If your business sells products, it simply cannot ignore ecommerce – online retail – in 2021. According to Statista, the UK ecommerce market is set to be worth £80 billion in 2021, with 58.8 million customers buying online (that’s out of a total UK population of 67 million!).

Ignoring the ecommerce market is impossible for any growth-minded business, but how do you go about forging a powerful ecommerce strategy that’ll help your business stand up to the competition and succeed? Check out the tips below to develop yours.

Set goals

If you don’t have ecommerce goals to strive towards, your entire strategy will be ill-formed and incohesive.

Ask yourself what you want from your ecommerce business. Who do you want to emulate or succeed against? What are the typical benchmark results for companies in your industry and niche? By being full and frank with yourself on the reasoning behind your business and what you want to achieve, you will find the creation of your ecommerce strategy is made much easier.

Create buyer personas

It’s crucial you pivot your ecommerce business towards your target audience(s), so create buyer personas that emulate and articulate your customers. These should be informed by market and customer research which helps you understand their product understanding, online and offline habits, company and product preferences, favoured channels of communication and so forth.

Optimize your ecommerce website

Your ecommerce site is your shop window, so it needs to be welcoming and easy to use. Unless you are happy to learn web development, this means hiring a developer. Doing so can make improving your site expensive, sure, but with customers used to high-performing websites, it really isn’t worth scrimping.

Use savings, or if you are certain of your chosen developer’s credentials, applying for a business loan will enable you to inject cash into your ecommerce site, driving sales forward. Just bear in mind it’s crucial you make sure you have a strong mobile ecommerce layout to provide the best user experience – 68% of all UK internet shoppers use mobile.

Produce original content

Your ecommerce site needs to have content populating its pages This will allow your customers to understand your business, what it stands for, the specifics of its products, and important information such as your delivery and returns processes.

All this content should be well-written in line with your business’s brand, and take into account keywords – there are plenty of free tools out there that will ensure you use the right terms to rank on Google. You may also wish to write a blog, giving your audience even more helpful information about your niche.

Optimize the checkout process

If your ecommerce site’s checkout is difficult to use, then your sales will be impacted as a result. Make it easy for users to input information and edit information they have already submitted. Allow them to sign up and save their preferences (crucial for repeat sales). Allow multiple payment options like PayPal. And provide clear customer support information so if they have an issue, they can get in touch.