So missing the mark with this group is simply too detrimental to think about. But getting your marketing right for millennials is no easy task: This modern group is much more interested in finding businesses that reflect their own personal views on sustainability, the environment, and social injustices. No longer is it about cheap clothing and pops up ads; millennials want to invest in businesses that are giving back.

Make a difference…

Research shows that millennials aren’t persuaded by generic marketing. They give their loyalty to those companies that are making a difference; whether that’s through small donations from each product bought, being Fair Trade certified, or re-investing their money ethically and sustainably.

Systems like ReturnGo can work with you on this. While millennials are thinking about the impact of their purchasing behavior, many are moving to be a little thrifty – heading to local charity shops or shopping second hand on Facebook Marketplace and Depop.

Integrating ReturnGo allows customers to receive store credits for donating the products they want to return. Naturally, this benefits a business as it reduces the cost of re-stocking and refunds, but also shows an awareness of waste and encourages customers to donate to charity.

…and shout about it

While you’re making sure your company is based on great, ethical foundations, you need to make it known. All of this is perfect for content curation – be it on social media, campaigns, and blogs.

87% of millennials are more likely to purchase something if the company is making a social or environmental impact. Show your compassion for the supply chain and create great content related to your company’s ethical and environmental changes.

Nobody Says ‘Lol’ Anymore

Avoid buzzwords in your advertising. Nothing says cringe like a company using words like ‘fleek’ ‘bae’ or ‘totes’. Make sure you are up to date on the right wording to say to reach your millennial customers.

Bring in those reviews

Young people read online reviews religiously before trusting a company. And the opinions of their friends and family are a big contributor to their purchasing behavior. So the more authentic reviews you can get on popular sites like TrustPilot, Facebook groups, and even word-of-mouth, the more likely you’ll win the order.

And how do you win great feedback? Just keeping being you and providing your customers with excellent customer service, streamline order processing, and an easy to navigate website. You can encourage people to write reviews by offering a small discount on their next purchase. It’s a win-win situation; you gain a repeat customer as well as a review, while the customer feels rewarded.

Push for user-generated content

In a similar vein, millennials are all for user-generated content. Not only will they give you amazing social media pictures of your products in use, but they’ll also attract more customers organically to your site by writing their honest opinion on the service. All you have to do is repost this content and that’s one less job you’ve got for the week!

Get engaged on mobile

If you’ve ever wondered how social media can be a full-time job, millennials are the answer. No longer is social media something we can schedule a month in advance and leave it to tick over till it’s time to schedule some more posts. Millennials are active online constantly; and as such, they expect you to be the same.

You’ll need to work extra hard to keep this group loyal and engaged, and they’ll expect you to retweet their content, respond to their comments and build a rapport with them that feels personal.

Marketing to millennials is less about ads and pop-ups, and more about great content and communication. Those ads you’re posting on all the ‘cool’ websites that don’t seem to be making a difference? Well, 63% of millennials use an ad blocker on their web browser. So it’s not that the ad content isn’t good, your ads just aren’t being seen. Catch the attention of this age group through real, authentic content, and shift your marketing budget from Google Ads and offline to Facebook and Instagram.

And just in case you haven’t enough to think about with all of this, you’ll also need to make sure your website and ads are mobile optimized. With this demographic, a high proportion of internet use is via their mobile; there’s very little they can’t do on their cell.

Phone Calls: A millennial’s last resort

This age group has grown up in the era of live chat, messenger, and WhatsApp. If a customer has to wait days for a reply to an email, they’re likely to go elsewhere. Similarly, if your only option is a phone call, you’ll probably answer the phone to some very frustrated customers. Adding a live chat feature on your site allows customers to get a response within moments and communicate with you in their preferred way. It’ll also help your customer service team manage multiple queries at the same time.

These are just a few ideas to help you market to this demographic. It’s all about giving a real and authentic version of yourself online and show how your company is the right company.

No matter how much you love Christmas, gift shopping is stressful. The lines, the crowds, the empty shelves… it’s a lot to take in. Thankfully the mulled wine, twinkling street lights, and carolers’ noise make it that little bit easier.

Online shopping is a breath of fresh air for a lot of us — it’s easy, smooth, and can be done from the comfort of our couches — but it lacks the Christmassy feel you get when shopping offline.

As an E-Commerce business, the rush doesn’t stop at Black Friday: It’s your responsibility to add a little festive spirit to the shopping experience and keep your customers feeling happy and organized throughout the holiday season.

Keeping Online Customers Happy This Season

Be Accessible

With more store visits, you’ll inevitably have more questions to answer. Prep your customer service team so that they all provide consistent, professional, and personal feedback, or integrate a Chatbot to help with the rush.

