and email marketing, you’d want to
know who actually reads it, right? It can help you come up with ideas to
include or products to promote.

Tag them
We suggest tagging all newsletter subscribers so it’s simple to monitor their
behavior and orders and see if they were influenced to buy by something
they read.

How to stimulate purchases from subscribers?

● Regularly update them on new products, patents, features and so on.

● Create informative, educational or entertaining content to engage
them.
● Include your products only subtly in all content, don’t be too obvious.
● Give them insider tips, professional consultations or any other form of
value related to your products so they keep reading your stuff.
● Occasionally, include special offers only for readers.

Registered browsers (leads)

Most stores generate leads with pop-ups, newsletter subscriptions, coupon

giveaways and wishlists. If you also have registered users who haven’t made
a purchase yet, you’re leaving money on the table.

Who are they?

The simplest segmentation is by the number of sessions (better be

significant, more than 5, for example) and the number of orders equal to
zero.

The really good thing, in this case, is that browsing shows interest – they
didn’t just register to download the pdf and forget about you.

Now, how to make them buy for the first time

● Create product-heavy content in emails and on your blog that links to

products directly
● Give a discount for 1st order
● Use the products and categories they looked at for remarketing
● If it’s a wishlist you gather emails with, fake a sale of their chosen
items.
By location

On a personal note, I get frustrated when I get a promo email with fashion
winter essentials, for example, that include a silk strapless dress and
sandals. I live in a 4-season country and it really bugs me that someone
thinks I can wear those things in winter here. You bet I don’t buy it.

So, if you sell in multiple countries, it’s a good idea to consider customer
location when coming up with promotions. Now, winter is approaching in
Australia, but summer is coming in Europe and you’d best be preparing two
different campaigns.

What’s more, location is tied to certain cultures and lifestyles and you should
show understanding and respect to the different traditions. Just like you
can’t serve tea without milk to a British person.

In what promotions location is important

● Anything season-related: summer sales, beach essentials, spring

cleaning, prevention of fall vitamin deficit, coping with winter blues,
etc.
● For products like skin care, sports, outdoor gear, clothes, food.
● Any culturally-connected promotions: Christmas, spring break,
Father’s Day, Valentine’s Day, Boxing Day, Single’s Day and so on.

It’s true people are aware of all these differences and might not take it
personally if you shower them with spring break sales.

However, if they don’t have such thing, your efforts are kind of pointless and
look silly, don’t they? Not to mention that pushing someone outside of their
comfort zone (religious holidays, inappropriate clothes) is unnecessary.

The indecisive buyers

I bet you have a few customers who browse your site a lot but buy rarely.
They might be chatting with live assistance or abandoning carts all the time.
They find it hard to make a decision and you’re losing their orders.
How to find them?

Filter all customers by the number of sessions (choose a good enough

number like 7) and then by the number of orders (quite small like 3). Thus,
you make sure those people browse twice as often as they buy.

Help them decide faster

● Give more info about the products – more pictures from different
angles, videos in use, size details.
● When different colors are offered, change the picture to display the
color.
● Highlight all important info like deliveries, returns and exchanges.
● Add social proof like an Instagram feed or Fomo.
● Implement wishlists to keep items of interest easy to find .

Idle customers

Need a few hundred in revenue to hit the target this month? Why don’t you
make a habit of reconnecting with idle customers and bringing them back to
shop?

Who is that?

Those who haven’t been active on your site in the last 2 months, let say.
You can choose what period makes sense for your kind of products – devices
are shopped for far less often than food.

Apply a filter for last session or last activity and you get a list of potential
buyers.

How to re-engage them

● Based on their order history, ask for feedback on products.

● Offer a newer model of something the bought or a complementary
product.
● Send them a content piece about what they bought – how to use it
better.
 ● Use wishlists to create personalized limited-time sales.
● Use a quiz to lead them to new offers and product categories if you
don’t know what they’re interested in.

Loyals

One customer segment is the dream of every seller. These people bring you
a nice, steady revenue flow. They obviously trust your store and probably
even recommend it to others because it’s their go-to place for this type of
products.

Also, they know your products, prices, and promotions better than the
others because they visit your site often and engage with your brand.

How are they different than the high spenders?

The loyals have many sessions and orders (more than the average) in
addition to high revenue, which means they’ve been with you for quite some
time, shop often and spend a lot. In comparison, the high spenders can
come, get two of your highest priced items and leave forever.

To keep them interested…

● Set up a reward points system

● Send them secret offers unavailable for other customers
● Have a subscription/ auto-reorders option if your products allow it
● Engage them in the product creation and actively ask for feedback
● Relate number of orders to discount tiers

Curious browsers

This group is a true opportunity. They haven’t’ ordered in quite some time,
but have been looking at your site recently. They’re interested and therefore
– should be wooed!
What filters to use to find them?

Set the filter for last order to “more than 45 days” (for example, it depends
on your product) and the filter for last active session to “less than 7 days”.

This segment is perfect for remarketing on Facebook (you can export a CSV)
or an email with a personalized promotion on the products they were
browsing. Grab them while they’re hot!

The trendy

This segment is full of potential because they shop the new collections and
convert from new product offers. This opens the door for you – they are
interested in pretty much anything new you can offer.

How to segment to find them?

