If you have an online store, you surely care about your site, the traffic you generate, its popularity and of course the sales. Your goal is to attract more customers and certainly more money, but you certainly know that those customers could be shopping at the stores of the ecommerce giants. How to compete against that? Can the battle be won?
What to do to compete with the greats of Ecommerce?
The first thing is to start by making a honest self analysis of your online store compared to a Ecommerce giant like Amazon. You will probably find that your store does not offer free shipping, nor can you negotiate lower prices. You also don't have a massive budget for marketing, or a great sales team, you can't even open your distribution channel and do all those things that the greats of e-commerce do.
But what you can do is focus on a specific niche and make sure you are an authoritative source for the products in your segment. That is, you can establish yourself as a expert in your area and through your website, support and marketing, create an authorized image regarding a specific product.
This approach will also allow you to build a community around a product you sell or in the industry your store operates in, linking more people to your brand and your business. Another thing you can do is offer personal communication, particularly when it comes to more expensive items where it is common for customers to want to speak to an expert before making the purchase.
This is why the live chat and phone support they have become so important and are fundamental in ecommerce websites.
If you really want compete with the greats of ecommerce you have to offer exclusive niche products. By doing so you can create an offer that is not available anywhere else, especially through large retailers.