Author: chargeafterdev

The world of online shopping continues to evolve following the Covid-19 pandemic and the rise of modern, tech-savvy consumers. As a result, business owners and their marketing teams need to up their digital game and provide consumers with more reasons to buy from their online platforms. From integrating new tools like waterfall consumer financing to promoting brand loyalty, we discuss critical ways brands can respond to the changing eCommerce landscape. 

The New Norm for Online Shopping

Covid-19 ushered in a new era for digital commerce as millions of people around the world had to resort to online shopping for basic household goods, luxury items, and other products. This was in response to social distancing protocols, and the effects appear to be lasting. As of July 2021, 67% of consumers in a study group claimed that their online shopping behaviors changed during the pandemic. As shopping behaviors determine trends, the continuing shift to eCommerce brings new challenges and calls for online stores to adjust their existing marketing strategies. 

Greater spending on recreational goods and housing products provides an entry point for companies that may have not considered expanding into the industry. The demand for Covid-friendly practices means that businesses need to reassess their consumer journey from online shopping to the delivery of items. Social media and Google have seen increased interest as viable shopping channels, enabling the sales of products on their platforms.

All these changes to eCommerce demand greater digital flexibility and encourage brands wishing to stand out from the competition to integrate new solutions for the digital consumer. Let’s take a look at some strategies to help your business adjust to the ever-evolving eCommerce landscape.

Integrate Waterfall Consumer Financing

Waterfall consumer financing companies, like ChargeAfter, offer eCommerce brands financing capabilities for their consumers. The ChargeAfter integration connects a company’s consumers with a network of lenders that offer zero-interest repayment plans. Consumers shopping on stores that partner with ChargeAfter can receive their repayment options during checkout when they click on ChargeAfter’s integrated waterfall consumer financing button. The consumer does not need to go through any credit checks during application and the financing process takes place within minutes. The benefit of integrating waterfall consumer financing lies in the ability to offer new and existing customers reliable and on-demand repayment solutions, allowing them to easily shop their favorite products from your store.

Implement Social Selling

Platforms like Facebook and Instagram offer eCommerce features that can help brands leverage their social communities. By implementing product catalogs on your social media pages, you create an additional avenue for consumers to shop with your brand. This will extend your reach and attract the attention of customers who are already aware of and in support of your brand. As retaining customers is more cost-effective than acquiring new customers, this strategy can provide a great return on investment. 

Make Google a Priority

If your online platform is not optimized for Google then there’s a slim chance you will receive organic traffic to your store. Implementing proper SEO is a cornerstone of search success, and you can level up your SEO efforts for online shopping by integrating Google Merchant Center. The platform allows online stores to use Google Shopping as a revenue stream, enabling shoppers to find your products through Googe Search and purchase them directly from the search engine. 

As eCommerce continues to evolve, online stores can attract new customers and retain existing shoppers by adopting new strategies. Waterfall consumer financing, social media selling, and Google Shopping are new avenues for business growth in the post-Covid pandemic eCommerce landscape. 

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It’s the holiday season and what better way to celebrate the festive period than to give back to your shoppers in the spirit of Christmas? Beyond doing positive things for your shoppers during the holidays to say thanks for the support over the years, giving back during this time of year can do wonders for customer retention and customer acquisition. In this article, we discuss how you can support your shoppers during the festive season with consumer financing and more. 

1. Consumer Financing for Christmas Shopping

Consumer financing is an integration from leading buy now pay later (BNPL) fintech providers like ChargeAfter that gives your customers access to on-demand financing options within minutes during the checkout process. Customers can access ChargeAfter’s network of lenders to fund their orders without having to go through credit checks. Whatsmore, the financing options come with no additional interest, making them the most affordable way for your customers to finance their festive season orders. This will drive brand loyalty as shoppers turn to your value-added checkout process when looking for Christmas gifts and holiday supplies. In turn, you will see average order values and volumes rise during the festive period. 

