Author: chargeafterdev

Another year has come and gone, and 2022 will bring with it new growth opportunities for eCommerce business owners. Marketing trends, web integrations, and consumer-centric considerations will drive success for online stores that return to business this year. In this article, we share several tips on how to grow your business in 2022. We cover consumer financing, SEO strategies, and more ways to offer richer shopping experiences. Implement one or more of these tips to see profitable growth in the first quarter of the new year and beyond. 

1. Integrate Leading Consumer Financing

It is vitally important that, as an online store, you offer consumer financing or consumer lending options. Consumer financing is quickly becoming a mainstay checkout feature of the best eCommerce businesses. But, it is not enough to partner with any old consumer financing company. In 2022, you should consider partnering with the leading consumer financing companies on the market. ChargeAfter offers a first-class consumer financing service to eCommerce businesses big and small that wish to leverage the benefits of online financing. The service differs from traditional bank lending as consumers can instantly tap into the company’s extensive network of lenders without credit checks. Furthermore, ChargeAfter lenders offer repayment plans with no additional interest charges. These benefits, coupled with comprehensive technical support and data-driven recommendations, ensure ChargeAfter offers a stand-out service for eCommerce partners. The integration of consumer financing with ChargeAfter will promote sales at checkout. 

2. Develop Stronger SEO Strategies

All online stores need an SEO strategy. Search engine optimization (SEO) ensures that your website is visible to shoppers browsing Google and other search engines. With a solid SEO strategy, eCommerce businesses can appear on the first page of the search results for specific keywords commonly entered by consumers looking for certain products or services. You may have an SEO strategy in place, but it’s time to develop a stronger one as the new year brings new opportunities to leverage powerful Google features. You should register your business with Google My Business even if your store is completely online. This will help shoppers closer to your operational location find you quicker through location-based SEO. You should also sign up with Google Merchant Center and link your catalog with Google Shopping. This ensures that your shop is visible on Google when shoppers are browsing for specific products, also giving them the ability to purchase directly from Google. This can speed up your sales funnel, leading to profitable growth.

3. Optimize for Omnichannel Marketing

Having a website and a Facebook page is the bare minimum for running a successful eCommerce business. In 2022, you must develop an omnichannel marketing strategy. Omnichannel marketing involves creating consistent brand messaging across a variety of platforms to leverage sales and brand loyalty at every consumer touchpoint. You should utilize email marketing, consumer financing at checkout, branded drop shipping, social media advertising, Google advertising, and more. The more places that your brand is visible, the better. 

4. Put Your Customers at the Center of Business

Don’t just say that you put your customers first, actually deliver on this promise. As an eCommerce platform, you should pride yourself in positive customer reviews and showcase this social proof on your website and social media platforms. You should deploy customer review collection strategies to acquire as much customer insight as possible, and then make decisions to mitigate the frequency of negative reviews. Rather than hiding or deleting negative reviews, respond to them timely with sincerity and put a customer service representative on the case to resolve the issue. This is one example of how you can show customers that they represent the core of your business operations. There are many more ways to put customers at the center of your business. 

Grow your eCommerce business in 2022 with consumer financing, stronger SEO strategies, omnichannel marketing, and a consumer-centric operational model. These are the key tips to implement in the new year for a profitable first quarter.

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If your eCommerce store does not have an SEO strategy in place then you are missing opportunities to attract new customers daily. Moving into 2022, you must work with your marketing team to adopt an effective SEO strategy as it is critical to your organic click-through rates and online visibility. In this article, we offer several SEO tips for eCommerce success and suggest how online financing can support your strategy. 

Utilize Competitive Keywords

Keywords are a cornerstone of a successful SEO strategy. You must be using keywords on every web page so that Google can track and report on your SEO, potentially putting you higher up the search results so that you can attract new customers. Each piece of content that you write should be created around keywords that consumers search Google to find answers to. For example, if you sell electronics then you should consider keywords that consumers often type into the Google search engine when looking for electronics. Some keywords could be “electronic products for sale”, “the best phones to buy”, “70-inch TVs for sale”. These long-tail keywords can help your web pages and products appear when consumers search these terms. If you want to know how to do keyword research, then check out this helpful resource. Once you have your keywords ready to deploy, then install the Yoast SEO plugin on your website and follow their instructions on how to optimize every page of your website for SEO. 

