As an eCommerce business grows, business owners often can’t keep up with the demand, and essential parts of the puzzle start to break down. This could negatively impact your business, especially if it starts affecting your ability to deliver consistent quality to your customers. To avoid this, make sure to streamline the processes in your business. That sometimes means giving up some responsibility and getting help from third parties who specialize in specific operations, like fulfillment. Outsourcing such an integral part of your business does not mean you are losing control, but rather that you’re fine-tuning your operations and optimizing different parts of the business.
Streamline Your Mobile Web Experience
Even if you are using an eCommerce platform such as Shopify or Amazon to connect with your customers, you want to make sure that your brand has a web presence off of those platforms as well. It is important that you grow your business independent of eCommerce platforms to improve your credibility. Fine-tuning that experience for your customers will make your brand more recognizable and improve brand loyalty.
Slapping together a website is not quite enough though. When you take into account that 63% of online traffic in the US comes from smartphones and tablets, you’ll quickly realize the importance of upgrading your mobile web experience. You might not realize it, but the majority of your customers are experiencing your store through mobile web. If this process is clunky, with ineffective rendering, then you’re also losing more customers (and credibility) than you realize. Another interesting statistic is the mobile bounce rate, which has dropped from 52% in 2016 to 45%. This either means users are becoming accustomed to the experience (unlikely) or your competitors are improving the mobile web experience (highly likely).
To decide what kind of experience you would like your customers to have, explore sites that have been top-rated by google for their mobile web experience. HubSpot put together a list of 21 of the Best Examples of Mobile Website Design that will guide you in the right direction.
Take Advantage of Tools
There are a plethora of resources available for the tasks that you choose to do in-house. You don’t need to do everything from scratch. A quick google search will provide you with services to assist with parts of almost every process. Let’s look at a few:
Branding and Design
Automated branding platforms can fast-forward your design process and free up hours that you would have spent going back and forth to find the right designer. Consider Looka’s AI-powered platform to design a logo, build a website, and create a brand that sells. Tailor Brands not only helps with design, but also assists with social media management and scheduling. If you just need some help with color schemes for your brand or marketing campaigns, Coolors is a color scheme generator that’ll help avoid a color faux pas.
Content and Copy
Content marketing and copywriting tools help guide your marketing efforts so that you get the maximum reach. BuzzSumo is a search engine that helps identify content and blog topics that are currently going viral on blogs and social media, boosting your brand awareness and making you a credible authority that is in touch with your market. Similarly, HubSpot has a Blog Topic Generator that will help with this.
Customer Service Chatbots
Chatbots are becoming increasingly popular to improve customer service and customize your consumers’ experience when dealing with your brand. Connect with your customers using Tidio, or implement a chatbot like ManyChat to create a Facebook Messenger Bot that assists customers while they’re looking at your products. LiveChat is a more robust customer support system. This is a paid option, but they do have a free 14-day trial available for you to test its functionality.
Drop the Ego and Outsource
Take a long, hard look at all your processes and decide what you can outsource. Don’t allow your ego to get in the way. Chances are you think that you are able to do these things better yourself, but if it’s a question of whether they get done at all, then outsourcing is something you should seriously consider. Even if it’s not a matter of being strapped for time to get everything done, outsourcing is an excellent way to get specialists to deal with something that you’ve been doing as a Jack of All Trades.
Start with what you don’t like doing, or what can be done better. ECommerce fulfillment is one of the first things growing eCommerce businesses choose to outsource. It requires a dedicated team and extensive resources to keep customers happy, and most business owners do not have the capacity to do this in-house. Even if you do run your own warehouse, consider the cost savings and increased customer satisfaction that would follow outsourcing this process to an experienced third-party logistics provider. You might not even be aware of the customers you are losing due to unfulfilled and late orders. This can be easily avoided by partnering with a reputable eCommerce fulfillment provider. Discuss your options with a professional eCommerce fulfillment provider like Eworld Fulfillment for scalable order fulfillment and logistics services.