2. Offer Unbeatable Holiday Specials

Black Friday has come and gone but eCommerce businesses still have a great opportunity to acquire new customers during the holidays with unbeatable specials, deals, and discounts. You should consult your marketing team about profit-driven discount campaigns and ways to market your deals to leverage the eager shoppers during the holidays. But, be sure to offer substantial specials as you want your brand to cut through the competition during the Christmas period. Furthermore, Black Friday is often an opportunity to make sweeping discount claims that are not as cost-effective as consumers may believe. To avoid negative brand recognition during the holidays, offer discounts that add genuine value to your shoppers and you will see a boom in sales from now until the new year. 

3. Host a Virtual Event

Say thank you to your consumers by hosting a virtual holiday event during the festive season. This is much more cost-effective than throwing a live event and will save you time should you yet to consider a holiday bash to celebrate your community. Virtual events can add value to the lives of your customers as they are an opportunity to recognize your loyal consumer base through raffles or competitions hosted on stream or pre-announcements for festive season sales. These kinds of events show your customers that you care, and you can include a corporate social responsibility campaign in your virtual event to encourage Christmas shoppers to give back to their communities. 

4. Make Your Business Greener

More and more consumers support greener businesses as they wish to do their part as customers. For this reason, you can give back to your consumers by showcasing your support for what they care about when making greener decisions during the festive season and beyond. You can consider new shipping methods that are more environmentally friendly, lead community initiatives like clean-ups during the holidays, or jump onto eco-friendly marketing strategies. Doing this will show your customers that you care to do business better, encouraging them to shop with you during the holiday season as a result. 

5. Connect With Other Businesses

In the spirit of the holidays, connect rather than compete. Yes, competition drives successful eCommerce, but so can connecting your consumers with businesses that offer services outside of your particular realm of expertise. For example, an online store that sells groceries can direct its audience to a local manufacturer of cooking equipment that consumers may wish to purchase to prepare their favorite meals during the festive season. By connecting your customers with other helpful businesses, you showcase the desire to support them in every aspect of their lives. This reflects positively on your brand image, enticing more customers to your store.

Give back to your consumers this holiday season by introducing consumer financing, offering unbeatable specials, hosting virtual events, making your business greener, and connecting customers to help businesses.

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As technology becomes more complex and consumers become more tech-savvy, mobile eCommerce grows. In fact, mobile eCommerce retained 39% of online sales during the 2020 festive season. As the end of year rush rolls around, your eCommerce business could benefit tenfold from introducing better mobile experiences for your shoppers. From introducing waterfall consumer financing to remedying the user experience on your platform, we discuss the important ways you can prepare your online store for mobile eCommerce success. 

What is Waterfall Consumer Financing?

Before we unpack how waterfall consumer financing supports mobile eCommerce success, let’s explore the concept in more detail. Waterfall consumer financing is a solution, typically an integration from leading companies like ChargeAfter, that provides your shoppers with on-demand and personalized financing options at checkout. When consumers arrive at checkout, they will have access to the integration via your online store, allowing them to secure repayment plans at the push of a button. How it works is that ChargeAfter connects your shoppers to a wide network of reliable lenders capable of fulfilling their unique purchasing decisions. They receive the financing within an instant and without having to undergo a credit check. Furthermore, the financing options typically offer zero tolow APR plans. This gives shoppers the lowest loan options on the market, an appealing selling point for mobile eCommerce platforms. 

How Waterfall Consumer Financing Helps Mobile Shoppers 

Waterfall consumer financing offers mobile shoppers many benefits, and we have outlined several of the key reasons your eCommerce platform should integrate a consumer financing solution. 

Consumers Don’t Need to Leave Your Shop

eCommerce platforms are becoming more mobile-friendly, however, the mobile shopping experience is still somewhat more cumbersome than a desktop shopping experience. For that reason, mobile stores need to distill information and provide quick and seamless user journeys that enable shoppers to do everything from the online store. When it comes to financing their purchases, there is no easier way to do this than with waterfall consumer financing. ChargeAfter’s solution is mobile-friendly, giving your shoppers access to our extensive network of lenders without having to open up multiple mobile tabs or call their financial service provider. This streamlines their shopping experience, driving a faster time to sell. 

