Ideally, you want all of your products, old and new, to sell well consistently online. In fact, your goal should be to increase ecommerce sales every quarter. But that’s not always how it works out. Sometimes, sales stagnate or even decline. Identifying the reason behind this is the key to fixing the problem. With many different factors affecting the sales of a product, it can be difficult to pinpoint exactly what is going wrong (or right, for that matter). But understanding all the internal and external forces at play will bring you one step closer to success.
What 3 internal factors affect eCommerce sales?
It should not come as a surprise that what you do affects online sales. This is good news because internal factors are something you can control. Improving these aspects of your business should, therefore, improve sales as well. So what do you need to pay attention to?
1.) Product Quality
Although it’s not the only thing that matters, having a high-quality product will definitely get you far. Nobody will spend money on a product that simply is not worth it, no matter how hard you try with your marketing. But what determines whether a product is good or not? First, the product must be something people need or want – you can’t sell sand in the Sahara desert! Next, the product must fulfill its intended purpose. Finally, the product must be suitably priced; you must be realistic when setting the price because people won’t pay a fortune for something mediocre.
2.) eCommerce Product Marketing Success
How you market your product makes a huge difference for sales because marketing is often the customer’s first contact with the product. So it’s essential to represent the product accurately. It’s probably tempting to exaggerate and oversell. But if you have a good product, you don’t need to do this – simply focus on what makes your product special and why people should want it. Then, create a good marketing strategy to disseminate your message. The key to amazing eCommerce sales is to identify your target demographic – the people most likely to buy your product. They are who you want to reach. Create marketing and promotional material that will appeal to your target audience, focus on the channels of communication your target audience is most likely to use, get the right marketing tools, and spread the word as wide as you can!
3.) Product availability – current ship times from China are longer than usual.
People won’t buy a product they can’t get their hands on quickly. So it’s imperative to make sure you have the right logistics provider for all the raw materials you need. This should be someone who can respond to your changing online sales needs because you’ll need to adjust to the inevitable variations in demand for the product. You don’t want to overproduce since that will end up losing you money, but you need to keep your product in stock. Otherwise, people won’t have anything to buy.
What 3 external factors affect the sale of a product?
Unfortunately, not every factor affecting the sales of your product is something you can control. Some external forces are also at play. So what do you need to be aware of? And more importantly, when external factors are not going your way, what can you do?
1.) The state of the eCommerce market
Creating a good product, marketing it well, and making sure it’s available will make people want to buy it. But there’s still one more question you need to answer – can they? You don’t have to concern yourself with individual financial ups and downs that everyone goes through. But the state of the economy, in general, will make a big difference. During economic downturns, people are less likely to spend on things they don’t really need, especially when those things are more expensive. This affects all businesses. But it’s also worth examining the state of your niche; even if a global economic crisis is not afoot, trying to market a local business in an area that is experiencing an unexpected downturn will be difficult.
You cannot predict or prevent economic changes, so there is no way to entirely avoid the effect of the market on your eCommerce sales. The best you can do is to try to be flexible. Strengthen your business at a time when it’s doing well; then, if your sales drop due to market changes, cut costs and dip into savings until you can wait it out.
2.) Consumer behavior/market research
Customers’ wants and needs change all the time. Sometimes they will prefer to buy things in-person from physical stores; other times, they will focus on e-commerce. Some demographics will respond to novel and creative marketing, while others prefer traditional methods. Big businesses with established brands may rely entirely on inbound sales; small and new businesses, on the other hand, often gain more by reaching out to customers and working on outbound sales. It all depends on your business, your product, your target demographic, marketing trends, societal changes, and more.
This is not something you can change. Instead, you’re the one who needs to adjust to keep eCommerce sales going strong. So keep up with relevant developments in business to make sure you’re adopting the right approach to sales at all times, whether inbound or outbound. Responding to the changes in consumer behavior is the best way to ensure your sales remain steady.
3.) The current success of the eCommerce sales competition
No matter how small and specific your niche is, you will have competition. How well they’re selling will affect your sales too. When competition is fierce, it’s a lot harder to succeed, but when your competition is not doing well, you can expect to see improvement in your own sales. That’s simply how business works. As much as possible, you should see this as an opportunity. You can learn a lot from your competitors. When they’re doing poorly, avoid repeating their mistakes and take the chance to profit from eCommerce sales. When they’re doing well, try to use their tactics to improve your own.
In closing: Analyze the situation to identify which factors are affecting your eCommerce sales when you notice a change
Regardless of whether your sales are getting better or worse, it’s good to know which factors affecting the sales of a product are responsible for the change. If your product is selling well, you’ll want to know why; then, you can keep doing whatever you’re doing right. On the other hand, if your product is not selling, knowing what went wrong is the key to recovery. Either way, you’ll need to analyze the situation well. Start with the obvious – the state of the market and the availability of the product. When you’ve eliminated that, turn to the customers – has their behavior changed recently? Finally, see if improving the product itself helps. The goal is always to increase sales, so learn from every success and failure.
At Search Strategy, we specialize in doing market research that will help you to identify which products will work and which ones won’t so that you can move forward in your ecommerce business with confidence and conviction that your product investments will pay off!
Photos used:
https://unsplash.com/photos/OApHds2yEGQ
https://unsplash.com/photos/dMjkQJs58uo
