Category: Blog

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. 

Want to learn more? Reach out to us here.

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.

Want to learn more? Reach out to us here.

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.

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. 

Want to learn more? Reach out to us here.

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.

Want to learn more? Reach out to us here.

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.