It is a Marketing Opportunity 

We have already discussed that mobile shoppers find simple and easy-to-navigate experiences more appealing. For this reason, pop-ups and other marketing tactics that are effective on the desktop are less likely to garner interest on mobile. When it comes to mobile, less is more. But, waterfall consumer financing is a marketing opportunity in and of itself that does not distract from the mobile user journey. ChargeAfter’s mobile-friendly solution is simply a button at checkout where you can provide consumer-centric benefits to further encourage a sale. This is a non-invasive mobile-friendly marketing opportunity that will showcase the benefit of consumer financing through your website when consumers arrive at the checkout stage. 

It Optimizes Checkout

Checkout is the most critical stage in the mobile buying journey, and online platforms need to implement novel and trending strategies that appeal to consumers. Waterfall consumer financing is one such trending strategy that attracts interest from even the most discerning buyers. It enables shoppers to quickly purchase their orders, a critical time-saving initiative that will come in handy over the holiday season. In conjunction with comprehensive payment gateways, waterfall consumer financing will ensure that the consumer checkout process is as efficient and effective as possible. 

Implement waterfall consumer financing and reap the rewards of providing your consumers with a better mobile eCommerce experience that facilitates a faster time to sell and stronger marketing opportunities. 

Want to learn more? Reach out to us here.

Holiday season online shopping has blown up since the Covid-19 pandemic. It is estimated that festive season sales in 2021 will reach a record $910 billion. These figures are a testament to the importance of preparing your eCommerce business for another busy holiday period. Whether your marketing team has come with some suggestions, you are still considering how to optimize your online website, or you have not yet heard of how to improve sales during the holiday season, this article discusses ways to prepare your online retail platform for the festive rush. With online financing and other easy-to-implement strategies, you can ensure that you experience a profitable end to the calendar year. 

Leverage Sales With Online Financing

Online financing from ChargeAfter is a novel eCommerce solution that helps businesses leverage more sales. In a nutshell, online financing is an option for consumers to seek financial aid during checkout to purchase their favorite products or services. ChargeAfter provides an industry-leading online financing service that connects eCommerce platforms with a large network of trustworthy lenders. These lenders can facilitate customers’ purchases through personalized repayment plans that come with no additional interest. Integrating ChargeAfter’s online financing feature this holiday season can improve sales as it can offer your customers several benefits. Beyond zero-interest loans, customers can receive financing at the push of a button and without having to leave your store. This keeps shoppers engaged for longer, driving sales and minimizing your website’s abandoned cart rates.

Improve Your Site Speeds and Stability

Site speed is critical to eCommerce success as you want consumers to get from your landing pages to checkout as quickly as possible. Furthermore, Google’s SEO algorithms favor websites with faster page loading speeds. To ensure that you sell more during the festive season, check your site speed analytics via platforms like Google PageSpeed Insights or UberSuggest and remedy issues that affect speeds. Another tip to deal with the influx of shoppers during the holiday period is to ensure that your website is stable. This may involve migrating to a more reliable hosting platform. That said, most eCommerce platforms provide comprehensive support and you can lodge queries directly with your service provider if consumers are having trouble browsing your website. 

Prioritize Your Shipping Capabilities

Consumers shopping during the festive season want assurance that they will receive their products before Christmas Day. As such, you should ensure that your shipping facilities are available, capable, and reliable. If you market that your delivery will take up to 3 days, then you need to provide some level of guarantee that you can live up to this claim. The last thing your eCommerce brand needs is negative reviews during the holiday season as these will negatively affect your sales metrics. Some solutions are to handle shipping in-house, connect with trustworthy logistics companies, or consult a drop shipper to leverage efficient dropshipping services. 

Make Sure You Run Marketing Campaigns

Don’t let your eCommerce site succumb to the holiday marketing clutter. You need to run marketing campaigns during this season as the biggest and best eCommerce stores will be doing so. The competition will be rife, and if you want to get noticed then you need to budget for marketing during the holidays. You can run social media campaigns, PPC ads, page takeovers, and utilize a variety of other digital advertising avenues to put your brand front of mind over the holidays.