Use Google’s Shopping Features

SEO goes beyond keywords, and you can improve the SEO of your eCommerce platform by using the range of Google Shopping features available to you. Specifically, the Google Merchant Center allows you to pull your product catalog into Google Shopping so that searchers will see your products as they browse for similar products or specific items in your catalog. The Google Shopping feature doubles down on your SEO efforts, prioritizing your products over other eCommerce platforms that are not using Google Merchant Center. 

How to Optimize Checkout With SEO and Online Financing

ChargeAfter offers a powerful online financing tool that gives your consumers access to instant financing options at the push of a button during checkout. Your consumers can access ChargeAfter’s extensive network of lenders without having to apply for a credit check and receive repayment plans with zero interest. Therefore, they can shop easily and quickly on your eCommerce platform without having to procure the support of their financial service provider. This streamlines the user experience, playing in favor of Google’s SEO algorithms. Furthermore, there is an opportunity to further optimize your checkout process with online financing by deploying keywords on a brand new landing page. This landing page can serve as a runway to your store and facilitate an efficient sales funnel to checkout. Using keywords that center around getting the best value when shopping, securing financing easily, and eliminating the need to use third-party financial service providers, you can attract customers with a specific interest in the benefits of online financing. This will improve your online visibility for those benefits and attract customers to this new landing page. 

SEO is essential to a successful eCommerce business, and you should be thinking about how to leverage an effective SEO strategy so that you can attract new shoppers during the festive season and into the new year. By utilizing competitive keywords, using Google’s powerful shopping features, and optimizing your checkout and other landing pages with online financing and related keywords, you can build an SEO strategy that works for your business and grows your sales. 

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Omnichannel marketing, or multi-channel marketing, is a strategy whereby brands clearly identify and deliver a holistic user experience via a myriad of marketing avenues. The strategy if deployed by the best eCommerce brands, and online store owners should consider the potential for eCommerce growth with omnichannel marketing in 2022. Adopting a clever omnichannel marketing strategy can set businesses apart from their competition, helping leverage greater sales and return on investment (ROI).In this article, we explore how you can utilize omnichannel marketing and discuss whether or not waterfall consumer financing is an essential addition to your strategy for the new year.

The Benefits of Omnichannel Marketing

Omnichannel marketing provides brands with more opportunities to immerse consumers in their brand lifestyle. It is a powerful strategy that businesses can harness in 2022 to deliver better advertising campaigns. The following expresses the key benefits of omnichannel marketing:

Improves the Consumer Journey

Businesses that deploy omnichannel marketing improve the user journey for their consumers, making their shopping experience far easier and increasing the likelihood of landing the sale. Using a diverse sales funnel of branded content at every touchpoint, businesses can position their brands as leaders within their industry and keep their services or products front of mind for their customers and potential consumers. 

Provides Stronger Analytics

Omnichannel marketing strategies give eCommerce businesses access to stronger analytical data on their consumers. Brands can track every touchpoint and metrics associated with the wide range of consumer-centric decisions. Using an omnichannel marketing strategy, brands can determine where their consumers are coming from, why they action specific areas of the sales funnel, and what they do after purchasing. Having access to these insights, marketing teams can make informed decisions that lead to longer customer lifetime values. 

Improve Customer Service

A positive customer service experience is critical to eCommerce success, and brands can improve their customer service with the implementation of omnichannel marketing. Omnichannel marketing calls for the automation of many areas of redundant customer service. For example, a chatbot can facilitate efficient communications with customers that have general queries and questions. A customer service representative is, instead, needed when problems require greater attention. This can save businesses money as they downscale their customer service budget while optimizing the user’s experience with customer service through the quick and reliable answering of common questions that users may have as they navigate the omnichannel brand experience. 

