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3 Reasons That Ecommerce Needs Inbound Marketing

 

.

Some say that ecommerce sites have little need for sustained lead or customer cultivation online. People come to a site, buy what they need, and leave, all of which can be done under 30 minutes. Why should an ecommerce site consider distributing free resources or sending periodic updates for lead engagement if its sales cycle is so short?

abandoned shopping cart

We at HubSpot preach the opposite belief.  The concept of attracting prospects, engaging them, and eventually turning them into customers applies to ecommerce websites as much as it does elsewhere. Here we conclude three reasons that inbound marketing contributes to business growth for ecommerce websites.

1. Successful transactions on ecommerce sites don’t always happen in one visit. Prospects who abandon shopping carts can be cultivated as leads.

Numerous statistics show that 57-75% of all shopping carts are abandoned before the sale is closed. Here is an overview of the top 10 reasons (based on a survey of 719 consumers) for shopping cart abandonment and the percentage of consumers citing each as a reason:

  1. High shipping prices (72%)
  2. Comparison shopping or browsing (61%)
  3. Changed mind (56%)
  4. Saving items for later purchase (51%)
  5. Total cost of items is too high (43%)
  6. Checkout process is too long (41%)
  7. Checkout requires too much personal information (35%)
  8. Site requires registration before purchase (34%)
  9. Site is unstable or unreliable (31%)
  10. Checkout process is confusing (27%)

The take-away point is that potential buyers have many reasons to restrain from buying on the first visit. If an ecommerce business only counts on those who do buy the first time and neglect to follow up with those who abandon shopping carts, it is invariably losing a large portion of its market segment. Most potential buyers have some level of interest in the products an ecommerce site offers, and cultivating and deepening their interest may significantly improve the likelihood of converting them into customers. Treating potential buyers as leads to be cultivated—and thus going through the process of sending e-mail newsletters, free product-related resources, and the like—is one big step into the realm of inbound marketing.  To be able to nurture these abandoned shopping carts, make sure your shopping cart provider can track and provide you that contact info or is integrated into a system that can.

2. Ecommerce businesses can also retain prospects who have not provided their contact information by shifting the website’s focus from “buy immediately” to “learn more”

Depending on your website design, some potential buyers provide their contact information before shopping cart abandonment while others don’t. The latter therefore does not count as leads at this stage. That doesn’t necessarily mean you have lost a lead source, however. People leave a site when they are not ready to buy and they are presented only the option to buy immediately. If an ecommerce website portrays itself as a platform that not only sells but also helps potential customers determine what products best fit their needs, it becomes much more capable of engaging a wider audience.

For instance, you can add the option of “learn more” which directs people to a page of useful resources concerning the product. If your website carries a price advantage, you can compare the price your website offers with market prices. If a purchase points to the direction of production instead of consumption, you can provide comprehensive information on the production process. For example, if people want to buy dumpling peel instead of dumplings, they very likely will make dumplings for themselves or for their businesses. In that case, you can integrate resources elsewhere on the web on how to make dumplings and solicit contact information in return for free-kit download.

There are many other ways to retain prospects. In fact, addressing any of the 10 reasons listed above that lead to cart abandonment will enhance your site’s ability to engage prospects. Whether it be shortening the check-out process, reducing the required fields prospects need to fill to check out products, or breaking down a costly item into several more affordable pieces, you should pick based on your needs.

3. Raising the online visibility of your ecommerce website gets you more website visitors.

Besides cultivating those who visit your website, you should think of reaching those who might not have heard of your brand before. This is where content creation, promotion, and optimization—the three fundamental elements of inbound marketing—come in handy. By writing blog articles and promoting them on social media websites, your free information sharing may attract many interested prospects to your website. Optimizing for keywords that relate to your business model or the kinds of products you sell may also improve your website’s search ranking, which similarly generates an additional source of website traffic. In other words, ecommerce websites can benefit as much from inbound marketing strategies as other websites do. No matter what you sell or how you sell it, enlarging the pool of potential customers and engaging them always help with business growth.

Are you ready to integrate inbound marketing into your ecommerce website development?

Source: Halixo

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Posted by Lily Zhu on Tue, Aug 03, 2010 @ 11:00 AM

COMMENTS

Since we work almost exclusively with e-commerce clients, this is a very timely topic for me. The HubSpot tool works so well for our B2B lead generation and lead nurturing that I want to use it to help my e-commerce clients. There's an education process involved in reframing the context of "what is a lead?" in the e-commerce world. Our studies have shown that consumers are taking longer to buy, doing more online research, and much more comparison shopping. This means that e-commerce websites must adapt to the needs of shoppers who are not yet ready to buy with information and resources and ways to keep in touch. 
 
You've done a nice job of summarizing the thought process and making a good case for it!  
 
Thanks!

posted on Tuesday, August 03, 2010 at 12:21 PM by Sally Anne Dishong


@Sally: Thanks very much for your kind comment!  
 
Lily

posted on Tuesday, August 03, 2010 at 12:24 PM by Lily Zhu


@Miami Web Design: thanks! 
 
