No matter how successful your eCommerce shop is right now, chances are you’re always looking for ways to drive more traffic to your site to secure more sales.
After all, growing your business is the point of launching an online shop right?
Well, luckily for you, there is never a shortage when it comes to advising on how to drive traffic to your retail store and increase sales.
But how do you know which tips are the very best?
It can be hard to tell which strategies you should put in place to increase sales in your online shop.
And while the tips we are about to share may work like a charm for you, it’s essential you test everything with your target audience to make sure they’re receptive to what you’re doing.
With that said, let’s check out what we believe to be some of the very best ways to drive your eCommerce traffic and sales so you can continue to scale your business and pull ahead of the competition.
4 Actionable Tips on how to drive traffic to your retail store
1. How to drive traffic to your retail store: Take Advantage of Instagram
You should know by now that social media is a powerful force when it comes to driving traffic to your website, whether you sell anything or not.
But what you may not be conscious of is how useful Instagram can be when it comes to driving eCommerce sales.
With over 1 billion active users, to say your brand has the potential to reach far and wide on Instagram is a vast understatement.
The thing is, marketers may not realize that Instagram has become more than just a visual social media platform for sharing cool pictures, following celebrities, and finding out what’s trending in the world.
In fact, Instagram can be used as an actual selling platform that will lead you to garner more sales and revenue than ever before.
Take a look:
You can set your Instagram images up so that when people see something they like, all they have to do is click on your image and the items that are for sale light up.
Doing this gives people a chance to buy exactly what they want when they want it.
It also prevents them from having to go to your bio, find a link to your website, and then find the exact product they’re interested in.
Here are just some of the ways you can get more Instagram followers that will help expose your brand to an even wider audience:
- Join niche related Instagram groups that are full of like-minded people
- Post consistently on a variety of topics related to your online shop
- Promote your Instagram account on your own website by displaying your feed and encouraging follows
- Get real-life customers to share their photos using your products or services as added social proof
- Design your account to match your brand to boost recognition and instill trust
If you do this, you’ll find that not only have your Instagram follower counts increased, but traffic to your eCommerce site and sales have too.
2. How to drive traffic to your retail store: Find Sales Funnel Gaps
In eCommerce, people are going to drop off along your sales funnel for a whole host of reasons.
And, while some of these reasons may remain elusive, if you can find out where some people are falling off, you may be able to pinpoint some reasons why, make improvements, and boost sales.
The easiest way to track activity in your sales funnel is to use Google Analytics conversion tracking.
After setting up your eCommerce conversion goals, you can go to Conversions > Funnel Visualization and view the journey people take from adding an item to their cart to making a final payment.
The trick to happening this work is to identify where people are falling off in the purchase process, come up with ways to improve and perform A/B tests on your theories to see whether your changes make a difference in conversions or not.
You can try tools like Optimizely, VWO, or the free WordPress plugin Simple Page Tester to perform split tests and see which changes help your online sales.
3. How to drive traffic to your retail store: Focus on Your Best Products
According to Pareto’s Law, it’s likely that 80% of your profits come from 20% of your shop’s products.
Knowing this, you need to do two things:
- Find out which of your online shop’s products or services are the best-sellers
- Promote them to all your customers as a way to boost sales
Let’s start with finding out which products or services are the top sellers.
If you use MonsterInsights, a WordPress plugin that connects to your Google Analytics account, you can use the eCommerce Report found in your WordPress dashboard to see what your top products are.
You’ll also see your eCommerce shop’s conversion rate, number of transactions, revenue, and average order value, all of which is helpful for making better data-driven decisions.
If you don’t want to use MonsterInsights, go to Conversions > Ecommerce > Overview in your Google Analytics account and check out the data there.
Next, you’ll need to focus 80% of your effort (or at least the majority of your efforts) on promoting those top-selling products and services to your loyal customers.
And don’t forget to recommend them to new customers too!
You can do this in many ways:
- Publish a “Gift Guide” during the holidays to give people gift ideas
- Email subscribers with coupons, and about exclusive sales, product launches, and more
- Start an affiliate program and encourage others to promote your products for you
- Set up shop on social media like Facebook and Instagram
- Guest post on established websites and promote your best products as solutions
And these are just some of the things you can do to place the focus on your highest earning products and services.
4. How to drive traffic to your retail store: Optimize for Mobile
Tapping into your mobile customers is more critical now that it ever has been.
After all, in this year alone it’s expected that nearly 2 billion people will make a digital purchase using their mobile device.
Not to mention, 60% of people use their smartphones to find products, and nearly 1/3 of all online shopping can be attributed to mobile device purchases.
Here are some of the best variants you can optimize your eCommerce shop for those on the go:
- Personalize the user experience in terms of demographics: location, gender, age, and interest
- Make navigation easy with lots of white space, large font, and easy to click CTA buttons
- Design your mobile site with minimalism in mind
- Optimize your mobile site for speed and performance (use Google PageSpeed Insights to test speeds)
- Avoid popups or sidebars as they are difficult to get rid of and navigate
- Keep all important information above the fold, so mobile users don’t miss the good stuff
- Have a prominent search bar that autofills
The truth is, mobile shopping is not going anywhere any time soon.
So, if you want to make the most of your eCommerce shop, keep customers engaged while visiting your website, and boost eCommerce sales, you’re going to need to optimize your site for mobile.
Final Thoughts
Since eCommerce is an ever-changing phenomenon, it’s important you keep up with the trends and consistently work to make your shop better than it was even yesterday.
After all, your competition is only getting tougher, and customers are demanding more from their favorite retailers.
If you don’t take a proactive approach to boost sales, you risk losing out on significant opportunities and sales.
Just remember, what works for some may not work for you.
So, test out some of the strategies and see how your numbers react. And when you get something that works, keep doing that so you can attract, convert, and retain more customers and grow your business into a huge success.
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Belayet Hossain is a Senior Tech Expert and Certified AI Marketing Strategist. Holding an MSc in CSE (Russia) and over a decade of experience since 2011, he combines traditional systems engineering with modern AI insights. Specializing in Vibe Coding and Intelligent Marketing, Belayet provides forward-thinking analysis on software, digital trends, and SEO, helping readers navigate the rapidly evolving digital landscape. Connect with Belayet Hossain on Facebook, Twitter, Linkedin or read my complete biography.