If you want to leverage the Christmas spirit and make more sales this holiday season, ensure that you integrate online financing from ChargeAfter, improve your site speeds, prioritize your shipping, and run great marketing campaigns.

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Target markets refer to categorized groups of consumers that are particularly interested in your eCommerce store’s products or services. These groups of consumers have specific buying behaviors and traits that marketing teams can tap into in order to encourage purchases. Whether you have an understanding of your target market or not, you can implement several techniques to broaden your target market and attract new customers to your store. In this article, we discuss how waterfall consumer financing can broaden your target market and how doing so can rapidly increase your sales. 

Defining Your Target Market

Before you can broaden your target market and attract greater sales, you need to clearly define said target market/s. Maybe you have completed this exercise already, however, target markets continue to evolve and the need to define your target market yearly at the very least is crucial to staying ahead of the competition and attracting the right buyers. 

To define your target market, you must first consider:

• Who benefits from the products that you sell
• Why do they need your products
• What sets your products apart based on the preferences of the market

Once you have answered these questions, you can begin doing a variety of things to gain greater insight into the target market’s buying psychology. You can host focus groups, share surveys, utilize social watching tools, analyze existing market research, and many other strategies on receiving critical information regarding your market. The intention is to find out as much as you can about this group of consumers. For example, their age range, earning bracket, geographical location, interests, hobbies, pain points, etc. Every piece of information is helpful for the next step in broadening your target market. 

Segmenting Your Target Market

With a clearer understanding of your target market, you can begin to segment them into specific groups. This may seem counter-productive in an attempt to broaden one’s target market, however, it is important that you ensure you are broadening to continue attracting the right consumers. It would be costly to broaden your target market to include consumers that are not interested in the products that you sell.

Instead, you can profile your target market based on your research findings and generate any number of customer segments. Each customer segment will require a different set of strategies, but you can ensure that the integration of these strategies is cost-effective thanks to developing a strong understanding of who these segments are. 

How Consumer Financing Can Broaden Your Target Market

Finally, it is time to broaden your target market to include the various segments that you have created. To do this, you need to deploy marketing strategies that attract each customer segment. There are many avenues, such as delivering social media ads that are highly targeted or remarketing to existing consumers. But, consumer financing remains a critical method to broadening your target market.

Consumer financing from ChargeAfter is a seamless checkout integration that provides your customers with on-demand financing solutions with zero-interest repayment plans. Consumers from all segments that shop with your online store may be attracted to the integration of consumer financing from ChargeAfter as it makes your products more easily accessible. They can shop items big and small with a comprehensive and reliable financial cover that supplies both you and the consumer a greater return on investment. This will give you access to shoppers that may have been previously unable to purchase from your store as their carts were too costly. With consumer financing, eCommerce platforms can leverage every single shopper that passes through their online store, broadening their target market and increasing sales.

Want to learn more? Reach out to us here.

Customer acquisition is a cornerstone of eCommerce success, however, it is not the only pivotal pillar to profitable online business growth. Customer retention remains a crucial part of eCommerce growth and online store owners must consider ways to promote customer retention. In this article, we detail customer retention based on the importance of determining and improving customer lifetime values. We also provide a way to improve customer lifetime values through the integration of consumer financing from ChargeAfter. 

The Importance of Customer Lifetime Value

Customer lifetime value refers to a critical metric and the techniques that drive customer retention. In a nutshell, customer lifetime value is the total value of sales that an individual customer brings to an online store from their first purchase to their last purchase.

Improving customer lifetime values is critical as businesses do not need to invest heavily in return customers. Customer retention strategies are far more affordable than customer acquisition strategies. In the long run, businesses can ensure profitable growth by encouraging return customers to shop as opposed to launching extensive campaigns with costly budgets that may not yield the results intended. 

