This post was written by our friends at FreeUp for the TurnKey Playbook for Amazon Blog
Turning to freelancers and boutique agencies to outsource eCommerce operations is not a new concept. It’s been around for a while and it persists to this day because it is one of the most cost-efficient ways to manage certain business processes.
This is particularly true for eCommerce businesses. In 2020, eCommerce businesses can reap a variety of benefits from outsourcing.
For starters, outsourcing lets you focus on your core competencies. Let’s face it, there’s a lot that goes into running an eCommerce store and we don’t always have the skills or the resources to do it. Outsourcing also helps you increase productivity since you don’t have to spend time learning tricky details of eCommerce that are outside of your core competencies.
When you outsource eCommerce operations, you also reduce overhead costs and manage your company’s resources better. Furthermore, you can hire freelancers depending on your current needs so you can save on basic salary, taxes, and benefits.
Over the years, the role of freelancers has evolved particularly in the eCommerce arena. Today, we’re listing down five ways to outsource eCommerce operations in 2020. Let’s get started!
Trend #1: Social Commerce
Now more than ever, eCommerce customers are spending the majority of their time on social media platforms. In 2020, social commerce continues to become an integral part of the eCommerce sphere. It not only supports brand awareness building through social interaction but it also assists customers in their purchasing journey.
Outsourcing Solution
In a nutshell, freelancers can help create a pleasant social eCommerce experience that will encourage users to complete their purchase.
A freelancer can help you capitalize on social commerce and bring in more profit. They can make your brand more relatable and authentic by using visuals that resonate with your customers’ social feeds.
A social commerce expert can also help you monitor your fans’ purchase intent and help you make a move when the enthusiasm for a product is at its peak.
Trend #2: AR and VR Experience
Augmented reality or AR lets customers envision your product in their own spaces. This experience helps build their buying confidence and engages your customers better. This year, more customers are being introduced to this concept, and soon, this will be a crucial part of marketing products and services.
Implementing an AR and VR experience in your online store motivates shoppers by offering them more product guidance. It also provides users with a more customized shopping experience right in the comfort of their own homes.
Moreover, it’s an excellent way for retailers like you to provide incredible value to confused or undecided shoppers.
Outsourcing Solution
While AR and VR are no longer considered an emerging technology, it isn’t always part of every eCommerce business owner’s core competencies. But the good news is you can always outsource this service to enrich your customers’ shopping experience.
Freelance AR developers can help differentiate your brand from your competitors. If you have a mobile app store, they can incorporate AR capabilities. Alternatively, if you have a Shopify store, you can seek the help of an AR developer to get your 3D products into your store using Shopify AR.
Trend #4: Influencer Marketing
In 2020, consumers are shifting further away from traditional advertising and are relying more on recommendations and reviews for their purchase decisions. In fact, 68 percent of people said trustworthy reviews were the strongest influencing factor on where they decided to shop online. Moreover, product reviews turned out to be the most popular type of user-generated content submitted by online shoppers.
Influencer marketing or social media marketing involving endorsements and product placement from people who have expert knowledge or social influence in their field takes center stage this year.
Outsourcing Solution
If you’re new to the influencer marketing game, outsourcing this service is a better option than trying to do it in-house.
A freelancer who specializes in influencer marketing can help you in a number of ways including:
Developing and executing influencer marketing strategies and creative campaigns
Identifying and building relationships with prominent influencers and thought leaders in your industry
Developing content ideas, writing, and curating content for your social media platforms
Researching relevant industry experts, competitors, target audience, and users
Brainstorming creative approaches to influencer campaigns
Staying up to date with emerging trends, technologies, and influencers
Trend #4: Customers Have More Expectations with Order Fulfillment
This year, customers have more demands when it comes to order fulfillment. Customers are expecting pricing transparency and are becoming more wary of unexpected prices and fees. People are also expecting financing options, particularly for big purchases. Moreover, free shipping and multiple shipping options are major customer demands these days.
Your customers also expect to be able to track their orders on your store and to have real-time visibility into the status of their orders. Furthermore, consumers tend to expect a standard delivery period of 3 days. If it takes more than a week, then they are likely to abandon their carts.