Support Omnichannel Marketing with Waterfall Consumer Financing for Greater Sales

As a massive part of omnichannel marketing involves supporting and improving consumers’ experiences with your store, you should consider additional tools to facilitate a better omnichannel marketing strategy. One such method is integrating waterfall consumer financing.

Waterfall consumer financing is a solution shared by leading fintech buy now pay later (BNPL) platforms like ChargeAfter. The service includes a financing option at the checkout that consumers can utilize to purchase goods. It differs from traditional financing models as it allows businesses to leverage ChargeAfter’s already existing network of lenders. Your consumers do not need to consult third-party financial service providers to procure financing to make their orders. Nor do they need to undergo credit checks and they receive comprehensive financial coverage with zero interest.

This is a very appealing strategy that supports the omnichannel marketing consumer journey as it is easy-to-use and accessible via a button at checkout. The streamlined process ensures that consumers convert as quickly as possible, generating greater revenue each month. 

Moving into 2022, it is essential that you integrate waterfall consumer financing at checkout to improve your omnichannel marketing strategy and experience greater sales after the festive season.

Want to learn more? Reach out to us here.

Another year of business, another festive season to attract new buyers. You are bound to have deployed marketing strategies and marketing campaigns to draw the attention of consumers this holiday season, but have you considered how to retain those customers moving into the new year? This is critically important as customer retention is more affordable than customer acquisition. If you are not yet sure how to improve your customer lifetime values in 2022, then check out this article on how consumer financing and other tools can help you retain customers after the festive season.

Integrate Consumer Financing for More Sales

Consumer financing from ChargeAfter is one of the most effective integrations to improve sales and retain customers in the new year. If you are not aware of consumer financing already, then it is high time you consider implementing the powerful strategy in the new year to improve your customer lifetime values. With consumer financing, your consumers have access to on-demand financing at the push of a button during checkout without having to leave your store. They do not need to chat with their financial service providers to acquire a loan, pay extensive interest on their repayments, or apply for a credit check. This ensures that more consumers are able to access funding when shopping with your eCommerce platform and facilitates customer retention by giving your shoppers a reason to shop with you again. 

Remarket With Powerful Advertising Campaigns

Many eCommerce brands continue to run advertising campaigns for new audiences. But, there is much to be said about remarketing campaigns that target consumers who are already aware of your brand. This is an incredibly cost-effective advertising strategy as it is easier to win over consumers with an understanding of your brand than it is to attract completely new buyers to your store. Remarketing campaigns are possible with social media advertising, Google display ads, and several other marketing channels. They allow you to target customers that have shopped with you before, helping you leverage consumers that may have not purchased your products in quite some time. 

Offer Incentives and Loyalty Programs

Incentivisation and loyalty programs are used by many eCommerce brands across industries because they are easy to implement, affordable, and beneficial. They improve sales by encouraging shoppers to become engaged customers that continue to return to your store for more. You can offer discounts and other forms of incentivization to loyal brand consumers who can drive up average order volumes and values after the festive season. 

Make Email Marketing a Priority

There are likely thousands of untapped consumers that belong to your email database that isn’t shopping in your store. These could be consumers that subscribed to a newsletter years ago or people that have shopped once and not again. Either way, you can use email marketing to attract individuals that have already expressed an interest in your brand and the products or services that you offer. Using tools like Mailchimp, email marketing can be a great avenue for increasing customer retention as it allows you to jump directly into the mailbox of valuable warm leads. You can entice purchases or clicks to your website with clever headlines, great resources, and discounts or promotions during your email campaigns.

Customer retention is critical to eCommerce success after the festive season, especially considering the influx of new buyers to your website during the holidays. To drive greater return on investment with your customer retention strategy, you can integrate consumer financing from ChargeAfter, remarket with advertising campaigns, offer loyalty programs, and utilize email marketing. 