Chatbots are a great way to keep customers happy, as they can access help 24/7 — perfect for those doing a bit of secret, last-minute gift shopping in the middle of the night.

You’ll need to handle all your email accounts, contact forms, and social media channels so that you don’t miss any messages from potential customers.

Once orders have been placed or even delivered, you should take time to email customers to see if they are happy with their order or if they need any more assistance. This level of service will score you repeat customers and brand loyalty that sees you into the New Year.

Say Thank You to Special Customers

If you’ve got some repeat customers that really stand out, send them a Christmas card to say thank you for their support. This super personal finishing touch is such a lovely surprise and will secure the customer’s loyalty to your brand. Who doesn’t love unexpected Christmas cards?

If you don’t want to send a physical card, send them an email with a personalized discount — gift them while they gift others.

Use Nice Packaging

We’ve previously mentioned the importance of using more sustainable packaging, which is so essential at Christmas. The festive period sees around 3 billion tons of extra packaging waste than other times of the year.

Using branded packaging, or packaging that’s nicer than usual is great for making customers feel extra special about their purchase. According to Dotcom Distribution, 61% of online shoppers get more excited about receiving branded packaging, and 44% of customers believe branded packaging makes the product feel worth the cost.

Similarly, 40% of people have a better perception of brands if the packaging is gift-like, which influences them to buy from the brand again.

Those are some great stats, and they make total sense. If you’re an online business, you can even offer a ‘this item is a gift’ button on your order forms, so you can make their order look even more special. You’re not only saving the customer a job but also saving the need for more wastage. The customer can gift your product without unpacking it, bin the wrapping, and re-wrap it.

First impressions go a long way, so if this is the customer’s first order, using nice packaging will really leave a lasting impression.

Clear Up Your Returns Policy

Unlike other times of the year, orders are more likely to be gifts rather than for personal use. That means there’s a chance the receiver might not actually like the gift or need it in a different color, size, or style.

You’ll need to make sure your returns policy is clear and accessible. Make sure it’s easy to find on your site, and allow for a larger return window. January will likely be a busy month for returns, so ensure your returns policy is clear from the get-go to avoid disgruntled customers in the new year.

Offer Self Service: FAQ Pages, Order Tracking, Return Resolutions

It’s a busy time of year, so try to make as much as you can self-service. Allow customers to answer their own queries by planning out an FAQ page. Keep customers in the loop about their delivery by providing them a tracking number they can use themselves. Enable them to return items without having to ring or email.

ReturnGO is the perfect addition to your business’s holiday period. While you’re focusing on making your customers feel special and accommodated, our AI return resolution system can help customers looking to return items. ReturnGO will offer customers store credits to cancel their return request, so you have less to worry about. Customers can use the service without contacting your customer service team and can choose from a number of solutions that work for them.

That’s How to Keep Customers Happy!

So, there you have it. These are just a few ways of keeping your customers happy during the busiest time of the year. It’s easy to get caught up in discounts, marketing, and business strategy, but what matters is the customer. Customers are open-minded at Christmas and are much more open to switching their loyalty to new brands that offer the best service.

For those looking to start a dropshipping store in 2021, there’s good news and bad news…

The bad news is, you’re unlikely to become as rich as Amazon guru, Jeff Bezos. But the good news is that despite the dropshipping market being somewhat saturated, there’s still potential to make a decent income from it.

What actually is dropshipping?

Dropshipping refers to an order fulfillment strategy where you sell products on your site while the stock is held by the supplier elsewhere. The supplier takes care of everything after you’ve received an order; from packing the items to shipping the goods.

Why is dropshipping so popular?

There are so many benefits to having a dropshipping business, rather than buying in stock to sell. Here’s just a few:

There are no risk or start-up fees

The biggest draw to starting a dropshipping store is the limited risk that’s involved in setting up. With dropshipping, you don’t need to invest in stock beforehand, so there’s very little upfront cost. So, you can set up your store, find a dropshipping partner, and get selling. If it doesn’t work out, you don’t have to worry about getting rid of leftover stock or wasting money.

You can work from anywhere

As someone else is handling the logistics of your store, you can set up camp anywhere in the world. Take a trip to Dubai for a few months and work from the beach, or head out for a ski trip in the alps and keep your business ticking over while you’re away. Dropshipping gives people the flexibility to really live the life they want, while still earning money. It’s also a great business model for families or single parents who want to be able to work from home and save money on childcare.

