Many of us expect to magically have a customer base once we have an e-commerce store. We don’t realize that we need to market ourselves to actually bring in the customers. Here are a few tips that will help your sales and boost your customer base!

Make sure the customers are aware of new products and can distinguish them. “New!” “Latest” “Hot New Item!” One thing that always brings customers back, is new products. The more new items you release, the more things to shop for. The more to shop for, the more to buy.

Customers love receiving something for free. If you can, include something for free with purchase. “Buy one get one FREE!”, “Free gift with purchase”, “Free gift on purchases more than $xx”. A big thing with the economy now is people are looking to pinch dollars more and more. By offering something free with purchases, it gives the customer a sense of savings. Even if the gift is just merchandise that advertises your company, it’s still free.

Let customers know the urgency of buying now. Use words like “For a limited time only!” or “Offer ends mm/dd/yy.” This brings a sense of uniqueness, like what they’re buying isn’t going to be at that price for long and if they wait, it’ll cost them more to buy.

Stress the limited amount of product. Use words like “While supplies last!” or “Limited amount available.” Doing this emplies that what they’re shopping for is something rare and special, that it’s something that is hard to find and they should take advantage of it while it’s there.

If your prices are lower than other stores, make sure your customers are aware of that. Have a comparison of price chart somewhere on your site, or have a section dedicated to testimonials from people saying how good your pricing is. When you’re doing this however, be sure not to mention specific names of other companies. Good sportsmanship is part of the game, and pointing fingers only makes you look bad.

Coupons are a great way not only to gain new customers, but to also keep customers. By offering 10% off to New and/or Returning customers they are more inclined to shop with you because they get a discount.

These tips are sure to boost your sales as well as your customer base!

Tags: Consumer Interest, Customers, e-commerce, Sales, Sales Techniques

This entry was posted on Wednesday, January 6th, 2010 at 4:12 pm and is filed under E-Commerce Guide, Running a Business | . You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.