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Google remains a stalwart platform for product searches as more and more shoppers at various stages of the sales funnel turn to the search platform for product information, prices, and deals. For this reason, utilizing Google Shopping alongside your eCommerce platform is a surefire way to reach shoppers that are unaware of your brand, searching Google to compare offerings, and those that are seeking solutions to solve their problems. To get in front of consumers and build more brand authority, especially on the search engine, eCommerce platforms must understand and integrate with Google Shopping alongside consumer financing options that will help improve sales. In this article, we discuss Google Shopping and how consumer financing can support your online business growth. 

What is Google Shopping?

Google Shopping refers to the product search engine wing of the international search engine platform. The platform allows consumers to browse, compare prices, and even shop a range of products drawn from the catalogs of billions of online stores across the web. This gives business owners a new revenue stream, enabling SEO functionality to position products in front of the competition. Furthermore, Google Shopping enables paid advertising to ensure that online stores can compete for consumer attention when inputting specific search terms into the search engine. Another benefit of Google Shopping is that eCommerce platforms can redirect traffic to their website from Google, creating a seamlessly integrated online shopping experience from search to collection exploration and purchasing. 

Why Should You Sell on Google?

There is a strong case to be made in favor of selling on Google alongside your eCommerce platform via service providers like Shopify, Bigcommerce, and Magento. For one thing, the search engine prioritizes Google Shopping listings in search through SEO and advertising enabling businesses to shut out competition and put their products front and center of their target markets. The feature also allows shoppers to purchase from businesses websites or Google itself with the Buy on Google function, creating seamless and efficient user experiences that are critical to eCommerce success. 

How to Utilize Google Merchant Center

The Google Merchant Center (GMC) enables businesses to list their product inventories on Google Shopping features. The following guide shares how to get your products on Google Shopping so that you can improve your eCommerce success:

1. Create a Google account
2. Verify your business with Google My Business
3. Create a Google Merchant Center account
4. Verify your website
5. Provide your business information
6. Include product information
7. Complete the Buy on Google setup
8. Connect with Google Ads
9. Run a campaign

Ensure that every aspect of your Google Shopping functionalities is SEO-friendly as this will help Google recognize your eCommerce platform as a leading company within your industry. 

How Consumer Financing Helps Improve Sales

With your Google Shopping setup, you can benefit from an increase in traffic to your website. To ensure that new shoppers convert, integrate consumer financing solutions to encourage sales. ChargeAfter is a leading provider of consumer financing solutions that facilitates seamless checkout for consumers using your website. This is done by connecting your shoppers with ChargeAfter’s extensive network of reputable lenders capable of fulfilling their financial requirements. Your shoppers receive instant access to zero-interest financing options at the push of a button if your website integrates ChargeAfter’s consumer financing. The consumer benefits speak for themselves, with no credit checks and personalized repayment plans extremely appealing to the modern shopper. This integration will ensure that your shoppers turn from casual browsers to enthusiastic buyers in no time. 

Using Google Shopping and consumer financing, eCommerce stores can set their brands apart from the competition and leverage greater sales this festive season. 

Want to learn more? Reach out to us here.

Marketing metrics are a cornerstone of online success. When it comes to digital retail, business owners and their marketing teams need to be clued up on the right metrics to measure success and how to track store performance against valuable data. Now more than ever, online retail stores need to underpin every action with metric analysis in order to discover what works and what doesn’t. This is especially important as metrics provide insight into consumer behavior, the driving force behind successful online retail. In this article, we discuss how you can track your eCommerce store performance with ChargeAfter consumer financing and foolproof metrics.

Consumer Financing Tracking With ChargeAfter

Before delving into the most common metrics to track store performance, let’s look at a newer and more powerful tool to analyze your success. ChargeAfter is a leading provider of consumer financing solutions that enable businesses to attract modern consumers and encourage sales. The platform provides shoppers with on-demand financing that requires no credit checks and does not come with costly monthly interest installments. The benefit of integrating ChargeAfter’s novel consumer financing solution speaks for itself. But, how does partnering with ChargeAfter help businesses track store performance? Well, ChargeAfter provides full reporting of consumer activity at checkout to ensure that the process is seamless and successful. ChargeAfter’s team of dedicated analysts provides comprehensive feedback regarding the utilization of the consumer financing plug-in as well as how your checkout pages are performing. With this data and recommendations, eCommerce store owners can make informed executive decisions regarding their online platforms and functionality. 