There are endless niches to explore

Whether you start off as a small jewelry company and grow into an all-singing-and-dancing fashion store, or want to focus on tech gadgets, homeware or more, there’s a dropshipping partner for just about anything. It’s best to start off with a niche so that you can work on attracting a certain customer, and then build from there.

Two huge niches to consider if you’re starting your own dropshipping business is health or eco-friendly goods. The environment and sustainability are a huge trend that isn’t going to slow in momentum anytime soon, so this is a great niche to explore in 2021.

Are there any downsides to dropshipping?

Of course, with all good things, there are some downsides – especially after 2020 where many people set up their own businesses as a new source of income in uncertain times. So, what are the downsides to dropshipping?

Not everyone will succeed

In fact, Dropshiplifestyle suggests that almost 90% of new dropshipping businesses fail within the first three months. That’s a pretty scary number, so it might be worth having a backup plan just in case.

The industry is hugely competitive, especially with the likes of Amazon, eBay, and AliExpress only becoming more and more advanced. And the secret to their success? Always having the lowest prices. But when you’re just starting out, you need to build a good sales reputation with partners in order to unlock cheaper prices. So why would a customer buy from your store when Amazon is cheaper? This is why it’s crucial to have a niche and market yourself to your fullest ability.

Profit Margins Are Quite Low

Dropshipping products are typically quite cheap to buy, which means there’s not a lot of profit per product. If you mark up the product too high, you’ll likely deter customers. Too low and you’ll be losing profits. Both you and the manufacturer are looking to make a profit, so finding the right balance for cost efficiency is the key to success.

Take for example and an eco-friendly bamboo toothbrush holder. The manufacturer might make the product for $1.5 and charge you $3. If you want to make a profit, you’ll need to charge $4-6 which could seem pretty expensive considering other stores will offer it for cheaper.

Delivery Times Are Quite Long

While the manufacturer handles the logistics, you’ll of course need to pay for it. Many manufacturers will be based in China, which means you can expect long delivery times and expensive shipping. Often, the average time for delivery is 21 days, which is pretty long when competing with the likes of Amazon. If you want to offer your customers free delivery to compensate for the delay, you’ll also need to add the price of shipping into the product price, which could add a few dollars.

It’s difficult to fix customer complaints

If a customer doesn’t receive the item they’ve ordered, or it arrives broken, they’ll be looking at you for a refund – not the manufacturer. With dropshipping, you have very little control over quality assurance and shipping, so customer complaints can be hard to fix and will often end in a refund.

There are some dropshipping partners that will require you to pay to set up and access their product range. These suppliers tend to be more trustworthy; their products are of higher quality and their shipping is more reliable. If you have a small amount of money to invest in a dropshipping partner when starting up, this is highly recommended.

The key to dropshipping success

The real secret to dropshipping success is your brand image. Marketing and customer service will all tie into creating a great brand reputation that will help you build loyalty within your customer base. By handling complaints professionally and quickly, advertising your best products, and producing beautiful content that really sells your inventory, you’ll be able to build your own brand and grow your business.

But how do you build an email list?

There are hundreds of ways to keep customers engaged through email, but getting them to sign up is trickier. We are all bombarded by social media ads and email marketing every day, why would we want to sign up for yet another inbox filler?

When a customer does sign up to your newsletter, it’s because they want to know more. Whether that’s more about your company as a whole, gaining discounts for items they’re interested in, or keeping in the loop with new product launches.

To get more customers interested, and onto your email list, we’ve collated a few of the best ways to build your subscriber list for your online business.

Offer new subscribers a discount

You’ve probably seen hundreds of companies offering a discount for signing up to their newsletter. And, you’ve probably signed up to a fair few for exactly that. Offering new subscribers, a discount on their first order is one way to guarantee a few more purchases, as well as build your email list. Most of us cannot resist a freebie or saving money, so the incentive is very tempting.

Offer Discount at the Checkout for Signing Up

Rather than agitate site visitors with a pop up immediately as they land on your site, place your sign-up form and discount incentive at the checkout. Not only does it provide the customer with a small surprise discount on the order they’re already willing to place, but it gains you a subscriber in a smooth and less abrupt way. 7 out of 10 visitors of online stores make it to the checkout, and then abandon their cart at the last minute. By providing the discount when they’re still deciding on whether to purchase their basket, you can boost sales, reduce abandoned carts and gain a following.

Host A Competition

Host a giveaway or competition which requires entrees to sign up for your newsletter. While some might immediately unsubscribe after the competition ends, a lot will continue to follow your brand and stay updated with your content, products, and sales. Hosting a competition is also a great way to boosting your visibility on social media, and introducing the world to your brand in a fun and exciting way.

