The e-commerce industry has sky-rocketed over the last decade, with the total number of e-commerce sales up 313% between 2010 and 2019. And this will only continue to grow over the next ten years. 

And we can see the results already forming, with the newest decade getting off to a flying start as the COVID-19 pandemic accelerated online spending. Last year, businesses saw years worth of growth in just weeks. In fact, at the height of the pandemic online businesses saw 10 years of e-commerce growth happen in just 90 days.

Why are we telling you all this? 

Well, it’s clear that though the e-commerce industry is booming, competition is also at an all-time high. 

So, if you are planning to start an online business or perhaps have recently taken the leap, this can be disconcerting. However, there is good news. 

We have pulled together some top tips for you to help you capitalise on this e-commerce boom and make your business a success in 2021 and long into the future. These are:  

1. Don’t rush your big launch 

No matter how keen you are to get going, you need to make sure you don’t rush the launch of your e-commerce website.

Make sure that before you hit that publish button on your website, you’ve laid all the groundwork. This means getting your web design right, setting up social media channels, working on your content and SEO, etc. We’ll look at some more of these steps in detail later on. 

But essentially, don’t rush yourself, otherwise, you might make mistakes or not be completely happy with the finished product. And hey, you only get one opportunity to launch your business. 

2. Ensure you have an engaging web design 

Although you can work on your website over time, you want to make a good first impression. Therefore, you want an engaging design that shows off your branding and is easy to navigate. 

Remember, visuals are important to consumers and believe it or not, many would be less inclined to buy from a business if they didn’t like the overall design and layout of the website. Plus, you want your website to stand out from the competition. 

However, although you want it to look good, you also don’t want to go overboard. Make sure your website is simple and easy to navigate so visits can find all the products or information they need. If you’re nervous about getting your design right, you could either hire a professional or use one of the professional templates on e-commerce platforms like Shopify. 

3. Spend some time focusing on your content 

The overall look of your design is important but so is the content within, and this can be such an important way to build your brand, drive leads and boost sales. So if you want your e-commerce site to succeed, you need to consider your content; this includes: 

• Your ‘about’ page 
• Web page descriptions 
• Product descriptions 
• Blog posts (and guest posts)
• Social media content
• Reviews and testimonials (if you have any) 
• Other PR and marketing materials 

By focusing on your content creation efforts, you can build your email list, give valuable insights to your customers and strengthen your brand. You also need to take search engine optimisation (SEO) into account very early on. We’ll look at this in more detail below. 

4. Start early and stay on top of your SEO efforts 

SEO is one of the best ways to help you beat your competition, something which will be very important to the success of your business. In order to ensure you don’t have to go back and do a labour-intensive refresh of your content, you should start your SEO efforts early on. 

This means link building through your blogs, creating lots of genuinely useful content and optimising for keywords. Again, if you’re concerned about how effective your SEO strategy will be, you can seek out professionals services to help you with this. 

But know that SEO is important for driving organic traffic to your website and helping you to rank well on search engines – so it really is very important and deserves your time and attention.

5. Make sure you think about the user journey and your customer experience 

Customers are the lifeblood of any business; without them, well, you don’t really have a business. Therefore, they need to be your top priority. This means a number of things:

• You need a system in place to offer support and customer service, even outside business hours 
• You also need to make sure you’re engaging with customers through great content 
• Your website needs to be user-friendly and make their journey from discovery to purchase as easy as possible 
• You want to offer the best possible shipping and delivery (if you’re selling products and not services)
• Ensure you’re pricing is reasonable and competitive 

And this list is not exhaustive; you need to make sure that your customer service is top-notch. You can use online surveys and review sites to gather feedback from customers and see if there are any areas you need to improve on. 

6. Make sure you’re mobile-friendly 

One of the most important things you need to do in 2021 is to build your e-commerce business with mobile in mind. This means ensuring that your website is optimised for mobile and perhaps even considering your own app to make purchasing even easier. 

This is because 54% of e-commerce sales will come from mobile in 2021 and if your site isn’t optimised for mobile, this could cost you customers.

7. Continue to improve and evolve 

Finally, remember that the work doesn’t stop after your launch; you need to make sure that you’re constantly evolving and improving your offering. This might mean new products, better customer service, better delivery partnerships and updating your website.

You should gather reviews and testimonials and listen to your customers; they’ll be able to give you insights into your e-commerce business’ strengths and weaknesses. This can help you improve and become as competitive as possible.