The combination of ChargeAfter’s support and tracking of the below-mentioned metrics can help your online platform cut through the clutter and ensure profitable growth.

Product Discovery Metrics

Online platforms need to assess their product discovery metrics including impressions, reach, and engagements. Utilizing paid media on socials or Google, online stores can serve their content to their audience and see these metrics results improve. Impressions provide an indication of how many people are viewing your content, reach refers to the number of consumers currently aware of and interested in your brand, and engagement shows how many of those consumers are interacting with your brand. Tracking these three metrics will give you an idea of your brand authority in the eyes of your target market. 

Acquisition Metrics

Acquisition metrics refer to trackable data on shoppers that are actually browsing your online platform to buy. Marketing teams should consider the email click-through rate and cost per acquisition first and foremost. These two metrics give online stores an idea of how appealing their content is and whether or not it is leading to valuable consumer action. A higher email click-through rate and lower cost per acquisition indicate that the online store’s digital marketing activities are efficient and cost-effective. 

Conversion Metrics

Conversion metrics are some of the most important as they help online stores track the actual sales of products on their online stores. Marketing teams should note changes in cart abandonment rates, average order values, and sales conversion rates. These metrics showcase how many shoppers are making profitable buying decisions and help teams determine why others may choose to leave a shop and buy elsewhere. Conversion metrics are critical to eCommerce success, and businesses that integrate ChargeAfter’s consumer financing enable better results because of the many benefits of BNPL solutions. 

Business owners and their marketing teams can track eCommerce store performance through analysis of key consumer metrics including product discovery, acquisition, and conversion metrics. Through an assessment of these metrics and full reporting support from ChargeAfter’s consumer financing team, eCommerce companies can improve their online shopping experiences and land more sales.

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Online retail competition is rife and business owners need to consider new avenues to promote their products and integrate best practices to set their digital stores apart. The need to develop better eCommerce platforms goes hand in hand with the increase in online shopping following the pandemic, and continued interest in efficient digital retail as a result. Implementing strategies to promote your products is a sure-fire way of grabbing consumer attention, acquiring new customers, and converting interested shoppers. Following this article’s 5 ways to promote your products including online financing and more, you can improve your sales, stand out from the competition, and grow your business in the digital shopping age. 

1. Promoting With Online Financing

Online financing is a powerful promotion tactic that benefits consumers shopping with online stores. ChargeAfter is a provider of trustworthy online financing that connects shoppers with lenders capable of providing financing with no additional interest or credit applications required. eCommerce platforms can partner with ChargeAfter to integrate the beneficial consumer financing plug-in at their online shop checkout page, giving their buyers access to instant financing solutions. This integration promotes products as it provides incentives to consumers who use the feature. By highlighting the consumer-centric benefits of online financing, businesses can promote product sales at checkout without having to invest too heavily beyond the online financing integration. 

2. Take Advantage of GMB and GMC

To stand out and sell products, online stores need to optimize their platforms for Google. Beyond implementing SEO best practices, companies should establish a Google My Business (GMB) page to improve their searchability. One should then consider setting up a profile with Google Merchant Center (GMC) to link Google Shopping with their online store. This helps consumers browsing Google find your products quicker, arrive at your website more efficiently, and even shop your products directly from Google should you enable this function. 

3. Advertise a Social Media Competition

Social media competitions are a great way to get your products in front of your online audience. They are cost-effective as they rely on users sharing competition adverts with their friends and family that may fall within your target market. It is, however, advisable that you put ad spend behind your social media competition to increase your reach and impressions. This strategy will ensure that you attract many buyers and friends of those that advocate for your brand and products. 