Outsourcing Solution
Hiring a freelancer order fulfillment manager can help you stay on top of your customers’ demands this year. They can manage all of your orders across multiple sales channels to increase sales and customer satisfaction.
They can help process orders as they are submitted to your store. They will regularly check on new orders throughout the day so they are processed and shipped out to customers as quickly as possible.
A fulfillment specialist can also be responsible for adding tracking numbers to orders and letting customers know when to expect their package. Finally, they can deal with issues on orders that your customers may come across.
Of course, you can also automate some of these processes. You can always hire a freelance developer who can incorporate features into your online store that will satisfy the needs of your customers.
Trend #5: The Power of SMS
When you decide to outsource eCommerce operations, you should also consider the role of SMS in your customers’ daily lives.
While text messaging isn’t a new concept, not many brands are taking advantage of this medium to communicate with their customers. Did you know that text messages have an open rate of 98 percent, compared to 20 percent for emails?
SMS can be used in a variety of ways including informing users of in-store or online promotions, advertising opening hours, announcing new stock, and requesting customer feedback.
What’s more, SMS is an excellent addition to your customer service strategy. It allows for multi-channel contact points that people can use if they need after-sales support.
Outsourcing Solution
An SMS marketing specialist can help you reach more customers who are glued to their smartphones for most of the day. Some of the tasks they can do for you include:
Choosing the right keyword that’s relevant to your business and will resonate with your customers
Writing automated text message responses and scheduling them to send to subscribers once they join your list.
Creating valuable messages to convince visitors to opt-in.
Growing your list by sharing fantastic offers that customers can’t say no to.
Posting promotions on social media and inserting sign-up widgets and banners on your website
Developing deals and sending them out to customers regularly to reward subscribers for their loyalty
Start Outsourcing with FreeeUp Today
If you’re looking for the right freelancers that can help you achieve your scalability goals, then look no further than FreeeUp. As a freelancer marketplace, it caters to thousands of businesses all over the world looking to save time and money in the hiring process. Sign up today and create an account to outsource eCommerce operations for your business today!
This post was written by our friends at FreeeUp for the TurnKey Playbook for Amazon Blog
While demand planning can be intimidating, it is the backbone of any eCommerce site. Inventory forecasting will help you increase profits, plan your sales goals, and show you when you need to order merchandise.
Turning to freelancers and boutique agencies to outsource eCommerce operations is not a new concept. It’s been around for a while and it persists to this day because it is one of the most cost-efficient ways to manage certain business processes.
This is particularly true for eCommerce businesses. In 2020, eCommerce businesses can reap a variety of benefits from outsourcing.
For starters, outsourcing lets you focus on your core competencies. Let’s face it, there’s a lot that goes into running an eCommerce store and we don’t always have the skills or the resources to do it. Outsourcing also helps you increase productivity since you don’t have to spend time learning tricky details of eCommerce that are outside of your core competencies.
When you outsource eCommerce operations, you also reduce overhead costs and manage your company’s resources better. Furthermore, you can hire freelancers depending on your current needs so you can save on basic salary, taxes, and benefits.
Over the years, the role of freelancers has evolved particularly in the eCommerce arena. Today, we’re listing down five ways to outsource eCommerce operations in 2020. Let’s get started!
Trend #1: Social Commerce
Now more than ever, eCommerce customers are spending the majority of their time on social media platforms. In 2020, social commerce continues to become an integral part of the eCommerce sphere. It not only supports brand awareness building through social interaction but it also assists customers in their purchasing journey.
Outsourcing Solution
In a nutshell, freelancers can help create a pleasant social eCommerce experience that will encourage users to complete their purchase.
A freelancer can help you capitalize on social commerce and bring in more profit. They can make your brand more relatable and authentic by using visuals that resonate with your customers’ social feeds.
A social commerce expert can also help you monitor your fans’ purchase intent and help you make a move when the enthusiasm for a product is at its peak.
Trend #2: AR and VR Experience
Augmented reality or AR lets customers envision your product in their own spaces. This experience helps build their buying confidence and engages your customers better. This year, more customers are being introduced to this concept, and soon, this will be a crucial part of marketing products and services.
