E-commerce will remain an important channel for brands in 2021, unsurprisingly. But with the growth of online shopping and eCommerce operations, there has been an equal boom in eCommerce resources.

As we ramp up 2021, kick things off with a roundup of the top blogs to follow in the eCommerce realm.

1. TurnTo

TurnTo is a leader in Customer-Generated Content (CGC) solutions for brands looking to connect with their customers through a wide range of solutions. Beyond the platform though, marketers should look to their blog for equal parts advice and good stories.

Their blog is divided into two parts: “Good Turns” and “Company”. The Company part of the blog provides many useful tips and strategies for ecommerce marketers. The Good Turns blog was created out of the generosity that TurnTo has seen coming from those who use their platform to help others. It celebrates stories of selfless ways people help others and everyday heroes. This section of their blog will simply bring you joy.

2. Klaviyo

Klaviyo is one of the best software platforms for selling products online. It has driven billions of rands in revenue for both large and small brands worldwide.

The blog also provides brilliant strategies and tips for marketers, including:

• How to market amid COVID-19
• Transitioning from brick and mortar to online e-commerce
• Tips for using the Klaviyo community forum.

You can also join events and watch videos, where they feature tips from the industry product experts on how to own your marketing and grow your business. Plus, they conduct webinars where you can learn many marketing tips, including how to cut cancellations and minimize churn.

3. Shopify

Shopify is an ecommerce platform that does a lot more than help you sell online. It has a blog dedicated to ecommerce marketing, running an online business, and giving updates to Shopify’s ecommerce community.

Shopify’s blog has every resource you could need for creating a business. Starting from business ideas, to what to name your online store all the way to setting up your ecommerce store and customer retention strategies, you can find blog articles that can help you every step of the way in your journey.

4. A Better Lemonade Stand

A Better Lemonade Stand is an online e-commerce blog that helps many business owners make better and easier business decisions. It serves as both a resource and a community to inspire, educate, and support entrepreneurs in the initial stages of their business journey. You will find wide-ranging and reliable advice, tools, and resources in the blog. Plus, they have a helpful community that will assist you in building, taking off, and scaling your e-commerce business. The blog is managed by Richard Lazazzera, a former content writer for Shopify.

5. ShoutMeLoud

ShoutMeLoud was founded by Harsh Agrawal – a blogging pioneer who has dedicated more than 11 years to blogging and helping marketers worldwide to advance in their careers. This has a plethora of actionable tips for bloggers and small businesses to help them realize the true power of blogging. You will find in-depth how-to guides on WordPress, blogging, podcasting, and social media that’ll help you boost your traffic and sales.

Aside from this, the blog also offers curated WordPress eBooks and hosting discounts and recommendations.

SOURCE: www.pixlee.com/blog/top-ecommerce-blogs-2021/

Experiment like your business depends on it.

To really succeed, you’re going to need to experiment a lot. You’ll need to create ads for different products. Test different copy, formats, and images. Experimenting with ads is what will eventually bring in customers and drive sales. Once you’ve created profitable ads you can start experimenting on your website. Many people focus on improving their website first. However, you don’t know how customers are responding to certain features if you don’t have any yet. Avoid making assumptions about your customers. Be open to being wrong about what really works – you won’t know the truth until you look at the data.

Don’t pocket the profits just yet.

It can be tempting to keep any profit you make. However, if you want your business to grow, you’ll need to reinvest money into your business. Money makes money. Instead, of making a purchase to buy new equipment, spend your profit on advertising. You’ll probably want to create several $5 ads at first to see which product people respond to best. However, once you’ve found your winning product, you’ll need to spend a lot more than $5 to make the kind of money people dream of.

If your goal is to make $3000 profit each month, you’ll need to spend about $3000 on ads, which will bring in roughly $9000 in revenue. Boosted Facebook posts convert best for my business but you’ll need to find the type of ad that works best for you. By reinvesting the profit for several months, you give your business a chance to grow and become sustainable. Eventually, you’ll be able to live off the money you’re making.

Omit to a schedule for consistency.

When starting a new ecommerce store, you’ll want to follow a consistent schedule so that your customers can know when to check back. For example, if you add new products each week, you should do it on the same day of the week so people check back on your website on that day every week. If you commit to a blog, adding posts on the same days will encourage people to keep checking back. As soon as you become inconsistent, you start to lose your customer loyalty.

Build out your channels from day one.

As soon as you’ve bought your store domain name, start building out an audience. You might start with posts on social media to grow a fanbase so that when you launch you have an audience ready to buy. Once your store is launched, you’ll want to start collecting email addresses and building referral traffic. By doing this from day one, you’ll grow your customer base faster. By focusing on building out your social media, email list and referral traffic, you’ll likely need to spend less on ads over the long-term. You’ll be able to promote your content to your audience through your own channels.

Start building relationships with relevant influencers.

It takes a few months to find the best influencers to promote your products and even then it’s not guaranteed. From personal experience, I found a great influencer to promote my products and less than six months later they had been doing so many sponsored posts that they were no longer effective. Finding a great influencer is a lot harder than it looks. Sometimes an influencer has a high price but it doesn’t convert to sales. You might want to check out Famebit for access to the best influencers.

Make sure customers have access to relevant information.

When starting an ecommerce store you’ll want to make sure your customers have access to everything they need to make an informed purchase. You’ll want to include shipping and return information so that customers are aware of the policies before their purchase. You’ll always want to make sure you have a visible contact page so that customers can easily contact you should an issue or question arise. A great resource that covers everything you’ll need to complete on your website is the How to start an eCommerce Store in Less than 30 Minutes Oberlo post.

Put thought into your copy.

Many Oberlo users make the mistake of not adding copy when importing products in their store. The bullet points listed are there to give you product details yet don’t help convert sales on their own. Writing a description about the product and selecting the most valuable bullet points will better help you achieve more sales. People often read the copy if they’re on the fence for a product. By writing a short paragraph detailing how the product benefits your customer, mentions features while also explaining how to use the product you’ll be better able to persuade your browser into purchase. For example, if you sell dresses on your store you might mention how great they’ll look at their next event, you might mention how the fabric showcases their figure and recommend shoe colors or jewellery looks that would best complement the dress.

Make your website visually appealing.

Your entire website should be very visually appealing. Product pages should have multiple product images showcasing different angles and uses. Your homepage should have an attention grabbing banner image that allows the customer to picture themselves with the product. Even your blog posts should be very visual. You should have several images, gifs and maybe even a video in each post to separate bodies of text.

Be on multiple social media platforms.

When it comes to social media, many stores make the mistake of only being on one platform. For example, some may only post on Instagram and focus their marketing efforts on there through influencer marketing. Others are exclusively on Facebook as they find Facebook ads works great on their store. However, using a combination of platforms might be slightly more work but gives you a competitive advantage. A competitor can see you’re only on Instagram and focus their efforts on a wider range of social platforms which eventually leads to their business out-performing yours. Being on about 3-4 social networks is often manageable. Don’t depend on one platform as one day that platform may disappear and you’re left with nothing.

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