4. Utilize Email Marketing

Email marketing is a cost-effective and powerful strategy to implement as shoppers on your email database are often loyal buyers with a vested interest in your products. To bring their awareness to new deals and items, email marketing is your best bet as you can reach out to a massive list of people that are already aware of your brand. Furthermore, email magnets can encourage others to join your database and you can steadily grow your email marketing list while punting your products. 

5. Showcase Success

Now more than ever, shoppers want to buy from stores that have positive reviews and customer testimonials. It is imperative that you highlight positive reviews and bring them to the consumers’ attention. You can also generate success story blogs that improve SEO and link to products to further promote items you wish to sell. A good review strategy will ensure that you sell to more of the right buyers quicker as customers make decisions based on other consumers’ experiences with your products and services.

A combination of online financing, Google features, social media advertising, email marketing, and review strategies will help your eCommerce platform put your products in front of your online audience and drive greater sales for profitable digital growth.

Want to learn more? Reach out to us here.

The festive season is upon us and, as Christmas season rolls around, shoppers turn to online stores to grab last-minute Christmas gifts, holiday supplies, and great deals. As festive season sales rise year-in and year-out, you must optimize your online store to handle the influx of traffic. You should also ensure that your checkout page is optimized to increase sales during the period. From online financing to shipping discounts, we discuss 5 checkout page optimization tips to improve your sales during the holidays.

1. Provide Consumers With Online Financing

Online financing refers to integrations that provide consumers with financing options when shopping eCommerce platforms. ChargeAfter is a leading provider of online financing solutions that can push sales at checkout, improving your profit returns during the festive season. When eCommerce businesses partner with ChargeAfter, they can give their consumers access to a comprehensive network of trustworthy lenders. These lenders offer zero-interest repayment options and consumers do not require credit checks to receive financing. Shoppers browsing eCommerce stores with online financing capabilities are more likely to purchase as they understand the benefits of using these features. For those that are unaware of the power of online financing, there are opportunities to upsell the feature at checkout to attract consumer attention and land a sale. Integrating online financing from ChargeAfter is a critical step to optimizing your checkout page for the busy festive shopping season. 

2. Offer Guest Checkout to Bypass Sign Ups

Encouraging consumers to sign up is a great marketing strategy as they become warm leads to target with emails, newsletters, and product announcements. That said, festive shoppers are more likely browsing than deciding to become brand loyal customers and eCommerce platforms should provide easy user experiences for these shoppers to make purchases. One such strategy is offering guest checkout for consumers that do not wish to sign up to buy. Shoppers that use this feature can quickly fly through the checkout process, saving them time and saving you money as you minimize cart abandonment rates during the holiday season.

3. Offer More Shipping Services

Many eCommerce businesses fall into the trap of sticking with one shipping partner. The best online platforms understand that global consumers seek shipping options to facilitate their unique shopping behaviors. For example, some shoppers want express shipping during the festive season and are willing to pay more as they wish to ensure gifts will arrive in time for Christmas. Other shoppers are in less of a rush and are willing to forego express shipping in favor of saving costs during the holidays. Therefore, you should offer both types of shipping at checkout and consider additional shipping facilities to save your business money. Dropshipping, for example, is a popular shipping strategy that can help eCommerce platforms save money during the holidays. 

4. Make Checkout Mobile Friendly

If your website is not mobile-friendly, then you will lose customers during the festive season. The checkout experience on mobile must be simple, quick, and seamless as many shoppers use their mobile devices to browse for Christmas gifts and supplies. Chat with your marketing team and invest in a mobile-friendly website if you haven’t already to avoid losing customers over the holidays. 

5. Sell More With Cross-Selling

Cross-selling refers to a checkout strategy whereby you showcase related products to a customer’s purchase during the checkout process. Customers shopping for a printer, for example, can be shown inks that work with their chosen printer. If offered at a slight discount, shoppers are more likely to add the additional items to their carts and purchase larger orders. This will improve your average order values during the festive season, leading to a more profitable holiday period for your business. 

Want to learn more? Reach out to us here.