Best,Lily

posted on Tuesday, August 03, 2010 at 12:40 PM by Lily Zhu


Good tip, Im starting a e-commerce site in Colombia where of course reasons may vary

posted on Tuesday, August 03, 2010 at 2:27 PM by Daniel Gutierrez


@Daniel: Thanks! Are you saying that reasons for needing inbound marketing may vary or that ecommerce might find other techniques more effective? 
 
Hope to hear your insight, Lily

posted on Tuesday, August 03, 2010 at 2:31 PM by Lily Zhu


@Lily. Sorry I meant the reasons for shopping cart abandonment, there is a huge gap in the e-commerce culture between the States and Latin America, my point is how inbound marketing can raise the reliability level of the site, which I think might be an important reason why somebody wouldn’t buy something online.

posted on Tuesday, August 03, 2010 at 2:43 PM by Daniel Gutierrez


@Daniel:thanks for clarifying. That makes sense. How are the reasons for shopping cart abandonment different? And what aspects of Latin American culture could we attribute the difference to? 
 
Thanks,Lily

posted on Tuesday, August 03, 2010 at 2:48 PM by Lily Zhu


 
 
@Lily that’s an interesting discussion, I could say there is first internet penetration rate, there’s been a huge improvement on that but there is a long way, in Colombia we are talking of about a 50% of homes with internet access, we could talk of the number of issued credit cards in the market, security issues, there’s a lot of people who gets scammed because they don’t know about internet treats, our culture is quite social, people love go out to the mall, check the product, talk to the sales person, I think marketing has a big role to play, many people myself included have bought on sites in the state but would doubt to do it in a local online store, how could we change that? 
 

posted on Tuesday, August 03, 2010 at 3:10 PM by Daniel Gutierrez


Rear Sirs:I"ll take any start up information i can getif any one have any thank.

posted on Tuesday, August 03, 2010 at 3:48 PM by Horace Moning


@Daniel:that's a good observation. Some of the most successful ecommerce sites that I know of do not have local stores. Local stores and virtual stores appeal to different customer targets. Those who like testing out products before purchasing might adhere to local stores, whereas a growing number of people who enjoyed the ease of browsing online and time-saving nature of online shopping like ecommerce sites more. I think trust can be cultivated in any culture. As long as a site appears credible, professional, and functions likewise, it has a large chance of acquiring a large custoemr base. 
 
What do you think? 
 
Best,Lily

posted on Tuesday, August 03, 2010 at 3:57 PM by Lily Zhu


@Lily Couldn’t agree with you more in the credible appearance of the site, I was think of adding a star rating functionality or customer feedback and comments section to make it much more “human”, it’s all about reputation and name. 
 
 
 
Rgds, 
 

posted on Tuesday, August 03, 2010 at 5:21 PM by Daniel Gutierrez


I totally agree with all of your points but I can't imagine anyone actually thinking up and saying the first line of your article. 
"Some say that ecommerce sites have little need for sustained lead or customer cultivation online." 
Who are the "some" that say? I don't mean to sound argumentative but that is tantamount to saying "some say supermarkets  
don't needing to advertize via newspaper circulars."  
 

posted on Tuesday, August 03, 2010 at 8:14 PM by Louise Rogers


@Louise: I see what you mean. I guess the reason for that statement was supplied in the rest of the 1st paragraph, but you are right in pointing out that this is too naive a counter-argument. I guess I have to adjust my writing style from now on :) 
Thanks for contributing your thoughts, Lily

posted on Tuesday, August 03, 2010 at 8:17 PM by Lily Zhu


It just goes to show that even in a transactional model you still have opportunities to "Add Value" to the process to increase your rate of conversion. Check out the buying cycle here to further understand your customers: http://www.huthwaite.com.au/the-buying-cycle.html

posted on Tuesday, August 03, 2010 at 9:35 PM by Ralph Vugts


Lily, 
 
I would agree that "some say that ecommerce sites don't need lead generation or lead nurturing" is a perfectly good lead in to your story. In fact, I think the general consensus of HubSpotters seems to be that the HubSpot tool is best suited for B2B sites with the need for traditional lead generation for a sales force. I'd love to hear more from HubSpot users and HubSpot staff about case studies and successes with ecommerce. My gut instinct tells me it's a good fit, if we can expand our framework for what is a "lead". At LinkShare, some of our affiliate marketers (website publishers) miss out on opportunities to use email, for example, as a way to capture contact information for nurturing the sales process in favor of focusing on the immediate sale transaction at the website. In addition, we have an entire group of clients whose business model is "lead generation" from their websites. 
 
Thanks for your thought provoking article and to all those who have made insightful comments as well!

posted on Wednesday, August 04, 2010 at 8:26 AM by Sally Anne Dishong


@Sally, that is very kind of you. We at HubSpot heard similar arguments before, but I do think Louise has a point that starting with "some people say" might be a bit vague. (in fact, I don't know who exactly made that argument!) We would be happy to share customer success stories in the near future since we are just starting to explore collaboration with ecommerce companies. Check back in a month or two to see if we have ecommerce customer case studies or testimonials from those who purchase ecommerce integration on our Service Marketplace! 
 
