ECOMMERCE TIPS FOR GROWING FASHION BOUTIQUES

Fashion Book work with many fashion boutiques both online and offline and we understand it can be challenging to grow sales, particularly for a new ecommerce store. Once a retailer has launched their online fashion boutique, the next step is looking at ways to grow your store in the very competitive fashion ecommerce sector. As a fashion wholesaler who works with fashion brands of all sizes, Fashion Book are committed to providing customers with the advice they need to grow their business and sales. Check out tips for growing online fashion boutiques that will help increase conversions, grow traffic, improve customer retention and ultimately boost sales.

Implement a customer loyalty programme

These are often popular with online retailers who are hoping to increase customer acquisition and improve retention rates. Ecommerce stores who incentivise customers to return to their stores see a much higher conversion rate and statistics suggest it’s much cheaper to keep an existing customer than it is to acquire a new one. Loyalty programmes are popular both offline and online; some retailers will provide loyalty cards in store that customers can redeem after a certain amount of visits or purchases. Online customers are rewarded for making a number of purchases or performing certain actions such as sharing their purchases with friends on social media, writing a review or signing up for a newsletter. With loyal customers likely to spend 67% more than new ones, implementing a loyalty programme for your ecommerce store is a guaranteed way to encourage sales. There are several loyalty programme tools on the market with the best ones being SweetTooth Rewards and Loyalty Lion.

Decrease shopping cart abandonment

Statistics suggest that online retailers are losing more than half of their sales due to cart abandonment and this is resulting in billions of lost revenue. There are numerous reasons why a prospective customer may abandon their shopping cart on your ecommerce site; the main reasons cited include off putting shipping costs, having to create new accounts, slow delivery and complicated check out processes. By addressing these obstacles, your online fashion store can begin to recoup those lost sales and often it starts by sending tentative customers a simple cart abandonment email. With fantastic tools from the likes of Big Commerce and Rejoiner, ecommerce retailers can send out customised emails to gently remind customers of their abandoned purchase and even incentivise them with a discount to encourage them to make their purchase. Retailers who automatically sent out these emails experienced a 15–25% conversion rate which resulted in a significant lift in sales that would have otherwise been lost.

Offer same day delivery to impatient customers

In today’s fast paced on demand economy customers expect swift delivery of their products so savvy retailers must go beyond offering standard 3–5 day delivery and provide additional delivery options to entice shoppers. Statistics from courier firm Stuart indicates that retailers were missing out on a £4.9bn goldmine due to a lack of same day delivery options available. With almost 75% of online shoppers surveyed saying they would spend more if same day delivery was offered, savvy ecommerce retailers should consider partnering with same day courier companies to claw back this lost revenue and boost sales. There are several delivery companies that provide same day delivery for online retailers with companies like Shutl offering one hour delivery slots and innovative firms like Doddle that enable customers to collect items in person at their collection centres.

Encourage customers to create content for your brand

For many ecommerce retailers, the challenge is finding budget to create marketing campaigns that will help increase sales. For an upcoming retailer, turning to customers to do the marketing on your brand’s behalf is one of the more cost effective ways to boost brand awareness and sales. Customers who love your clothing are the best brand ambassadors you can find; statistics suggest most people are likely to shop at a store if it comes highly recommended from their peers. By encouraging shoppers to share images of themselves in your brand’s clothing, inviting them to blog about style guides and encouraging them to post product reviews you will have a small army of brand evangelists who will speak highly of your brand and help drive traffic and conversions.