Implementing an AR and VR experience in your online store motivates shoppers by offering them more product guidance. It also provides users with a more customized shopping experience right in the comfort of their own homes.
Moreover, it’s an excellent way for retailers like you to provide incredible value to confused or undecided shoppers.
Outsourcing Solution
While AR and VR are no longer considered an emerging technology, it isn’t always part of every eCommerce business owner’s core competencies. But the good news is you can always outsource this service to enrich your customers’ shopping experience.
Freelance AR developers can help differentiate your brand from your competitors. If you have a mobile app store, they can incorporate AR capabilities. Alternatively, if you have a Shopify store, you can seek the help of an AR developer to get your 3D products into your store using Shopify AR.
Trend #4: Influencer Marketing
In 2020, consumers are shifting further away from traditional advertising and are relying more on recommendations and reviews for their purchase decisions. In fact, 68 percent of people said trustworthy reviews were the strongest influencing factor on where they decided to shop online. Moreover, product reviews turned out to be the most popular type of user-generated content submitted by online shoppers.
Influencer marketing or social media marketing involving endorsements and product placement from people who have expert knowledge or social influence in their field takes center stage this year.
Outsourcing Solution
If you’re new to the influencer marketing game, outsourcing this service is a better option than trying to do it in-house.
A freelancer who specializes in influencer marketing can help you in a number of ways including:
Developing and executing influencer marketing strategies and creative campaigns
Identifying and building relationships with prominent influencers and thought leaders in your industry
Developing content ideas, writing, and curating content for your social media platforms
Researching relevant industry experts, competitors, target audience, and users
Brainstorming creative approaches to influencer campaigns
Staying up to date with emerging trends, technologies, and influencers
Trend #4: Customers Have More Expectations with Order Fulfillment
This year, customers have more demands when it comes to order fulfillment. Customers are expecting pricing transparency and are becoming more wary of unexpected prices and fees. People are also expecting financing options, particularly for big purchases. Moreover, free shipping and multiple shipping options are major customer demands these days.
Your customers also expect to be able to track their orders on your store and to have real-time visibility into the status of their orders. Furthermore, consumers tend to expect a standard delivery period of 3 days. If it takes more than a week, then they are likely to abandon their carts.
Outsourcing Solution
Hiring a freelancer order fulfillment manager can help you stay on top of your customers’ demands this year. They can manage all of your orders across multiple sales channels to increase sales and customer satisfaction.
They can help process orders as they are submitted to your store. They will regularly check on new orders throughout the day so they are processed and shipped out to customers as quickly as possible.
A fulfillment specialist can also be responsible for adding tracking numbers to orders and letting customers know when to expect their package. Finally, they can deal with issues on orders that your customers may come across.
Of course, you can also automate some of these processes. You can always hire a freelance developer who can incorporate features into your online store that will satisfy the needs of your customers.
Trend #5: The Power of SMS
When you decide to outsource eCommerce operations, you should also consider the role of SMS in your customers’ daily lives.
While text messaging isn’t a new concept, not many brands are taking advantage of this medium to communicate with their customers. Did you know that text messages have an open rate of 98 percent, compared to 20 percent for emails?
SMS can be used in a variety of ways including informing users of in-store or online promotions, advertising opening hours, announcing new stock, and requesting customer feedback.
What’s more, SMS is an excellent addition to your customer service strategy. It allows for multi-channel contact points that people can use if they need after-sales support.
Outsourcing Solution
An SMS marketing specialist can help you reach more customers who are glued to their smartphones for most of the day. Some of the tasks they can do for you include:
Choosing the right keyword that’s relevant to your business and will resonate with your customers
Writing automated text message responses and scheduling them to send to subscribers once they join your list.
Creating valuable messages to convince visitors to opt-in.
Growing your list by sharing fantastic offers that customers can’t say no to.
Posting promotions on social media and inserting sign-up widgets and banners on your website
Developing deals and sending them out to customers regularly to reward subscribers for their loyalty
Start Outsourcing with FreeeUp Today
If you’re looking for the right freelancers that can help you achieve your scalability goals, then look no further than FreeeUp. As a freelancer marketplace, it caters to thousands of businesses all over the world looking to save time and money in the hiring process. Sign up today and create an account to outsource eCommerce operations for your business today!
