In this article we will analyse a few low-cost eCommerce Sales Strategies that can be very useful for your business.
Dropshipping is a business model that’s ideal for new entrepreneurs that want to start building their company from scratch without much budget.
The fact that no large investments on stock or storage are required means that anyone with that entrepreneurial fire burning in their belly can dropship regardless of how fat their wallet is.
If you’ve already got an online store full of trendy, new products you’re still going to have to make sure you get customers to visit it and buy, so you will need to invest in promotion. Lucky for you, how successful your promotion efforts are doesn’t depend on how much budget you spend, but on how wisely you use it.
To help you find low-cost ways to promote your products we’ve compiled the top eCommerce Sales strategies to help you elevate your dropshipping sales on a shoestring!
Check out the hottest budget strategies for 2021 below!
Look the part: a sleek dropshipping store
All your marketing and promotion efforts point to this: your store site. You can invest all the money you want in expensive and complicated eCommerce Sales strategies, but if your store is difficult to navigate, gets stuck or requires a lot of scrolling then it’s all for nothing.
So first of all, if you want your money to stretch as far as it can go, make sure that your site is pristine and specifically that it’s user friendly and responsive to mobile. There are plenty of low-cost options to help you build your store that require no programming experience or third-party help. Check out our guides to setting up stores in Shopify, CommerceHQ, Woocommerce and take your pick. With stats showing that 54% of total eCommerce sales will come from mobile commerce sales by 2021, you can’t afford to have a poor presence on mobile.
Build loyalty with Private label packaging
If you already have a site and some return customers, you might start to think about building that loyalty a bit more as part of your eCommerce Sales strategies.
And you’d be thinking right because increasing your customer retention rate by as little as 5% can get you an increase in profit of a full 25%! The reward for this little investment is huge!
One low-cost way to increase customer retention and loyalty is private label packaging.
Yakkyofy offers dropshippers this service regardless of how many items they buy.
All you need to do is purchase packaging, a certain number of bags for example, and ask us to print your store logo on them. Our standard bags price is 300 bags for around 60 dollars!
This way your customers will receive your products inside your branded packaging differentiating your store from that of competitors in the same niche.
You will stand out as a much more reliable store that invests in presentation as well as products which will keep your customers coming back for more.
Incentives for the next purchase
Another budget-busting eCommerce Sales strategy offered by Yakkyofy are branded discount cards that can be printed and added to your packaging.
Typically, these discount cards offer a percentage off the next purchase, and they help to show the customer that their purchase is valued.
Given that 55% of gift card users visit an online store more than once, this strategy can massively increase your opportunities to make a sale.
And it’s super easy as well as low-cost: when Yakkyofy fulfils your order, the card will be inserted in the package directly.
Micro influencer: freebies and dropshipping sales
Whatever your niche, there is bound to be an influential public person, blogger, journalist, vlogger or entrepreneur that you need to connect with.
Study their online presence and find micro influencers, people that have some followers but not so famous to claim rich rewards for their service.
You can consider micro influencers,people that have between 2000 and 10000 followers, contact them and offer them one of your best items in exchange for a review or an unpackaging video and your support for their video on their channels.
These are not super famous people so getting nice items and support to their account cna help you create a connection and may even get you a mention or a review on one of their platforms.
This is a low-cost but highly effective way of getting your brand out into the world because if you do get mentioned this will provide you with endorsement as well as amazing visibility via their profiles.
These in turn can even drive more traffic to your store or social media accounts. Having an item recommended by an influencer also goes a long way to building social proof for your products and brand too.
Industry voices to help you sell more
A super cheap way of creating useful, engaging content as part of your overall eCommerce sales strategy is to interview experts in an area that interests your customers.
If you sell cycling products for example, you could interview a well-known cyclist or one of the engineers on a popular bike brand. You can write up the interview onto your blog for a low-cost option or run a video interview.
Like influencers, their popularity will give your store more exposure and position you as the place to buy specialist items.
Customers will keep coming back to your social media channels or site to find out what new useful or entertaining content you’ve got for them. The interviewee on the other hand gets a platform to talk about what really interests them and free promotional content.
Direct emails: a budget solution
Direct mail is far from dead and still has a key role to play in the marketing mix. Reports show that there is typically a 12% increase in positive response rates to multichannel campaigns when direct mail is part of the mix, and as you probably have a business email that you run your store with it’s so low-cost that it’s practically free!
Unlike social media accounts that are affected by time-zone differences and may slip under the radar depending on different platform algorithms, direct emails will always reach the recipient.
To start building an email marketing strategy first compile a customer and prospect list with the emails of store visitors and customers that opt in to being contacted with promotions in the future. Make sure you send them regular promotions and invites to drive them back to the store.
To start building this email list include an email subscription form on your website or a pop-up offering an incentive for signing up. A small discount on the customer’s first purchase can convince them to leave their personal email address with you.
