Top 6 Ways to Get Repeat Customers to Your Ecommerce Site

Introduction

Most eCommerce store owners and marketers generate new leads, conversions, and sales. Whereas customer acquisitions often drive early business developmental stages, customer retention has more than once proved to be a sustainable way to grow eCommerce websites. According to a Bain & Company research titled The Economics of E-Loyalty, increasing customer retention by 5% can increase profits by up to 95%.

For your eCommerce website to succeed, you must cultivate healthy relationships with existing customers. But this is better said than done. It does take work to have hardcore loyalists and repeat customers to eCommerce websites. It would help if you never assumed that the leads you have won would become loyal customers for life. You have a role to play in customer retention. The following are some of the most effective strategies you must take to earn more repeat customers to your eCommerce website.

1- Focus on Providing Excellent Customer Services

Think of an instance where you received inferior services, either in a physical store or online, and vowed never to return to that store again. It is the same scenario with customers who have a bad experience with your eCommerce store. Believe it or not, customers who have a bad experience with your store will vanish, never to return.

Still not convinced about the impact of positive customer experience on your customer retention? Perhaps these statistics and figures will help change your mind.

- According to a report by PWC, 59% of Americans are more likely to abandon a brand they so much cherish after several bad experiences. In Latin America, 49% will abandon a brand or favorite company just after one bad customer experience. See more details of these statistics in the graphic attached.

- According to a   report by Deloitte  titled the True Value of Customer Experience, customers are likely to spend up to 140% more if they have an excellent first experience with eCommerce stores.

- 74% of global consumers are more likely to consider experience alone when making the buy or not buy decision

It won't be imperative to talk about improving customer experience without mentioning some tips to achieve customer experience. The following are some of the few proven tactics to improve customer experience;

- Constantly communicate with your clients before, during, and after the deal, ensuring that you provide solutions to all their issues.

- Showcase genuine customer appreciation

- Pay more attention to solving customer issues as soon as possible.

- Provide a platform that facilitates a flawless interaction with your customers

- Provide products and services that meet or surpass customer expectations

2- Develop an Outstanding Reward and Loyalty Program

Say you are torn between two sandwich points. The two points offer pleasant sandwiches at equal prices. However, one particular provides a free sandwich for every three sandwiches you buy. Which one will you go for?

The average human loves rewards, and this is why you went for the sandwich point that provides a free sandwich for every three you purchase. The promise that your customers will get something when they return to buy will drive them to choose your brand rather than competitors' brands.

There are several forms of rewards that your brand can adopt. For instance, you can use the free-gift system on a certain number of purchases (like our sandwich example) or purchases exceeding specific amounts. Another great way to adopt a point system where customers earn points on their purchases and can redeem the points to make future purchases. The point system is so efficient because customers will return to your eCommerce store to earn more points.

Freebies and tiers where your customers unlock sure gifts based on their purchase amounts are also great reward systems you can adopt for your eCommerce website. Whatever direction you pick, a loyalty and reward program will significantly impact your customer retention.

3- Invest in Secure and Personalized Website Experience

There is so much that a great website brings on board. Users who have a bad experience with your eCommerce website are less likely to return to your website. The implication is low lead generation, low conversion rates, and low customer retention, all of which lead to high losses.

Your website is the first thing your users will meet when visiting your eCommerce store. Before embarking on building excellent products and offering incentives, you must ensure that you  invest in a great website. But the critical question we must seek to answer is what exactly characterizes a great website? The first thing you should focus on is the website design. A great website design often leads to a positive impression on your customers. As such, you must make the website visually appealing and professional. Secondly, you must make it an easy-to-use website with clear and visible calls to action. Third, optimize your website for mobile. Most people now use mobile phones to browse the internet. Making your website optimized for mobile will provide you with a unique platform to get new customers and make existing customers return.

But most importantly, as you do all these for websites, you must never ignore the security aspect of your website. What will happen if your sensitive data or e-wallet get compromised in the process of shopping online? You will probably never revisit the website. This is why you must invest in the security aspect of your website.

A Secure Socket Layer or SSL certificate is a security protocol that ensures encryption of in-transit data transferred between two communicating entities. Among the various options available in the market, e-commerce sites should go for  wildcard certificates  because they afford premium security to an unlimited number of level-one subdomains such as payments, blogs, and product collection pages under the chosen main domain low prices.

4- Leverage the Power of Email Marketing

Even in the social media era, where ideas and information exchanges happen instantaneously, nothing can beat the power of email marketing. Statistics and figures seem to agree with this fact;

- Almost 99.0% of global buyers check their mail accounts each day

- 80% of experts say that email marketing can significantly improve customer retention.

- For every dollar marketers invest in email marketing, there is a 38-dollar return on investment. (source)

A good email marketing strategy will hold onto your customers for long, remind them about your existence, upcoming events, new product line, among many other things. Such a close touch with customers will drive them back to make repeat purchases from you.

The first thing to get your existing or new customers to sign up for your email mailing list. A standard sign-up link can be a great way to achieve this. Most importantly, ensure that you collect user email addresses and other personal details without breaching their privacy.

5- The Power of Target Marketing

Showing your customer relevant advertisement is another excellent way of winning previous customers. You can craft a more personalized advertisement message depending on their last shopping and product choices, other than sending them general irrelevant messages. Remarketing advertisements can go a long way in highlighting previous customers' products and offering similar yields. Such advertisements will easily convince your customers to make new purchases.

6- Utilize Social Media Platforms

Customers who have previously interacted with your eCommerce store will likely want to follow you via social media platforms. This is the reason why creating active social media platforms is so important. You can use social media pages such as Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, and LinkedIn to update your customers about new products, upcoming events, and all issues relating to your eCommerce store. Social media platforms are also great places your customers can reach out to you when they have problems with your products.

Conclusion

Getting new customers is a challenging task but retaining those customers is an even more complex task. But customer retention is a much more effective way to propel your business to successful heights. You can try out the tips mentioned above to have repeat customers. It would be much better if you implemented all the tips mentioned above. The more approaches you use, the more repeat customers your eCommerce website will receive.