12 ways to get more sales on your webshop
A new year has started and it will definitely be another year which shows rapid online sales growth in the UK and Ireland! Garden Connect has compiled a list of 12 things you could do to get more sales out of your webshop. Some are easy, some are difficult, some are free and others are paid.
Print22 January 2018
Garden Connect are one of the leading garden marketing companies in Europe; helping horticulture businesses attract more customers to their garden centre via innovative online marketing solutions.
Garden Connect have over 250 garden centre customers and have given talks and lectures at some of horticulture’s biggest trade events including GLAS, where in 2017, Edwin Meijer, founder and managing director at Garden Connect, presented a talk on “7 Ways to Get More Customers to your Garden Centre via the Internet”, to a sold-out room.
For now, here are 12 ways garden centres can achieve greater sales on their webshop from Meijer himself.
1. Product data = key
The more product data you show on your webshop the better it is. If you’re selling garden furniture, visitors want to see the exact sizes. It’s also good to add filters so people can select products based on their colour, material, or other specifications.
We’ve created a manual for you to add properties and set up filters. Have a look at https://cms6.gardenconnect.
2. Create webshop frontpages
The webshop frontpages give you a lot of options to make your webshop look better, more interesting, and appealing. You can use the webshop frontpages to direct visitors into the right direction. I’ll show you an example of a webshop selling furniture without using the front page:
And this one is using the frontpages the right way:
On the first webshop, you have to scroll through dozens of products to find your dining set or you have to use the filter on the left-hand side. The second webshop allows you to hit a big, nice button to go to the dining sets straight away!
Setting up the frontpages ain’t difficult and you can find the manual here: https://cms8.gardenconne
3. Use the new elements which are available now
We’re adding new features all the time and recently, we added a box which you shouldn’t miss!
This box shows customers the following items:
- Recently viewed products (by that visitor!)
- Most popular items (differs per category)
- Items on the wishlist of customers (if applicable, see point 4)
So this box updates itself automatically and improves customers flows in your webshop. To be honest: you must add this one! You can add it to every front page in your webshop or you can ask us to add it to the footer of every page.
4. Shopping wishlist (paid)
You know your webshop is generating footfall to your garden centre and consumers are using it as an online catalogue. To make their life a bit easier you can add a wishlist to your webshop. Customers can decide to buy products online or to add them to their wishlist.
The wishlist icon allows them to add products to it.
Once done, they can print their wishlist, e-mail it or they can easily order all the products online anyway. Nice gimmick: if we know the e-mail address of customers we will send them a reminder after 2 weeks about their remaining wishlist and we also send a one-time notification if prices drop in your webshop.
Contact us if you want to learn more about the wishlist & costs. And no worries: it’s not too expensive!
5. Brand pages
Some brands are well known in our industry, like Weber barbecues or John Innes compost. Having brand pages will help you to show consumers what brands your offering. It’s easy to set them up, assuming you’ve linked all your products to a brand already. Both Google and your visitors will appreciate it so here we go!
The first thing to do is to add a brief description about the brand into the CMS:
Be sure the text is at least 75 words long to make it interesting for Google and consumers.
Secondly, add the brand tab to all your products:
Check the manual https://cms8.gardenconn
The result: unique pages per brand showing all the products of that specific brand. You’ll also get more information about that brand on your product page making it more interesting for visitors. All future products of that brand will have this tab and information so once done, you’re done for years to come!
6. Amazon integration (to come in Q1, paid)
We’re aware many garden centres are selling on Amazon. To make your life easier (and save you a lot of time) we’re currently finishing our Amazon integration. This allows you to select products in our CMS you want to sell on Amazon. Products are pushed to Amazon automatically. You can change the prices in the CMS if you need to and if products are out of stock they’ll be removed from Amazon automatically.
This can also be linked via your epos system so once your last item is sold, it will be removed from your webshop and from Amazon. Orders coming from Amazon are pushed back to the CMS and, optionally, your epos system. How easy!
Let us know if you’re interested and we’ll keep you in the loop.
7. Multibuys
Multibuys are a great way to increase the total transaction value. Buy 1 for €4 or 3 for €10. Tempting to go for the 3, isn’t it? Multibuys are working well for plants, pet food, aggregates and other products which can be purchased in bulk. I’m not sure about barbecues.
To set up the multibuys have a look at https://cms6.gardenconnect.
8. Shopping cart reminder (paid)
Most online shopping carts are filled with products but left behind: visitors tend to drop out of the shopping process. We register e-mail addresses of customers during the shopping process and will send a useful reminder if they haven’t finished their purchase within 1 hour. They’ll also receive a notification if they had any payment issues. This increases the number of orders: this service will pay for itself. You can easily measure this via Google Analytics.
So the deal I’m happy to offer: you can use this service free of charge until you get at least €150 of extra revenue during 3 months. Once that’s achieved you’re more than happy to pay the fixed fee of €25 per month, aren’t you? Drop us a line to active it!
9. Google Shopping & AdWords (paid)
So what can I say about this one? A lot I guess! Google Shopping & AdWords are by far the best ways to boost your online revenue. From our experience, online sales will cost you about 10%-15% of the gross transaction value. That’s the fee you pay to Amazon and on average the costs per transaction if you advertise on Google.
We’re currently managing AdWords campaigns for over 150 business and many garden centre webshops. To give you a rough outline: the costs to do this start at £275 per month. And we’ll make sure it’s worth every penny you spend with us. Let us know if you’re ready to rock in 2018 and to boost your online sales!
10. Use discounts / coupons
The last one is – again – a simple and free to do thing. You can use discount codes in your webshop which are codes customers enter during the check-out to get a discount on products or the entire order. It’s easy to set them up (check the manual, https://cms8.gardencon
Generally speaking, a short period with a proper discount works better than a code offering 5% off during the entire month.
Some examples:
- Facebook Friday, share a code on Facebook valid only that Friday on your online sales. You can also limit it just plants or selected products.
- During a specific week, you can show a lightbox to customers who’ve been on your website for over 60 seconds. Here’s the manual how to set up a lightbox: https://cms8.gardenc
onnect.com/help/index/view-ite m/id/23. The idea is that visitors who’ve been there for a while will be tempted to complete the transaction if they get a small discount. - Newsletter coupon, send a discount code to all your e-mail newsletter recipients to attract them to your webshop to get a good deal. If you have a good deal and proper list it’s an easy way forward to get more revenue!
11. Quick order button
This works especially for webshops with bulbs and seeds: the quick order button. Customers don’t need to leave the category pages to add products to their shopping cart making it easier to make a purchase.
This is the way most products look on category pages:
So the “Buy now” button takes customers to the product page. Having the quick order buttons adds a third option:
So if you click on “Buy now” the product will be added to the shopping cart while “View more” opens the product page. Smart trick and free to apply! Just drop me a line and we’ll get it sorted.
12. Product comparison
Product A or B? Comparing products is one of the reasons why consumers are visiting your webshop. Having a comparison option allows them to make an easy comparison between 2 or more products. This option is free to activate (drop us a line!) and you’ll get something like this on your product pages:
Clicking through, customers can easily compare multiple products and make their buying decision!
So it’s a long list of things but to be honest, just a fraction of things you can do to get more sales. We haven’t touched search engine optimisation, reviews, upselling and other useful stuff to avoid sending you too much.
As always, we’re happy to help you to move you in the right direction! Just send us an e-mail or give us a ring if you have any questions.
Get in touch with Garden Connect:
E-mail: info@gardenconnect.com
Phone: (+44) 203 475 5541
Website: https://www.gardenconnect.com/contact-uk/
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