The importance of improving customer lifetime value lies in the following three benefits:

• It drives repeat purchases for greater long term profit and sustainability
• It boosts loyalty among existing customers who can influence other shoppers
• It reduces the investment costs required to drive sales

Using the following technique, you can better prepare your eCommerce platform to improve customer lifetime values:

The RFM Technique

RFM refers to recency, frequency, and monetary value. The technique involves segmenting your customers based on the value that they can potentially bring to your business. In order to do so, one must take into account these three factors:

• Recency: how recently a customer made a purchase on your website. The more recent since their last purchase, the more likely they will buy again.
• Frequency: how often a customer purchases from your store within a specific timeframe. Customers that purchase frequently are valuable as they express a loyal interest in your brand.
• Monetary value: the monetary extend of a customer’s last purchase on your website. The more expensive a customers purchase, the more likely they are to buy again.

Looking at these three factors, business owners and their marketing teams can categorize specific shoppers into tiers of value that help guide how affordable targeting those customers will be for greater return on investment. Customers that perform well in all three categories are your most valuable customers, and you should focus on them.

The Customer Lifetime Value Formula

To calculate customer lifetime value and assess the analytical significance of each customer, consider the following three formulas in sequential order:

1. Average Order Value = Total Sales / Order Count
2. Purchase Frequency = Total Orders / Total Customers
3. Customer Value = Average Order Value x Purchase Frequency

Following these three steps with each customer, you will have a monetary indication of their customer lifetime value. This will allow you to craft marketing strategies that attract your most profitable consumers. 

How Consumer Financing Increases Customer Lifetime Value

The next step is to implement said marketing strategies to leverage your loyal consumers. While there are many techniques to do so, one of the most cost-effective tools to improve customer lifetime value is consumer financing from ChargeAfter. This tool is a checkout integration that gives your customers access to on-demand and personalized financing plans at the push of a button when checking out. With this integration, customers can purchase from your store quickly and affordably. They will not have to seek the financial assistance of third-party providers that come with extensive repayment plans. Instead, they can easily shop with your store – encouraging existing customers to raise their average order values and increase their purchase frequency. The result will be a greater customer lifetime value for each consumer.

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If you haven’t considered or created a sales funnel yet then it’s high time you do so. In the modern world of eCommerce and digital marketing, a clearly defined sales funnel can help your business save money and attract the right buyers to your website. This can have a significant impact on your sales as you promote the right products to the right consumers willing to purchase from your online shop. In this article, we outline sales funnels in more detail and suggest how online financing from ChargeAfter can support the profitability of your eCommerce site’s sales funnel. 

What is a Sales Funnel?

A sales funnel, simply put, is a visualization of the journey that your consumers take from becoming aware of your brand to visiting your web store, signing up to a newsletter, adding products to their carts, purchasing those products, and receiving email confirmation and newsletters after a purchase. While these are a few common steps in a sales funnel, they can vary from one eCommerce store to another and change depending on the types of consumers that are attracted to a specific website or product catalog. A sales funnel intends to provide a comprehensive outline, in the form of a flow diagram generally, of the processes shoppers will experience on your platform. It also allows marketing teams to determine the effectiveness of their user journey and how they can optimize consumer touchpoints along said journey. 

How to Create a Profitable Sales Funnel

To create a profitable sales funnel, business owners and their marketing teams need to follow these simple steps to success:

1. Audit the Existing User Journey

You’ve likely had your eCommerce store in business for quite some time but maybe have not yet categorized and defined your sales funnel. Therefore, the best place to start is to audit your existing sales funnel and visualize it. To do this, take stock of every consumer touchpoint and how they filter from one to the next. For example, a consumer sees your ad on social media. They click on the ad and are taken to your website where a pop-up encourages them to sign up for your newsletter. After doing so, they receive an email notification. If they choose not to, they close the pop-up and continue to browse. This creates a split in the sales funnel, effectively generating two sales funnels, or user experiences, depending on their action. You need to visualize every possible sale funnel avenue from awareness to the consumer buying a product and map them out on flow diagrams. 

