4 Strategies To Help You Scale Your Fashion eCommerce Business
/The world of online shopping is getting bigger each year and it’s projected that eCommerce will account for more than $6.5 trillion in sales by 2023. With brick-and-mortar shops slowly becoming outdated and millions of people flocking to online stores, smart retailers are offering their products online.
If you own a fashion eCommerce business, it can be very lucrative because fashion is one of the top categories for online shopping. However, that also means the market is very competitive. To thrive among so many competitors, you need to learn how to scale your fashion eCommerce business.
Focus on retention metrics
If you want to understand the basics of eCommerce analytics, you need to start with knowing your metrics. While there are multiple different metrics you can focus on, when it comes to growth and scaling, the most important thing you need to pay attention to is retention.
Retention metrics show how many customers come back to your store and complete another purchase. With high retention rates, you can grow a loyal customer base of people who will keep coming back to your store for more. Focusing on retention metrics means paying attention to the purchase time-lapse as well as the customer lifetime value.
High retention rates also imply high conversion rates, which is what all business owners are after. Increasing conversions isn’t easy and includes multiple steps that novice business owners generally aren’t able to do.
If you want to increase retention and conversion rates at the same time, you could get help from companies offering CRO services for example, if you don’t have the skills in-house. They can help with conversion rate optimization while letting you focus on more important things.
Stop using inventory sheets
Fashion retailers have been using old-fashioned inventory sheets for as long as anyone can remember to keep track of what’s been bought, sold, and what they have in stock. Inventory sheets can work if you don’t have too much inventory, but you need to ditch this old-fashion approach if you want to scale.
If you’re using an Excel spreadsheet or a paper inventory sheet to manage your inventory, you know how much time it takes to keep track of all your items. It takes a lot of time and is error-prone. Just one small mistake can cause a lot of problems down the line.
The best choice is to forget about all the issues that come with an apparel inventory tracking spreadsheet and switch to apparel software. If you do, you will significantly reduce inventory errors, streamline production, and optimize fulfillment.
Reduce cart abandonment as much as possible
Anyone who has ever run an online business knows how big of an issue cart abandonment can be. It’s frustrating when a customer picks out an item, goes through the entire buyer journey and then backs out at the last second.
Not only is it frustrating, but it also stops your business from growing and costs you a lot of potential profit. Cart abandonment causes eCommerce brands to lose $18 billion in sales revenue each year, which is why smart brands try to minimize it as much as possible.
To do this, you need to ensure your website visitors find it easy to convert to customers. This means your website should be easy to navigate, your customer support needs to be as helpful as possible, and most importantly of all, you should have a streamlined checkout process.
Most cart abandonment happens right at the checkout because website visitors find the process unsatisfactory, too complicated, or a waste of their time.
There are a few things you can do to ensure your checkout process is optimized for conversions:
Have the entire checkout process fit into one page so customers know what they need to do before the purchase is completed.
Accept multiple payment options including credit card, electronic payment, and “buy now, pay later” services.
Don’t surprise customers with any additional fees such as shipping costs that weren’t mentioned beforehand.
Allow guest checkout and don’t require customers to register or sign in to complete a purchase.
Include information on your return policy.
Constantly monitor customer satisfaction
Something every business has in common is satisfied customers. If you want to grow your business, you need to know what your customers think of it. They are a great source of feedback for things that you’re doing both right and wrong, so take advantage of that.
To monitor your customers’ satisfaction, you can send automatic emails with surveys to ask customers who ordered from you for their feedback. You can also use incentives for the bigger surveys you do quarterly or even monthly, if necessary.
Additionally, it’s important to realize that if you want to grow, it’s not only important what customers think of your business, but also what they think of your competitors as well. You can monitor whenever someone mentions your competitors online to see what their customers are saying.
This way, you can see the pain points they’re not addressing with their products and address them to attract their customers.
Final thoughts
If you want to succeed as a fashion retailer in this day and age, you need to offer your products online. Starting a fashion eCommerce business can be a great way to gain new customers and become profitable, but only if you know how to scale your business.