Thanks, Lily

posted on Wednesday, August 04, 2010 at 8:36 AM by Lily Zhu


Discussions like this are especially interesting when you have people like me, a newbie, making comments such as I did. I spend every minute of my time nurturing any lead and all buyers so they come back so the concept just seemed odd but that was from my naive perspective. I'm trying to squeeze in more Hubspot learning time!!!

posted on Wednesday, August 04, 2010 at 11:34 AM by Louise Rogers


@Michael: thanks for your kind comment. We hope you come back to the HubSpot blog often for updates on the internet marketing world! 
Best, Lily

posted on Wednesday, August 04, 2010 at 9:44 PM by Lily Zhu


Hubspot content is always excellent. But the writing and editing on this article is abysmal. Two examples: 
 
"Here we conclude three reasons ..." 
"...make sure your shopping cart provider can track and provide you that contact info or..." 
 
Poor grammar is bad blogging. In the future, please review your homework before you hand it in.  

posted on Thursday, August 05, 2010 at 8:30 PM by Paul Schindel


@Paul: Our team edited the piece at least 3 times and I wonder if you can explain what grammatical errors you spotted in those two sentences. I reread them and, given my grammatical skill level, do not understand where your argument originates.  
 
How else would you say the two sentences? I'd like to hear your thoughts. 
 
Lily

posted on Friday, August 06, 2010 at 6:38 AM by Lily Zhu


@Lily, 
"Here we conclude three reasons ..."  
SHOULD READ include, not conclude 
 
 
"...make sure your shopping cart provider can track and provide you that contact info or..."  
 
SHOULD READ "... and provide you WITH that contact info..." 
 
There were others, but I don't have time to be anyone's high school English tutor. Being in the content business, you should ALL know better! Marble-mouthed marketing can work against you.

posted on Friday, August 06, 2010 at 6:51 AM by Paul Schindel


@Paul: thanks for getting back to me. Regarding your points: 
 
1. I meant "conclude", not "include." "Include" would imply that there are other reasons that we thought of but did not intend to share in this article, which is NOT the case. 
 
2. This I agree with. Given my immigrant background, I recognize my lack of English proficiency and have been working on that by writing articles like what I'm doing for HubSpot.  
 
I'm sure we at HubSpot can spend time looking for other mistakes. In fact, a piece of writing can always be improved (in terms of both correct grammar and style, the latter including syntax, diction, tone, etc).  
 
As a business, we highly value providing quality information to our audience but are also aware of the importance of efficiency. I will do my best on editing in the future (please do not blame my colleagues as they are excellent writers) while not forgetting to allocate my time effectively, considerig that providing high-quality content in a comprehensible way (at least perceived by the majority of our blog readers) is our primary goal. 
 
Regards, Lily

posted on Friday, August 06, 2010 at 7:00 AM by Lily Zhu


Benefits do help with profitability.Low turnover means we only have to go through the educational process once. Thanks for imparting such important information.

posted on Friday, August 06, 2010 at 7:07 AM by ecommerce


If you intended these as conclusions, then you should have said "Here we present three conclusions..." or "Here we include three conclusions..." 
 
Keep writing, Lily. As important, keep reading. That's where good writing comes from. 
Paul

posted on Friday, August 06, 2010 at 7:10 AM by Paul Schindel


No one can deny communicating on the internet has changed how our brains filter grammatical correctness. On one platform we are texting or sending speed emails and on our blog platforms our words are like gold and we try to use as many as we can. Creative wires can short out. 
I understand where Paul is coming from because grammar has always been a weakness of mine but it is also a grave weakness of public education. The correlation between perfect grammar and an excellent primary and secondary education speaks of privilege (proof being the altitude of Paul's nose while writing about his dismay) and this type of public criticism (which took this blog off topic)could be more beneficial expressed to the writer in a private platform, as in a considerate email. Oh, but Paul does not have the time to serve as an English tutor, hhmmm by the time he reads all of this he could have at least given us a primer. 
Thank you Lily and thank you Paul, now how about starting the Rex Harrison School for Learning Good Grammar on the internet and charge for classes. With all the weight put on the need for blogging it just might be a very needed service.

posted on Friday, August 06, 2010 at 7:53 AM by Louise


@ecommerce: thank you for your encouragement. We hope our blog does help you achieve your goal of learning. 
 
Best,Lily

posted on Friday, August 06, 2010 at 4:30 PM by Lily Zhu


@Paul: thanks for your advice. 
 
Best,Lily

posted on Friday, August 06, 2010 at 4:31 PM by Lily Zhu


Great post and very useful information. A lot of e-commerce sites should be reading this, it will help them handle their business well.

posted on Monday, August 09, 2010 at 2:14 AM by Video Character


@Video Character: thanks for your encouragement. 
 
Lily

posted on Monday, August 09, 2010 at 7:26 AM by Lily Zhu


Comments have been closed for this article.