While demand planning can be intimidating, it is the backbone of any eCommerce site. Inventory forecasting will help you increase profits, plan your sales goals, and show you when you need to order merchandise.
What Is Demand Planning?
Demand planning utilizes inventory forecasting to improve planning accuracy and align inventory levels with the demand cycle. In short, inventory levels are coordinated with customer demand. You want to have enough inventory to meet demand but avoid overstock. Solid demand planning lowers costs and leads to increased sales margins and profitability.
What Can Inventory Forecasting Do for Your Company?
Inventory forecasting is essential to profitable operations and increased customer satisfaction. Without accurate forecasting, maintaining a lean and nimble inventory can be challenging. Here is how your business can benefit from inventory forecasting:
Reduced Inventory Costs
Accurate inventory forecasting means lean and responsive inventory. In that way, businesses only purchase and store what will sell. Forecasting enables merchants to keep track of sales and anticipated demand.
When you have the right inventory amounts, you don’t need to order more than what will sell, and customers can enjoy accurate and timely delivery of their products.
Plan Your Goals
Know what your goals are for your inventory and ensure that they are realistic. There are many variables in your stock, and you must consider these when goal-setting. If you don’t have some reasonable idea of what will be needed, you run the risk of tying up your capital unnecessarily. Leading you to spend money that will not earn you an immediate return in the form of unsold inventory.
Determine Profitability
Inventory forecasting also makes it easier for you to project anticipated margins. You can determine how much will sell, what revenue you anticipate to receive, and how much profit you will eventually make.
Proper forecasts mean critical business decisions can be made with greater accuracy. For example, decisions regarding business expansion, cutting costs, or requesting outside funding can be made based on projected inventory and sales.
Insight About Your Current Stock
Forecasting provides a framework for obtaining detailed information. If you manage multiple warehouses, you can track the demand and availability of a particular product to determine the quantity you need. Forecasting allows you to plan for the pricing and movement of specific products in advance. For example, a product that sells well on the West Coast might not sell as well on the East Coast. Demand forecasting allows you to optimize your stock so that the right products are always in the right place.
Forecasting gives you visibility into your current inventory so you can make better informed and more strategic decisions. In seeing demand trends by category or product option, you’ll have more information to decide which new products to add to your catalog. For example, if red dresses show increased sales month over month for the last year, you can forecast that demand will continue to grow.
Order What You Need, When You Need It
Want to determine which products will be available and in what quantities? This is another reason to use demand planning. This ensures that you order items only when they’re needed, thereby saving on inventory costs and improving cash flow. More efficient ordering enables you to order the right items at the right time for customers. This leads to effective cost management and continuous growth.
How Does Inventory Forecasting Work?
To determine what inventory you should have, begin with a forecast of future sales. Sales for the coming 30, 60 or 90 days are based on past sales velocity and seasonality of the products.
Consider the following for an accurate sales forecast:
Sales velocity is the rate of sales, minus stockouts (days out of stock). Use sales velocity rather than average sales over the past 30 days because you want to know the rate of sales when inventory is available for sale. If you don’t omit days when inventory was out of stock, then you could underestimate future sales.
Seasonality will inform you if the emphasis for past sales should be on the most recent months or should be on trends from 12 months prior.
Sales trends show you if demand is holding steady or increasing in recent months.
While many factors come into demand planning, you simply cannot afford to ignore it. Inventory forecasting lets you to have the fingers on the pulse of your business. Your inventory will be adequate and nimble, making for greater profit margins and more money for you to invest in your business.
About Inventory Planner Inventory Planner launched in 2012 to help eCommerce merchants save time and money when purchasing inventory to better meet customer demand. Inventory Planner supports merchants as they grow to see information from all of their sales channels. Merchants use Inventory Planner’s replenishment recommendations and assist with inventory planning, forecasting, reporting, and purchase order creation. Learn more about how Inventory Planner helps Amazon sellers to forecast demand and improve profits.
