50 Ways an Online Store Will Grow Your Business

Starting an online store will open your business to a new growth channel. Although the list below seems long, it only scratches the surface of the possibilities that can be achieved with an E-commerce store.

Online sales are approaching 20% of overall retail sales, and that percentage continues to grow. Where will new customers come from in your industry? Do you start your search for new products online first? Your customers do too!

Serve Current Customers Better

1. Serve current customers better through multiple customer service channels such as chat, chatbots, contact forms, and integration with social messaging
2. Offer seamless checkout experiences with multiple payment methods
3. Keep your business open 24/7
4. Allow your store to travel around with your customers wherever they go (right in their pockets)
5. Offer the convenience of online ordering
6. Show off products in ways the shelf never could through images and videos
7. Saved customer accounts that are accessible by the customers (easy reordering, printing invoices, managing payment methods)
8. Allow customers to search your entire inventory quickly
9. Allow customers to compare complex products side by side
10. Ensure your checkout will never be jammed up and not able to service customers quickly
11. Help answer many customer’s frequently asked questions without making customers wait in line to speak with a salesperson

Find New Customers 

12. Engage new customers that are not near your physical stores
13. Acquire new customers that are searching the internet
14. Interact with window shoppers that may not enter your store or who don’t want to speak with a salesperson
15. Reach an unlimited audience (>300,000,000 internet users in the US alone)
16. Meet shoppers early in their buying journey since many shoppers start searching for new products online
17. Find a new audience for your niche products that don’t have a lot of buyers locally
18. Join online conversations that are already happening and send people directly to your store

Increase Sales and Open New Revenue Channels

19. Offer real customer reviews on the product page
20. Increase order value through upsell recommendations
21. Increase reordering rates through digital marketing
22. Increase lifetime value by having a digital connection to your customers
23. Create customer loyalty with rewards programs
24. Create recurring orders with subscriptions that are automated
25. Segment customers and prospects to speak directly to each segment with the most relevant info and products
26. Personalize your messaging with data from their account
27. Automate suggestions for other products they may be interested in
28. Access new advertising channels that have a low barrier to entry and precise targeting
29. Open a new channel of ad revenue from vendors who want to promote their products on your site

Utilize New Technologies and Automate Workflows

30. Capture new leads and turn browsers into sales leads
31. Score new leads by using online actions to determine the value of each lead
32. Nurture leads by using online marketing to move browsers from prospects into buyers
33. Learn more about your customers and prospects through the interactions on your website
34. Gather more data about your customer’s preferences through online surveys
35. Follow prospects from browsing right through to purchase (understand your customer’s purchase journey)
36. Test various value propositions by split testing pages
37. Set up abandon cart emails to capture orders that were not completed
38. Automate sales campaigns based on various actions on your website
39. Retarget customers throughout the internet
40. Utilize digital communication channels to speak to all your customers at once
41. Print bulk shipping labels since all orders are digital
42. Embrace new technologies more rapidly such as virtual and augmented reality

Establish Future Growth and Stability

43. Establish authority in your industry online through various digital channels
44. Own your audience, vs share-cropping, and keep your customers no matter how other platforms may change over time (Google, Amazon, Facebook)
45. Scale quickly without building new locations
46. Add new products with no additional retail shelf space needed
47. Avoid interruptions caused to a physical location (construction, pandemics, changes in rent causing a move)
48. Take advantage of the growth in E-commerce
49. Enter new markets quickly (categories, industries, demographics)
50. Expand your store’s capabilities as easily as downloading an app on your cell phone.

Be online where your customers are searching for products.