I’ve been in the ecommerce business for over 5 years now. The knowledge gained has been immense.
What follows are my thoughts on what I believe are the 7 most critical e-commerce tips to run a successful online shop in the Kenyan market.
1. Logistics is your business
I started a company thinking that I would only be thinking about the products we sell.
Well, 4 years in, and when the pandemic struck, we started seeing more conversions on-site than we had ever seen in the entire history of running the online store. Not only were orders coming from Nairobi, they were now coming from across the entire country.
We then had to start scouting for shipping partners that could move our small but fragile products from Nairobi to other towns such as Mombasa, Kisumu, Bomet, Malindi, Nakuru. As our order basket size grew, packaging too became a huge headache.
So we asked ourselves, ‘How do we swiftly and securely move fragile plants to our customers?’
‘Which partners were bold enough to carry our open packages to various parts of the country with no hicccups?’
Every e-commerce store that’s scaling countrywide (or regionally for that matter) needs to think about this. Keep in mind that shipping fees tends to be the single most expensive item on the expenses sheet. I haven’t even added the fact that managing inventory too becomes a tizzy. It’s easy to loose track of what’s in store and what’s not.
Happy that we now have an Operations Lead who ensures that the items go to the right customers in a timely manner. She also does weekly checks to ensure we have enough packaging material and a good supply of products that move like plant pots and planters to keep us going month on month. We haven’t figured it out as efficiently as we’d like, but we are getting there.
2. Content Is Indeed King
Thanks to ITC ecomConnect and Charicomm, in Q1 2021, we ramped up our digital marketing efforts. We went from boosting posts to posting ads! Before, boosting posts was all we knew.
We first had mini-intense training sessions with Charicomm on the various digital promotion strategies and then in February 2021, boom! We went live with our first ever digital adverts.
We did A/B testing on social media which was a huge success as we got to know which ads had more traction.
We also opened for our store a Google Ads account and did some search and display ads. Google Analytics became our best friend. Something we didn’t know about previously.
However, at first, we didn’t see much traction, and just when we were about to give up on the ads we had created, our website started getting conversions.
We went from weekly sales to daily sales in about a month.
Shop Nanjala Data Analytics dashboard for Q1 2021 vs Q4 2020
My advice is to urge anyone who is interesting in growing their e-commerce store to start adding Pixels and Google tags so as to be be able to track on-site conversions. Be sure to also double down on marketing for those products that seem to sell well.
On the Google Ads dashboard, you also are able to get finer details about our customers buying habits and what they are interested in. For example, we noticed that in March, our customers loved the 25% off sale offer!
Coupled with that, our customers received free shipping once they purchased goods worth KES. 5,000 and above. A double wammy for them.
We saw some loyal customers buying up to 3 times in the same week! That season we received numerous offline calls from far and wide making enquiries for even items we didn’t even retail on our store.
Google Ads may just be one of the best methods out there to digitally promote your online business.
With approximately USD 200 marketing budget a month shared between Google Ads and FaceBook, your stores earning could double or triple in that very month.
Today I keep abreast with new digital marketing strategies by simply watching the Google Ads tutorial. I learn about new features, best practice and inspiring content that we apply to our own business model to enable us to continuously growing organically.
3. Have a digital marketing calendar
And religiously follow it.
Before we did lazy posting, but early this year we started posting daily – about 4 stories a day. We posted interesting, genuine content where we shared our experiences as we prepared orders for our customers. Over time, customers started imagining the products in their homes and this triggered them to go online and purchase. We even had to hire an intern to help with the graphics for our website banners and social media digital ads to continue storytelling.
Therefore, having a content calendar is crucial as it ensures that one is consistently posting content and therefore won’t lack content and fall back to the ‘free online quotes’ that we normally see on some pages.
We recently also signed up with Omnisend a powerful, user friendly tool for SMS and email marketing that helps drive eyeballs to our e-commerce website.
4. Data is Lord
So if you are not tracking, then you don’t know a thing about your business. It’s like shooting in the dark.
We’ve gone to great lengths as a team to understand our customers’ mindset by gleaning data from our CMS.
We did a survey and we now know exactly who our Shop Nanjala customer is. Using our data analytics reports, we schedule regular meets to understand what is going on in terms of performance against set KPIs, what needs improvement, what our online revenue numbers are, where we can do better and so on and so forth.
Currently we are logging our offline orders on Woo commerce (our web developer taught us how) and this provides a more accurate perspective of the total sales in any given month.
Web optimization may sound complex but understand the value of it so we continue to learn how to improve our SEO and how to interpret the data.
Understanding how data analytics works is really what sets your e-commerce business apart and harnessed well, can really scale your business.
5. Obsess about your Customer
Indulge them.
Help them make decisions.
Chat them to know if they want to know more about something specific.
Call them if the need clarity or have a shopping issue.
Cater to their slightest whim.
Ask for their reviews.
Follow up on abandoned carts.
We’ve noticed that when you speak to customers, you give your brand a human face. Nothing beats this interaction. No machine or bot can either.
We have a fantastic customer service lead who ensures that all customers are notified via SMS when we receive their order. We also inform them on an estimated time they shall get their order delivered. We always check our backend regularly to also followup on abandoned carts.
Many a times we have noticed that we get many orders with large basket sizes, not because we have many unique shoppers, but because of our repeat customers who are loyal.
These customers have come back to buy again and again. And guess what, they also make the best referees as they genuinely have had good experiences and will definitely recommend you to their friends and family.
Great things come from just listening to your customers. Yes, they are always right!
6. Embrace Innovation
Before we didn’t know how SEO worked, we learnt, and are still learning. We were gifted a book on SEO 2021. It’s been our bible.
We wanted to know precisely when an order came through, so the digital team installed the Woo app on our phones.
Nowadays, we are addicted to the ‘kaching’ that pings on our phone every single time a shopper transacts on shopnanjala.com.
Another app we use often is the axis.africa, an integrated communications app that allows us to broadcast messages via email, SMS and WhatsApp. We now communicate with our customers more regularly. Sharing what is on sale or general announcement to our audiences via short messages.
For payments, we have recently integrated PayPal. Now one can pay on our email address besides using our PesaPal API that accepts payments from MPesa, Visa or MasterCard. We are also eyeing Flutterwave’s API that would allow payments from across Africa.
I dream of the day when we can also accept Bitcoin on our store.
7. Finally, hire the best and nurture them
These are your brand custodians, if they believe in your dream they could take your business to unimaginable heights!