In a world where hundreds of thousands of e-commerce businesses are all fighting for the same customers, making a success of your own venture can be tricky. Even when you have outstanding products on offer for genuinely low prices, it can still be difficult to both get ahead of the competition and remain profitable.

On the plus side, there are countless ways and means by which any e-commerce business can be optimised and improved. Best of all, many of these things can be tackled with ease and begun right now, in order to begin edging things in the right direction right away.

1. Upsell and Cross-sell

First of all, pretty much every popular platform used for e-commerce these days makes it simple to cross-sell and upsell related products. Which means that if you aren’t taking advantage of such facilities, you are probably losing out. Upselling and cross-selling are brilliant ways of both increasing sales and managing your inventory with optimum efficiency. It’s the kind of feature that can be set up in a matter of minutes, but can nonetheless have enormous and immediate positive impact on your business.

2. Get Rid of Slow-Movers

Just as is the case with all High Street stores, it’s important to remember that slow-movers that sit in your inventory and generate little to no customer interest may be both slowing you down and costing you money. It could be that there is a newer version available, it is a strictly seasonal product or that there is simply very little demand for it in general. In all such instances, it makes so much more sense to do whatever it takes to clear and close them out, rather than allowing them to hang around.

3. Add Live Chat

Another simple and immediate change that could work wonders for your business is that of adding a live chat facility. These days, enormous chunks of the consumer population have neither the time nor the patience to telephone customer service desks, or to write emails and await responses. By contrast, being able to type queries in real-time and have them answered immediately represents a much more appealing prospect. In fact, research has shown that the presence of a live chat facility alone can positively impact conversions – even among those who do not actually use it.

4. Free Shipping

E-commerce studies have also shown that the single biggest cause of basket abandonment is shipping charges added on at the end of the sale. Even if the price of the item is increased to compensate for the shipping charges, it’s been proven time and time again that to at least give the illusion of free shipping can make an enormous difference. Offer customers the option of paid priority shipping by all means, but ensure that standard shipping always comes across as free.

5. Treat It Like a Business

Last but not least, while it’s perfectly possible to run an online business out of any old back bedroom, the more you treat it like a real business, the more it will function like a real business. Whether it’s setting up a dedicated office, investing in shelving to set up a storage room or even hiring workers to assist with running the business, the more you invest in your e-commerce venture, the more you can expect to get out of it.