Provide Toolkits, Guides or E-Books

By providing specialized information in the form of downloadable guides, toolkits, or E-Books, there’s much more incentive for people to sign up. For example, if you’re an online travel agent, offer a travel phrasebook for specific countries. An online fashion store can provide styling guides or measuring guides. Meanwhile, if you offer niche products for a certain industry, you can show site visitors your expertise in your field with an E-Book. All of this content helps you gain new subscribers, while also helping you gauge what kind of content is interesting to your readers and customers.

Once you’ve got your incentives in place, make sure you are using a great emailing platform that offers subscriber segmentation. That way, when a customer subscribes to your newsletter, they can select the types of email they are interested in. You can segment your following based on product categories, their interest in blogs, discounts or exclusives, etc. This will help you to keep your email list engaged, as you will only be sending emails relevant to their specific interests.

These are just a few of the ways in which you can build your email list in 2021. There are so many creative ways to do it, that it’s always good to check your competitors to see the tips and tricks they’re doing to engage with their community.

The new year typically brings an increased interest in personal growth: A lot of people will already have resolutions to lose weight, exercise more, or even journal every day. But who says resolutions can’t be for business goals too?

Starting the year off with a set of clear goals will keep your team motivated and focused. As we’ve mentioned in previous posts, goals are easier to stick to if they follow the SMART acronym:

Specific

Measurable

Achievable

Relevant

Time-bound

As long as you can measure your goal’s success, it doesn’t matter whether you achieve it or not. Goals are just a good way to get the team focused when they get back from the festive break.

To help you get started with your goals for 2021, we have created a list of ideas that are all great for E-Commerce businesses. 2020 was a year of growth and development for the online world, so you need to stay in the loop and keep up the momentum.

Improve the quality of site traffic

Not everyone who ends on your site will be interested in buying your product. That’s just the way the industry goes. Rather than setting the goal to ‘increase traffic’, it’s important to find a way to increase high-quality traffic. High-quality traffic is those people who actually would buy your product.

Use a tool like Google Analytics to find out more about your current customers, and the visitors who aren’t sticking around. From this, you’ll be able to find key information like age, gender, location, and use this to create better marketing campaigns tailored to the correct people. By targeting more specific audiences, you’ll naturally increase your highly relevant traffic, rather than wasting money on broad searches.

Grow Your Mailing List

Newsletters are still a hidden gem in the online world. Sure, your open rates might look a little weak, but as we’ve discussed above, those who are signed up are usually high relevancy and high-quality traffic. So even if they don’t open every newsletter sent their way, the emails they do open might just tickle their fancy and turn into a sale. The ROI of mail marketing is way higher than typically marketing too, so it’s totally worth your time and effort. A super-easy way to increase revenue and grow your list is by offering a small discount on their first order if they sign up.

Get Ahead of SEO

The world of SEO is ever-changing. So, if you’re using an SEO strategy from way back when then it’s likely not doing a great job anymore. Google is constantly changing its algorithms, so to stay ahead, you’ll need to keep in the loop with their changes and improve your own site accordingly. Google no longer accepts repetitive keywords; it can tell the difference between plurals and singular and can identify when sentences actually make sense. Avoid keyword cannibalization and just focus on how your content sounds. This is the simplest way to rank highly in searches.

Start Influencer Marketing

Use our guide on influencer marketing to get your foot in the door. This new form of marketing is still fairly scary for businesses, but by introducing the idea slowly at the beginning of the year, you’ll be confident and prepared for the festive period in 2021.

Reduce the workload for Customer Service

If you’ve not already started using chatbots to manage the new demand for online business, this is definitely something to consider in 2021. We’ve already discussed how great a chatbot can be for your company, and your customer service team will welcome the help after the busy festive period. Check out our article on how chatbots can work for you.

Improve Your Sustainability

If there’s one thing every business should do in 2021, it’s becoming more sustainable. Sustainability has been a huge consumer trend over the past few years, and there are no signs it’s slowing down. Find one thing in your business that is having an impact on your carbon footprint and look at ways to improve. Alternatively, you can also use this resolution to make your business more cost-efficient. It’s often the case that those parts of your process that are quite costly, also have a bad impact on the environment — for example, packaging and returns. Read our article on how to make your business more eco-friendly.

Reduce Your Returns

There are several ways in which you can reduce the number of returns your business is processing. The first key option would be to review the current reasons people are returning your products. Is it a manufacturing fault? Are the items arriving damaged? Is the product the wrong size? By reviewing your current product range to identify any issues, you can quickly improve your service and in turn, reduce returns and the cost to your business.