This post was written by our friends at Inventory Planner for the TurnKey Playbook for Amazon Blog
While demand planning can be intimidating, it is the backbone of any eCommerce site. Inventory forecasting will help you increase profits, plan your sales goals, and show you when you need to order merchandise.
What Is Demand Planning?
Demand planning utilizes inventory forecasting to improve planning accuracy and align inventory levels with the demand cycle. In short, inventory levels are coordinated with customer demand. You want to have enough inventory to meet demand but avoid overstock. Solid demand planning lowers costs and leads to increased sales margins and profitability.
What Can Inventory Forecasting Do for Your Company?
Inventory forecasting is essential to profitable operations and increased customer satisfaction. Without accurate forecasting, maintaining a lean and nimble inventory can be challenging. Here is how your business can benefit from inventory forecasting:
Reduced Inventory Costs
Accurate inventory forecasting means lean and responsive inventory. In that way, businesses only purchase and store what will sell. Forecasting enables merchants to keep track of sales and anticipated demand.
When you have the right inventory amounts, you don’t need to order more than what will sell, and customers can enjoy accurate and timely delivery of their products.
Plan Your Goals
Know what your goals are for your inventory and ensure that they are realistic. There are many variables in your stock, and you must consider these when goal-setting. If you don’t have some reasonable idea of what will be needed, you run the risk of tying up your capital unnecessarily. Leading you to spend money that will not earn you an immediate return in the form of unsold inventory.
Determine Profitability
Inventory forecasting also makes it easier for you to project anticipated margins. You can determine how much will sell, what revenue you anticipate to receive, and how much profit you will eventually make.
Proper forecasts mean critical business decisions can be made with greater accuracy. For example, decisions regarding business expansion, cutting costs, or requesting outside funding can be made based on projected inventory and sales.
Insight About Your Current Stock
Forecasting provides a framework for obtaining detailed information. If you manage multiple warehouses, you can track the demand and availability of a particular product to determine the quantity you need. Forecasting allows you to plan for the pricing and movement of specific products in advance. For example, a product that sells well on the West Coast might not sell as well on the East Coast. Demand forecasting allows you to optimize your stock so that the right products are always in the right place.
Forecasting gives you visibility into your current inventory so you can make better informed and more strategic decisions. In seeing demand trends by category or product option, you’ll have more information to decide which new products to add to your catalog. For example, if red dresses show increased sales month over month for the last year, you can forecast that demand will continue to grow.
Order What You Need, When You Need It
Want to determine which products will be available and in what quantities? This is another reason to use demand planning. This ensures that you order items only when they’re needed, thereby saving on inventory costs and improving cash flow. More efficient ordering enables you to order the right items at the right time for customers. This leads to effective cost management and continuous growth.
How Does Inventory Forecasting Work?
To determine what inventory you should have, begin with a forecast of future sales. Sales for the coming 30, 60 or 90 days are based on past sales velocity and seasonality of the products.
Consider the following for an accurate sales forecast:
Sales velocity is the rate of sales, minus stockouts (days out of stock). Use sales velocity rather than average sales over the past 30 days because you want to know the rate of sales when inventory is available for sale. If you don’t omit days when inventory was out of stock, then you could underestimate future sales.
Seasonality will inform you if the emphasis for past sales should be on the most recent months or should be on trends from 12 months prior.
Sales trends show you if demand is holding steady or increasing in recent months.
While many factors come into demand planning, you simply cannot afford to ignore it. Inventory forecasting lets you to have the fingers on the pulse of your business. Your inventory will be adequate and nimble, making for greater profit margins and more money for you to invest in your business.
About Inventory Planner Inventory Planner launched in 2012 to help eCommerce merchants save time and money when purchasing inventory to better meet customer demand. Inventory Planner supports merchants as they grow to see information from all of their sales channels. Merchants use Inventory Planner’s replenishment recommendations and assist with inventory planning, forecasting, reporting, and purchase order creation. Learn more about how Inventory Planner helps Amazon sellers to forecast demand and improve profits.