By email campaign, they converted from (least in Metrilo you can choose all
people who opened, clicked, converted, unsubscribed, etc. from a campaign)
– choose the one that announces your new products.

You can add (or use separately) a category filter to identify the people who
browsed the New section on your site. This can be on for an individual
product if you only have one.

Then what?

● Prep them with new trends content before a new collection is out
● Give them limited-time early access to your new items
● Ask them for help naming the new things
● Give a percent back if they share a picture using the product on social
media

See, in all examples, we don’t fight people’s habits. We’re not trying to
change them – they’re your customers already and our goal is to keep them
close without making them feel uncomfortable.
Instead, we’re using what they reveal about themselves and their shopping
habits to serve them in the best way possible.

By studying them and adapting to their preferences so your marketing

efforts don’t feel intrusive, but welcome and timely. This is data-driven
customer segmentation.

How to save canceled orders?

Canceled orders are a pain for any ecommerce business because it all –
acquisition and conversion – just worked out, only to get canceled minutes
later. It’s even worse than returned orders because at least there the
customer tried the product before deciding.

But there’s hope. You can try and turn things around. Maybe it won’t recover
all canceled orders, but any saved sale is a small win. Sometimes people
need a little bit of reassurance.

Why do customers cancel orders?

“I changed my mind” is the top reason for canceling an order, according to

Statista. High shipping costs and long delivery time are other popular
reasons. Customers cancel orders because they feel buyer’s remorse, usually
immediately after they hit “buy”.

They decide it’s not worth the wait or the cost is too high after all. Or maybe
they see an ad about a similar product at a discount from a competitor.

Catch canceled orders

The chance of a customer cancelling and going to the competition is very

high. That’s why you need to act fast.

So set up an automation to react to order cancellations. A simple email

saying, “We’re sorry seeing you go. Is there anything we can do?” is
enough.
Make sure people can answer this email or list other ways of contacting your
team so feedback reaches you. Alternatively, you can use a feedback score
like this one to measure satisfaction. Sure, the rate will go down by those
cancellations but it’s an easy way to get feedback.

Saving canceled orders

Hopefully, people will reply and you’ll know why they’re canceling. Now, your
team will have to work on each individual case, but it’s worth it because
you’ll be retaining customers and old ones at that.

Can you fix the issue? A friendly email from customer service with a specific
offer tailored to the feedback is all you need to do. Here’s what you can do
about all of the most common reasons you’ll hear.

“Changed my mind”

This one’s very tricky and needs clarifications. You can so a combination of
the following:

● Send informative content about the specific product to try and change
their mind again.
● List similar products in case they want to change.
● Offer a discount coupon for the originally picked product.
● Offer to change the size, color, etc. of the item. Link any choosing
guides you have or offer a live connection with an assistant who can
confirm that’s the right choice or help pick another.
● If it turns out that they found a better offer, it’s up to you to decide
whether to price match or walk away and save your branding.
High shipping costs and service charges

Waive shipping and handling fees regardless of order value. You might be
worried that people would misuse that but you can always make your costs
more visible before the checkout process to avoid unpleasant surprises.

Long delivery time

Promise priority shipping at no extra cost. State the latest time they can
reconfirm their order to get it by your earliest possible delivery time.

Yes, this would put a strain on your deliveries, but it won’t happen all the
time and it’s worth it if a customer stays with you. Also, you can work on
speeding up your deliveries in general to avoid such problems in the future.

Bad returns policy

Things must be really problematic there if customers prefer not to buy at all
than to deal with your returns. This might be a bigger sales drain, losing
many others on the way to checkout so you’d better fix it.

A clear and mutually beneficial returns policy works wonders. It’s

ecommerce after all, no need to run from the fact that returns are normal
when people can’t see and touch the product before buying.

But if they’re confident their money won’t just get lost, they’ll be far more
willing to shop from you. (Plus, don’t forget that in some places like the EU
customers have the legal right to return an item within 14 days.)

Payment options

This one may be surprising, but 10% of respondents in the survey are not to
be overlooked. Maybe just as such customers finished the order, they
realized they needed the money in that credit card for something else that
was to be charged soon. So in order not to get down to insufficient funds,
they decided to cancel.

To save this order, you can offer other ways of payment – buy now, pay
later or cash on delivery, for example, if you offer them. This will make
people feel more at ease about spending money.

Account required

If you force customers to register to buy, someone will always feel like
you’re asking too much information. They won’t see why you need their
birthday and a complex password. So enable guest checkout with just an
address and an email.

Whatever the feedback, thank the customer for getting back to you. The
insights are very useful even if you don’t manage to save their particular
order.

If you want to be extra nice, offer a next order discount in an attempt to win
them back in the future. One canceled order still doesn’t mean they’re never
shopping from you again so you still can work for customer retention.

Avoiding order cancellation in the future

If you have those things in place, maybe you won’t need to go and save
canceled orders any more.

● Transparent and friendly returns policy

● All handling fees and other charges that may apply stated upfront
before checkout
● Shipping fees explained by region, weight, or whatever criteria applies
in a dedicated section on the site, visible before checkout so customers
can make an informed decision.
● Clearly listing all available payment methods upfront (and any
surcharges that may apply)
● Being honest about delivery times and providing order tracking
information
● Providing choosing guides, size charts, real color pictures, etc. as well
as chat assistance in case the customer is not sure which option to
choose.