Another way would be to provide customers with an alternative to return their goods — that way you don’t have to waste time, effort and money processing and restocking. ReturnGO handles customer return requests by offering each customer a personalized amount of store credits to cancel their request. The customer can then either donate the product, keep it, or even return it at a later time. Not only does this reduce stress within your office, but it also rewards the customer and provides you with repeat custom.

So there you have it. Following some of the biggest tech and consumer trends, you can easily create your own measurable goals that will help you stay focused in the New Year. Good luck, and we can’t wait for 2021 to be your best year yet!

So, in another year’s time, what will the customer service landscape look like? Well, it’ll be even more demanding, and with that, you’ll either need more staff or more technology.

That’s where chatbots come in.

Chatbots have become a total norm over the past four or five years. Almost every online business uses some level of a bot to help improve their services. If you’ve spoken to a customer service team through a ‘live chat’ on social media or a business website, you’ve probably been messaging with a chatbot.

Chatbots are very much a love-hate topic: Businesses love them, but customers… not so much. But that’s because chatbots are still in their infancy, and although they have very much developed since the days of simple, clunky bots, they are constantly developing and getting better.

What does your customer service look like now?

The first thing to think about before integrated chatbots into your business is what your customer service currently looks like. According to Statista, 79% of consumers who file a complaint about bad customer service have their complaint ignored. Ignoring complaints is one sure-fire way to get a bad rep and lose sales. Complaints should be used as a tool to improve your services for everyone!

Other customer frustrations include:

Lack of knowledge: Do your team really know what they’re talking about?

Lack of speed: Is your team dedicated to customer service day in day out, or are their priorities elsewhere? Do you have an out-of-hours customer service staff that can answer calls or inquiries at weekends or evenings?

Staff who are unable to resolve issues: Are your staff trained in resolving the most common problems such as shipping, returns, and payment processes?

Before adding chatbots to your team, it’s best to focus on your human team first: Get them trained in the simplest and more complex issues your customers might experience. That way, chatbots are a helpful addition to your workforce rather than the main option.

What are Chatbots & How Do They Work?

Chatbots are complex tools that can really benefit your business. They use a ‘natural language processing’ technology (NLP) to understand words and phrases. Higher quality chatbots also use artificial intelligence to make them seem even more human to the customer. Some bots are now so smart, customers barely notice a difference between the machine and real customer service teams.

Bots help your business work more efficiently. While your customer service team might be fully prepped and experienced in helping your customers with all of their questions and queries, couldn’t their time be used for more complex issues, rather than answering the same simple questions over and over again?

Well, this is why chatbots are really handy. Chatbots can help those customers with simple questions while directing more complex queries to the correct department for more help. They’re a bit like an online receptionist.

Why Should I Use Chatbots For My Business?

There are so many benefits to using a chatbot for your business. Below we’ve named just a few reasons why chatbots are a must-have for your business in 2020.

Cost Efficiency

Although we don’t condone the modern-day nightmare of ‘robots taking over our jobs, which we are all inclined to worry about from time to time, chatbots do provide a level of cost efficiency that cannot be ignored.

Chatbots free up your staff to work on lead generation and other projects. They can help with orders, tracking and even returns. Bots can help with all the admin that your staff is struggling to keep on top of. These repetitive projects are easy for robots to follow, and if you are just starting up, they can keep your overheads low. Staff can be a huge cost when you’re just starting up your business, and therefore it can be very helpful to use chatbots to provide customer service while you’re focusing on running your business.

24/7 Help & Availability for your customers

E-Commerce is no 9–5. So unlike brick-and-mortar shop assistants, you need to be able to help your customers with their orders and inquiries at any time of day. Having a chatbot means your staff — or yourself — don’t have to work around the clock. After hours, chatbots can record queries and answer simple questions your customers have. Complex issues can be archived and filed into your system or email platform for staff to work through the next day.

Increase Your Sales

Programming a chatbot or using a platform that allows you to do so can help increase your sales. Bots are great for upselling products on your site or offering more detail about a certain item. If you can work with a technology firm that can build you a fully functioning bot, there’s a goldmine of sales waiting for you at the end.

This quick post highlights three major additions a chatbot can offer for your business. By reducing costs and increasing sales, your profits will be higher than ever. And these profits can be reinvested, advance the capabilities of your chatbot. By constantly reviewing your customer service and incorporating automated chatbots into the system, your team will be fully equipped for whatever issue your customer has. By offering 24/7 customer service, consumers will feel safer about shopping on your site, too, knowing they will be able to access help no matter when they need it.