This post was written by our friends at Nine Supply for the TurnKey Success Blog
Every social media strategy should be as unique as the brand it represents. Approaches will vary based on what you’re selling, who you’re selling it to, where you’re selling it, and of course, how much of a marketing budget you’re working with. A little planning can go a long way toward making your social accounts a valuable asset for your brand. Not sure where to start?
Here’s our 9 steps to a confident social media strategy:
Decide on KPIs
It might seem counterintuitive, but a larger follower base and higher engagement (things like likes and comments) don’t necessarily go hand-in-hand. It’s common for engagement rates to drop off as you rapidly gain followers, both due to algorithms and to the fact that social media platforms want to get you to pay to boost your posts. This is why it’s important to decide what your priority is on each social media platform. Do you value higher engagement versus just wanting to have a ton of followers? Or does your volume of followers speak louder to the companies you are pitching too? Maybe you’re an online magazine, and the daily goal is clicks back to your articles. Find out which key metrics are of the most value to your business, and let those determine your strategy and spend.
Settle on a Budget
Simply put, your budget will determine who you can work with and how much money you can put behind boosting posts. If you already have a full marketing team (i.e. with a marketing director, photographer, designer, copywriter, etc.) and if they’re active on social media and good at staying on top of trends, you might find it best to run your social account in-house. If you only have one or two marketing people on your team (or if you’re running it yourself!), consider hiring an outside team to manage this piece of the pie. In that case, they should do the next 6 things for you, with as much or as little input as you want to give. Just make sure you shop around and choose an agency with a good social media aesthetic (their Instagram page should wow you) and a portfolio of brands that have goals similar to yours.
Split Testing
At Nine Supply Social, we always talk about consistency. But, it’s important to play around a little, too, so you can make sure you’re confident in the practices you adopt. The things that perform best for one brand aren’t always a slam dunk for another. Choose a few things to keep consistent while you play around with variables like imagery, tone, scheduling, and hashtags. When you find a good formula, keep refining it until you’ve built a polished look and feel for your brand. Rebrands will happen, and algorithms change, but it’s important to lay a foundation that your customers come to trust, and this testing early on can help you figure out your secret sauce.
Find Your Audience
Do a quick inventory of the followers your brand already has. Who is following you? Is this your target audience, and if not, you need to either rethink your social strategy, or who your target customer is? Figure out if there’s a particular region where these people live, where they work, where they spend their money. When you have a solid audience nailed down, this will help determine the look and feel you want your social media posts to have.
Establish a Voice
For instance, if the audience you’ve decided to target is young moms, develop a persona based around this psychographic. Make sure that their values and your company values line up, and that you’re communicating this in a tone that they’ll want to engage with. Besides captions, you can showcase your brand personality in your actual posts with motivational quote graphics, funny memes, statistics, or other types of short, easily digestible written content.
Choose an Aesthetic
What’s going to stop the scroll? If you’re a CPG brand or product, you’ll want to take into account the type of packaging that you have, and the colors and branding you’re already working with, so that you can maintain a cohesive look. Look into current design trends and find a color palette that both complements your packaging and can act as a bridge into the trendy world that is social media.
Establish Some Content Pillars
When someone scrolls through your posts, they should see a variety of content, such as lifestyle and studio shots. It’s good to keep things dynamic — for instance, many brands will choose to alternate these two types of shots so that the way the posts line up (by threes), there are never two of the same kind next to each other or on top of each other.
Get Into a Rhythm
Some brands post at the same time every day, while others might post three times a week, supplementing with daily stories. Play around and see what works for your brand. If you notice that you get great engagement on your posts but actually tend to lose followers every time you post, maybe you’re overwhelming your audience by posting too often. At the same time, algorithms often reward freshness and frequency. Try working up toward a more frequent cadence as you accumulate imagery, UGC (user-generated content), and followers along the way.
Tap Into the Talent Pool
Influencers are a great way to get introduced to new audiences and collect UGC that you can repurpose on your own page. Your budget will determine the volume and star-power of the influencer you are able to work with, but even if your budget is $0, you can still find quality partners with whom to collab. Reach out to micro-influencers who seem to resonate well with your intended audience, and offer them free product. Many will do stories for free even if they won’t do a dedicated post. Ultimately what you’re looking for is results, right? Once you find the influencers that give you great results and are easy to work with, nurture those relationships and collaborate with them long-term! The partnership will seem more and more authentic as time goes by and their audience will become very familiar with your brand.