2. Distill the Sales Funnel

Once you have your sales funnels mapped out, you can begin distilling the user experience. Consider the importance of every touchpoint and begin to remove certain consumer touchpoints that create a cumbersome sales funnel. You want the user journey to be as efficient and seamless as possible, with minimal distractions limiting the shopper’s time from browsing to buying. A pop-up is important as it can entice sales through discount offerings and build your email database, however, multiple pop-ups can quickly become distracting. After distillation, your sales funnel should only include the most important and profitable touchpoints.

After some time, you can repeat this simple two-step process until you have developed an optimized sales funnel for your audience. 

How Online Financing From ChargeAfter Supports Your Sales Funnel

Online financing from ChargeAfter ensures that consumer checkout is as efficient as possible, supporting your sales funnel and improving your sales rates. With this integration embedded into your online store, consumers can receive zero-interest repayment solutions at the push of a button and shop their favorite products without having to seek financial support elsewhere. This streamlines the online financing process, promoting a quicker time to sales and a more profitable sales funnel.

Want to learn more? Reach out to us here.

Personalized marketing is proving the modern eCommerce strategy to unlock revenue generation, and customer segmentation plays a critical role in experiencing the crucial benefits of said strategy. In this article, we discuss customer segmentation in more detail and provide recommendations on how to leverage segmentation alongside online financing options to improve eCommerce sales. 

What is Customer Segmentation?

Customer segmentation refers to the process of grouping your customer base into several categories that present different key characteristics. These groups, or segments, combine customers with similar shopping behaviors for online retailers to tailor personalized marketing to each consumer group that makes up a company’s segmentation profile. For example, customers within a specific age group and earning bracket may lean towards considered purchasing behaviors that require more thoughtful marketing to win over their attention. Another customer segment may categorize impulsive buyers that consistently return to grab various products across a company’s catalog. These customers may be swayed by discounts, coupons, and loyalty programs that support their on-demand buying behaviors. With a better understanding of one’s customer segments, eCommerce platforms can integrate strategies to improve sales. 

Using Online Financing to Improve Sales

Online financing options are a relatively new and powerful tool that the best eCommerce brands on the market integrate to expand their customer segment portfolios. ChargeAfter is a leading provider of multi-lender online financing for merchants that provides opportunities to improve sales through greater consumer financing support. The platform is an easy-to-integrate and affordable plugin that businesses can incorporate into any online retail platform, including Shopify, Bigcommerce, Magento, and more. Once embedded into a website, the platform gives consumers immediate access to consumer financing at the push of a button and without having to leave one’s store to seek third-party financial aid. Whatsmore, consumers are given access to zero-interest loan plans that require no credit checks and connect customers to lenders who have been sufficiently vetted for reliability. Then, customers can easily purchase the products in their carts with little concern over hefty repayment plans, improving an eCommerce platform’s sales as a result. 

What are the Benefits of Customer Segmentation

The key benefits of customer segmentation are the ability to craft personalized marketing, integrate additional tools such as online financing, and leverage the unique buying behaviors of each subscriber group new to or returning to your online store. 

eCommerce platforms can use customer segmentation to eliminate general marketing that can become costly. For example, pay-per-click (PPC) campaigns that are driven by broad consumer marketing profiles provide a far inferior return on investment than ad campaigns with hyper-targeted consumer profiles. With a greater understanding of your customer segments, you can target audiences that mirror the customers you are already having high success with. This will result in compound sales growth with a significant return on investment as you have to do little additional target market research when developing new campaigns. 

With more knowledge of your customer segments, you are also able to provide solutions through cost-effective marketing channels where these segments are most likely to respond. Assessing the analytics, some of which can be provided via ChargeAfter’s online financing platform, eCommerce owners and their marketing teams can develop better sales funnels and a wider range of sales funnels, each one targeting a specific customer segment in their audience profile. These sales funnels should improve sales as they are tailored to the unique shopper, providing an experience that aligns with their distinct online shopping expectations. 

In summary, the use of online financing alongside a clear customer segmentation portfolio can help eCommerce brands improve their sales and stay ahead of the competition in the competitive online retail marketplace.

Want to learn more? Reach out to us here.