It may seem obvious, but you must dedicate time to building and implementing your strategy. Ecommerce is driven both onsite and off site however both approaches require an investment of time to monitor and adjust each element.
- Align all your digital media channels to ensure these are interconnected and optimised. Businesses can benefit from using the Facebook Shop feature and also including Instagram in your strategy as Instagram offers great features to drive engagement and can be built quickly given the right content. It also provides an online shopping facility.
- Make sure you invest in good photography. Images sell products. Poor quality images tell the customer that you are happy for this image to represent your business and infer that other business functions such as customer service and returns may also be of a poor standard. Good quality images also provide customers with information on build quality materials size functionality and many other attributes. High quality imagery is as important for services and brand building and it is worth engaging a professional photographer with experience of product photography.
- Make sure you design and create from a mobile first viewpoint. The Irish business-to-consumer e-commerce market “is worth EUR8.6 billion.8 Year-on-year growth has hovered around the 10 percent mark since 2017.” It is projected to grow at 7.8 percent annually to 2023. As mobile 5G becomes more ubiquitous mobile ecommerce will continue to rise. “The amount of Irish businesses with a mobile-optimized website has jumped from 27 percent in 2014 to 76 percent today”, (JP Morgan 2020), and Irish consumers will continue to drive In-app sales supported by the rise of social commerce. YouTube and Facebook are the second and third-most visited websites. The lesson? Get social get networked and put mobile at the centre of your ecommerce strategy.
- Keep on top of current trends both in terms of products and services consumers want, (or don’t), and also the most up to date features and tips being offered by ecommerce platform providers such as Shopify, (full disclosure: we are official Shopify partners), and WooCommerce. It may seem obvious but getting ahead of trends and patterns can really add to the bottom line.
our Local Enterprise Office (LEO), offer TOV (Trading Online Vouchers) towards the cost of setting up and trading online. These are funded to a maximum of €2500 for qualifying businesses.