Google ads for dropshippers on a budget
Dropshippers rely heavily on traffic from search engines and Google dominates the market on that front. Google Ads is a pay-per-click advertising network for dropshippers to place ads across Google search, YouTube and partner websites.
Its reach is huge, so take time to learn how to use the Google Ads campaign options to create ads that appear when users search for your product key words or on sites and articles that contain those words.
You don’t need to spend a fortune to improve your ranking, just make sure you select your keywords carefully and set spend limits, so you keep a handle on your expenses.
eCommerce Sales Strategies: Don’t forget Google Analytics tracking
To sell more you need to clearly understand what is doing well, what isn’t and why that is.
Understanding what is working on your site and what isn’t is key to helping you figure out what you need to do more of because it works, and what you need to stop doing because it’s driving potential customers away.
The free and most commonly used tool to help you do this is Google Analytics. Look at how people arrive at your site, what they do there, which pages they linger on and which ones they run away from like a house on fire.
You might discover that one of your pages needs to be rewritten or that one social media channel is bringing you way more visitors than all the others. Use this low-cost information to help you make other decisions too, like where to invest in future social media advertising campaigns.
Discover Affiliate Marketing
With affiliate marketing you pay a small percentage of your sales to partners that market your product and send website traffic to your store. The great thing about this method is that you only pay for the sales you actually get so it’s very easy to track your ROI and to keep costs low.
You can accurately track the return on their efforts by offering a unique url or a coupon code so that when a customer makes a purchase you can see exactly which one of your affiliates got you the sale and who you need to pay a percentage to.
The power of Digital forums and groups
Although it’s become an annoying buzz-word, networking is still an important arrow to your bow especially when it comes to digital communities.
First of all, don’t hesitate to actively join in with forums and social media groups sharing industry advice and tips: the whole point of sharing information is to grow together not to compete.
Second, remember to use social media to dig out forums, groups and chats of people that are into your specific product niche and engage with them in a non-salesy way. Most groups have rules against promoting products openly on these chats but you’ll find that just dipping in to share some knowledge will really help put your store on the map.
Build your brand network
This tip is totally free to carry out: start building relationships with brands and influencers around your niche. Create a network of non-competing brands, services or influencers that know your products and can see the mutual benefit in supporting each other.
Take time to identify businesses that are aligned to yours and work in the same area, perhaps selling air compressors for your inflatable pool toys, and get to know them to discover opportunities for combo deals, joint digital events and much more.
Dropshipper contest and giveaways
Even if you are on the tightest budget ever you probably have a few items you can give away as a freebie in a contest.
Contest and giveaways are almost irresistible, and they also help to create goodwill at a low-cost around your brand -who doesn’t love a freebie after all?
Promote your contest on your social media to drive traffic to your site and collect more emails for your direct marketing efforts.
Ask winners to share their review on the product to get real-life endorsement and prove that you are a trust-worthy seller.
Tap into aspirations with social media
Dropshippers have an advantage over businesses that sell services or ideas: they can actually show their product.
Don’t forget to use this fact to your advantage and make sure you give new items a proper photoshoot so that you can use your images on more visually oriented social media like Instagram, Pinterest and TikTok.
Get creative and try to tell a story about design and beauty. Remember that visuals are huge triggers for aspirational purchases so try to show the product in its ideal setting, creating the dream life that your buyers want to live.
You don’t need to hire a professional photographer, for a more low-cost option check out our full guides on Instagram Marketing and Shopping.
And don’t forget Facebook! It’s far from over.
Facebook ads is still a major platform to make sales and promote your products.
Its targeted campaigns are powerful tools and there are plenty of groups and fan pages packed with active users from your niche to engage with.
eCommerce Sales Strategies: Comparison shopping for dropshippers
As consumers we’re spoilt for choice and most of us tend to shop around before choosing, especially if it’s not something we are buying for the first time.
Make sure you snare these first-time clients and turn them into loyal regulars by getting listed in comparison engines.
Consumers usually rely on Google Shopping, PriceGrabber, Amazon but have a look around and see which ones give you the best return on investment.
Just remember to stay price-competitive and follow their rules or you risk getting booted off.
Want more support? Yakkyofy is your strategic partner
Yakkyofy is the perfect dropshipping partner for you. With just a few click on our dashboard we can help you:
- Create custom Packaging for your products
- Insert Bonus card inside your parcel
- Ship your products in nice bags to your Micro influencers
- Ship your Give away freebies to your customers
So we can basically help you realize most of these eCommerce Sales Strategies easily and a really small investment.
Then thanks to our software you can completely automate all your daily dropshipping business tasks, end-to-end from sourcing to fulfilment.
But it’s also so much more: Yakkyofy is a strategic partner that really understands the needs of dropshippers and what makes their customers tick.
With support on every front, including strategies to grow your brand, we’ll help you get your business booming.
So what are you waiting for? Let us help you take it to the next level!