10 Tips to Boost E-Commerce Sales

Volusion, an e-commerce software provider, released a report that includes 101 tips to help online merchants optimize revenues. Here are 10 of those tips:

1. Make sure the mobile-optimized version of your online store has your company logo and the product categories are arranged properly.

2. Share your discounts and highlight featured products daily via social media. This technique creates a sense of urgency and helps extend your online reach.

3. Enable social sharing features such as Facebook's "Like" button on your product pages. This allows your site visitors to plant an idea for the perfect gift directly on various social media platforms.

4. Update your homepage graphic or slideshow, pointing visitors to specific product categories or your top-selling products.

5. Never, ever let shoppers be surprised by shipping charges once they reach the checkout page. Explicitly state shipping costs before consumers push the final checkout button. Surprise shipping charges are the No. 1 reason for abandoned shopping carts.

6. Don't skimp on the time spent analyzing orders for fraud. With an influx of orders, it becomes easy to quickly process them without looking for the telltale signs of fraudulent activity.

7. Create bundles or gift baskets of your products and offer them in a specific category on your website. You can also place these bundles in other pre-existing categories that make sense.

8. Offer exclusive discounts for holidays.

9. Resubmit your site map sooner than later with new products and categories so search engines can index and rank them before the selling season takes off.

10. Submit your products to comparison shopping engines (CSEs). If you're new to the game, get started by listing products on free engines like Google Product Search, Bing Shopping and TheFind. Once you do some testing to see which CSEs perform the best, consider moving to paid CSEs or hiring a CSE management service. While not as many consumers use CSEs compared to typical search engines, those who do are more likely to buy.