We hope these nine steps will help you build a successful social media strategy even if you’re a newbie to the scene. And if you need help along the way, head to Nine Supply’s social and website for more in-depth blogs and quick social hacks!
This post was written by our friends at SellerFunding for the TurnKey Success Blog
Fund your growing company with an Amazon business loan, and watch as you organically gain more 5-star reviews than your competitors.
How many 5-star reviews do your best products have on Amazon? Now search your targeted keywords, and scroll to the top listing. Notice a difference? More than likely, the items taking up the front page on Amazon have hundreds, if not thousands, of customer reviews. Even though you offer a superior product, you struggle to obtain reviews from your customers. As a result, it’s impossible to stay relevant in keyword searches.
Reviews are powerful. Potential buyers take the time to read reviews from your past customers, both good and bad. The more 5-star reviews you have, the more likely you are to close a sale. But, without the proper funding, you may not have a way to gain new customers and get more reviews. Taking out an Amazon business loan could be the boost you need to improve upon the customer experience your company provides.
Providing the Ideal Customer Experience Requires Money
The most successful small businesses are the ones that offer the best customer service. They know how to make every shopper feel like a member of the family. But, you probably don’t have much manpower to help run this aspect of your business. You’re busy behind-the-scenes wearing other hats, so your customer service department often gets overlooked.
However, if you want to succeed on Amazon’s platform, you need to reevaluate the customer experience you provide. Investing in an automated customer service platform is often the best decision, but you need money to accomplish this. A business loan can help you get the funds you need to grow a loyal customer base.
Instead of taking out a high-interest rate bank loan with ambiguous terms, it’s best to work with a lender who truly understands the demands of running an e-commerce business. Look for an online lender who specializes in financing for Amazon sellers like you. With the right amount of funding, you’ll have enough leverage to improve your customer experience and surpass your competition.
Want More Reviews? Create a Raving Fan Base
Think about the businesses you frequent. What makes you come back time and time again? You most likely get amazing service and find everything you need. Coffee drinkers enjoy the experience they get from their favorite barista every morning. They come in for the caffeine boost but return because of the customer service.
However, as an Amazon seller, it’s trickier to personalize your company. The anonymity of shopping online reduces how much face-to-face contact shoppers have. Without any personalization, they are less likely to become loyal fans.
While you may think brand loyalty is a dying concept, this couldn’t be further from the truth. According to Forbes, 37% of customers make up brand loyalists. What loyalists want are personal and meaningful engagements with a brand.
But it doesn’t have to be this way. Now that you finally have the funds, you can afford to invest in providing a better customer experience. Outsourcing your customer service department may mean the difference between receiving a trickle of compliments or an avalanche of 5-star reviews. Best of all, it all happens organically. Here’s what you can expect to see in return:
Customers receive top-notch service from your automated customer service department.
Shoppers feel appreciated and more connected to your brand.
They become repeat buyers, or better yet, raving fans.
Your loyal fan base wants to see you succeed and leaves glowing 5-star reviews.
You sit back and watch as your product listing rises in search rankings.
Sales soar, and you exceed your quarterly goals.
Great Customer Service Never Goes Out of Style
Whether you are a new Amazon business or have been on the platform for years, customer service should remain at the forefront. Excited, satisfied customers leave 5-star reviews. Obtaining additional funding with an Amazon business loan makes it possible to personalize your customer service department and transform average shoppers into Beatlemania-like fans.
About the Author: Ricardo Pero, Chief Executive Officer of SellersFunding, received an MBA in Finance from Columbia University and has 20+ years of experience in Corporate Treasury and Wealth and Asset Management. As an investor and advisor to companies in the U.S. and Latin America, he enjoys helping start-up e-commerce businesses of all sizes to achieve success.
Need a bit more help generating the reviews you need to gain sales? Check out our Review Generation Accelerator for step-by-step strategies to increase your review numbers!
