How do you ensure customers remain on your page? User experience matters!
Over What originated from Nanjing University as a celebration for singles and bachelors have now turned into a massive eCommerce campaign popularised by Alibaba Group – Single’s Day. This mega sale phenomenon has been widely participated by eCommerce platforms, brands and even offline retails throughout China; and in most recent years, Southeast Asia. Alibaba reported a whopping USD 74.1 billion (MYR 301 billion) in just one day. A few years after its inception as an eCommerce campaign festival, it has even eclipsed the likes of Black Friday or Cyber Monday in the United States.
“Rome was not built in one day”. Single’s Day or commonly known as Double Eleven have been wildly successful to date due to a few reasons. According to Forbes (2019), Alibaba not only expanded their product categories for shoppers but also expanded their eCommerce inside and outside of China, reaching new markets. The entire experience leading to “11.11” can be exciting for consumers as they are waiting for the year’s largest sale ever.
In the movie Field of Dreams – “If you build it, they will come”. This quote certainly does not resonate with the competitive eCommerce landscape today. eCommerce requires the necessary investment of time, effort and strategies. So, I am going to highlight four pivotal points for businesses who want to leverage eCommerce campaigns in 2021.
Product Positioning
Every business would like to put their best foot forward for the product or service they offer. So if you are in the business of serving the best burger in town, how do you get your customers convinced to try it?
In product positioning, one of the strategies is demonstrating the product value. Does your product help to solve a particular pain point for customers? Does your product provide specific benefits for your customers and users? What about the unique selling points of your product versus that of other competitors?
eCommerce business is not just a simple matter of upload and having it discovered during campaigns. It requires the above questions answered and tested for validation. To do so would be to gather feedback, to know your customers' understanding of your product listing, and if they are convinced with your product positioning. Always remember the KISS principle - Keep It Simple and Succinct.
Successful eCommerce sellers plan their campaigns as early as 9 months
Optimise and Refine
In China, successful eCommerce sellers plan their Single’s Day campaigns as early as 9 months. Devising a marketing strategy gives you a clear idea of how you can reach targeted audiences utilising organic or paid initiatives. This would then dictate the timeline in executing the entire campaign leading to the mega campaign.
Many would be surprised “Why 9 months of planning ahead?”. Here is a simple industry secret – all your prices are tracked. So how are you going to position your products to get the best pricing from the campaigns you have targeted for? These require months of planning. Every other logistic and operation details will naturally follow from there. Going online is a whole different ball game that requires proper planning, continuous optimising and refining.
“In today’s era of eCommerce, user experience matters. Your eCommerce store is not a maze puzzle to be solved; instead, it should be a treasure map with a clearly marked path to the ‘X’ spot.”
Profitability for Sustainability
In Asian countries, the price war is inevitable for eCommerce businesses. However, having deep discounts to succeed in the eCommerce business is clearly a misconception. Everyone loves discounts. Who doesn’t? But for any business, profits help to keep the business sustainable.
Gambling profit margins with constant deep discounts, in the long run, can be detrimental to any business. In my experience when running training courses for my clients, many are surprised there are more than three pricing strategies for every product. Coupling this with applying the different pricing strategies at different environments opens out more opportunities and variables.
Two of the fundamental questions I always ask during my eCommerce masterclass - “How many tiers of product pricing do you have?” and “Which product brings you the highest profit margin?”. Based on their answers we then set out to incorporate some of this critical information into their eCommerce campaign blueprint, which will be their playbook for the year.
My question to readers is this; “What is your plan?”. “Do you have clear strategies during campaigns, to balance between promotion and profit, for a long-term sustainable eCommerce business?”.
X Marks the Spot
Traditionally, a customer may have to travel to a few brick and mortar stores to compare a product they are interested in. With the boom of eCommerce stores today, customers can visit any other eCommerce stores selling the same product as you, in just a click of a button. So what makes you unique?
In today’s era of eCommerce, user experience matters. Your eCommerce store is not a maze puzzle to be solved; instead, it should be a treasure map with a clearly marked path to the “X” spot. So here is an exercise I often do with my clients: Put yourself in the customer’s position and navigate your eCommerce store. While doing this exercise, ask yourself these three important questions – “How to keep them on the page?”, “How can my store help customers find what they need?” and, “How can customers discover what they want?”.
Businesses can leverage eCommerce campaigns to create more visibility and attention. Nevertheless, don’t be disillusioned that it can “magically” get you sales. If you do not have a plan, you are merely driving in the dark. High time to draft your playbook now and get help if you need to. Your “9 months” have started ticking.
Sam Kon is an eCommerce consultant from Beyond Infinity Consultancy (BIC). He is also a certified eCommerce trainer by Alibaba Business School and Taobao University; Enabling and empowering businesses to boost their revenue by going from offline to online (O2O).
