5 Handy Tips To Help You Manage An Online Store

Have you ever come across an incredible product on social media – we’re talking super unique, one-of-a-kind – only to find yourself stumbling onto an outdated, shoddy website? It’s a jarring experience going from such a dramatic A to B, and the instinctual reaction is probably to shake off the shivers and skip back to the safety of Facebook or Instagram ASAP. Why? One word: credibility. In a world where first impressions matter, it’s imperative to properly manage your e-commerce store to ensure your customers don’t feel uncomfortable or frustrated during their shopping experience.
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Why Does Proper E-Commerce Management Matter?

When a brand’s customer experience falls flat, it’s likely that revenue may eventually take a similar shape. After all, a 2022 study found that 1 in 6 shoppers will abandon a purchase because of a single poor customer experience, and in 2022, more than 60% of customers said that they now have higher customer service standards than ever. The stats don’t lie – investing in customer service will always benefit your business in the long run, and your website is a massive part of the overall customer service experience your brand has to offer. Maintaining a user-friendly website and practicing proper online store management have the power to:

• Establish credibility in your brand. If a brand’s website appears low-quality or poorly constructed, it’s easy to assume that the product or customer service will be, too.
• Drive organic traffic. Helpful content & resources like an FAQ page can give your website a boost in search engines and get more eyes on your brand.
• Create a cohesive experience. Most customer journeys are quite extensive, and it’s essential to emphasize consistency across all platforms & touchpoints with your brand voice and style guidelines to create more trust.
• Improve customer satisfaction. A positive and easy online shopping experience will encourage repeat purchases and increase your CLTV.

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Our Top Online Store Management Tips that Help Maximize Sales

To learn how to manage a website effectively and maximize sales & revenue within your business, we’ve created a list of five tasks we recommend you prioritize before anything else.

1. Regularly update your website

When it comes to managing an e-commerce website, there’s more to it than just setting it up and checking it off the to-do list. To be truly beneficial to your audience and increase sales within your business, your website must be regularly updated to showcase your current products & services (with high-quality photos – grain & pixelation are so 2015), feature helpful content such as blogs or an education page, and reflect your business’ brand standards and core values.  We also recommend performing regular backups of your website to ensure that your content, images, and vital information are stored in a safe and secure place. Though Shopify does some backups for their own records, you will unfortunately not have access to them in the event of an issue or disruption. Therefore, it’s important to stay on top of backups on your own and do your due diligence to keep your Shopify store’s content stored in a safe, accessible place. For information on how to back up your store information with CSV files or a connected app, check out this helpful Shopify resource.

2. Anticipate inquiries with helpful content

As we mentioned, part of keeping your website updated and feeling fresh involves creating helpful content and resources for your customers. Providing blog posts & educational pages not only gives your online store an SEO boost (hello, free traffic), but content that directly answers commonly asked questions gives your brand an opportunity to anticipate potential inquiries and free up time for your agents to handle more difficult or complex tickets. We highly recommend regularly updating and maintaining a thorough FAQ page for these exact reasons that address topics like shipping and return policies and include basic troubleshooting tips for more technical products. Nearly 66% of customers will turn to a self-service option before contacting an agent, which means that a quick blog post or FAQ page on your online store may reduce repeat inquiries and increase customer satisfaction.

3. Optimize with SEO best practices

Search Engine Optimization, or SEO, is essential for driving organic traffic to your website. To stay compliant with Google’s regulations while giving your website a boost in search engines, we recommend using SEO best practices to optimize the following elements on your website:

• Image alt tags
• Title tags and meta descriptions
• Site speed (to reduce frustration over slow load times)

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To improve customer experience even further through proper online store management, we also recommend designing a responsive website that functions well on various devices including mobile, tablet, and desktop.

4. Implement a helpdesk or live chat to manage inquiries

Helpdesk software is a must-have for e-commerce businesses, and implementing one that includes a live chat or chatbot feature can help your brand manage inquiries and improve satisfaction for online shoppers. It can even show customers who reach out via live chat how many customers are in front of them in the line to manage expectations during busy periods. In case you’re interested in implementing a helpdesk within your customer service department, here are a few you can check out:

• Gorgias
• Re:amaze
• Zendesk
• Gladly

5. Utilize your data to improve marketing efforts

Great marketing isn’t born from creativity alone – the best marketing campaigns are influenced by data that can be pulled directly from your website’s analytics reports. Data such as your SEO progress, traffic sources, bounce rate, and top landing pages will provide insight into where you can improve your website to maximize conversions and how you should adjust your marketing efforts to help target the right customers at the right time moving forward. For example, a conversion rate optimization tool like Hotjar with Shopify will help you learn more about your users’ behavior. Seeing where users click or exit on your website will help you optimize forms (such as email sign-ups), micro-copy, or entire pages to improve UX and increase conversions. Plus, you can gain a greater understanding of where potential customers are coming from and how you can update certain areas of your online store to get them to stay.

Increase your revenue online by optimizing your E-Commerce store with TalentPop’s best practices

Whether you’re outsourcing it to a third party or handling it in-house, E-Commerce management is always going to be a huge priority in your business. Even with the best ads and marketing campaigns, it’s not enough to increase conversions if they lead to an outdated or ineffective website.To make a lasting impression on your customers and encourage repeat business, optimize your e-commerce store with the help of dedicated customer service agents from TalentPop. From managing inquiries via live chat to updating content with current data to drive conversions, our team can help you make your website the ultimate revenue generator for your business. Schedule a call with our team today to learn how we can help you make managing your online store easier than ever in 2023.