In the highly competitive component e-commerce market, customer acquisition and retention are the key to the survival and development of enterprises. This article delves into how component e-commerce can acquire customers through various channels and attract customers to place orders through first order discounts, points systems, lottery activities, etc.
1. How to get customers
This is a very important topic, for any enterprise to escape the problem, in fact, there are so many customers, we want to increase the number of customers is actually to spend money/energy/invest technology to compete with friends.
If as a new enterprise, the number of customers is small and it is not advantageous in many aspects compared with other friends, at this time we may hope to break the customers into more than N, not expecting to grab them all, but only hope to grab a little share of them.
But for customers, many enterprises prefer to use as few channels as possible to meet their daily procurement needs, after all, this is trouble-free. So if you want to accept a new supplier/channel, you are actually reluctant, especially in the form of a self-operated mall, because it is too clean, not gray, and there is no fish when the water is clear.
This forms the opposition between the expectations of e-commerce and the customer’s ideas, which is definitely not a good thing for new e-commerce, and as I said earlier, the two companies at the head firmly occupy a large number of customers, and there are not many companies that flow to the following companies, and they also have to face the competition of other friends, which is really too difficult.
But it is difficult to return, once you choose this road, you can only bite the bullet and go on, after all, you still have to face it, so we still have to think about where the customer comes from? After finding some customers, how do we get him to place an order? How can you make customers think of you as soon as they need it? It’s best if the customer just wants to place an order for you?
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In fact, I have talked about some sources of customers before, such as search engines and vertical platforms, such as short videos and live broadcasts, which are our common channels, as well as exhibitions, local promotions, outdoor advertising and other forms. In addition, there are some groups that are not very group-bound that are worth our management, and they are very good if they are used well.
I went to participate in the annual meeting of some companies before, in fact, every table will not lack those very active and enthusiastic people, can bring the atmosphere of the whole table, of course, bringing the atmosphere is not his purpose, it is to make connections, maybe these table friends will be his future customers or can bring him customers, saying this is not just to say this, I want to say more is that in fact, there are some groups in our industry that are very good at signing up for groups, and most of the groups in this group come out of one place, such as the group in Huaqiang North Chaoshan, such as the electronic circle of Guidian.
For self-operated malls, these channels can be operated, and unlike traditional distributors, almost all of our e-commerce will give new users some preferential policies for the first order, which is very effective for acquiring new customers. I just lowered the threshold for the first order before, so that customers have a chance to experience it for free, and they can acquire a new batch of new customers every month, and there are still a lot of retention of these customers in the next few months.
It’s not how good this trick is, it’s that others have done it, and it may be wrong if you don’t do it, and taking advantage is the mentality that most of us will have, don’t deny it, this is the fact. From the follow-up data, most of the customers are taking advantage, that is, there is no follow-up purchase, and there is always a small number of customers who continue to stay, and some people can afford to take advantage of the bargains occupied by many customers, which is not a loss.
This is the same view I said before – statistics are the same thing, look at the market more, take the initiative to make some wool may not necessarily suffer, the ancients also said that suffering losses is a blessing. Therefore, whether it is the first order free or the first order discount, rebates after placing an order, etc., these are all to make users become customers, become one of the customers who may place large orders, continue to operate these new customers in the future, and continue to adjust this strategy according to data feedback.
2. How to stabilize customers
We have worked hard to get back some customers from outside, always hoping that they can continue to place orders for us, and e-commerce is different from traditional agency distributors, and the stickiness and other services with customers are not as good as them, so how can we retain these customers?
1. The account has property
The fast food restaurant downstairs will often have higher recharge and gift activities, such as members charge 300 to get 50 free, charge 500 to get 80 and so on, in fact, this is to make our account rich, will you always think that it is a loss if you don’t go there to consume.
This has been well certified by someone close to me, who will often recharge her membership at some restaurants downstairs in the company, and then go to that one until she runs out of consumption, and then say that she is tired of eating and then change one, which I don’t understand. Isn’t it good to change food every day without recharging, why do you have to change the one every time you get tired of eating in one place, isn’t it not easy for yourself?
She said, I know, but sometimes I just feel that there is a bargain and not a loss, and its house is quite delicious, the key is that I don’t know what to eat every day, and I don’t have to think about which one to eat when I recharge, in fact, it’s quite simple, and there are not so many choices.
There is property in this account, which is a very important means to retain customers and let customers continue to place orders, not only for C-end customers, but also for B-end customers. For customers, if there is no big difference between cooperating with this company and cooperating with another company, then I can have additional gifts when I recharge, and I can save some of my options trouble, so why not do it. For self-operated malls, they are more willing to see these customers favor themselves, earn a little less for each order, and earn long-term benefits for customers, and will definitely not lose money.
One of the things that the current self-operated mall is still doing is points, each order will return a certain number of points according to the order amount, and the points can be exchanged for coupons or JD E cards, exchange gifts and the like in a certain proportion, but also in order to let the customer’s account still have property, and finally achieve the purpose of retaining customers.
No matter what the way, let the customer’s account continue to maintain a certain amount of property, for the retention of the customer is very valuable, as for the amount of profit to the customer, this depends on the situation of each mall itself, not necessarily according to a certain head mall, the situation of each self-operated mall is different, maybe others are rich, the gross profit is high and willing to give customers more profits, but you may not be able to keep up, or according to your own situation to implement.
2. There are additional surprises when placing an order
For the points just mentioned, it is actually a kind of benefit for customers, but this relatively low concession, or has been considered by customers to be a benefit, may not be very attractive, for customers will now have points when placing an order in every mall, then this point is not so attractive.
One of the ways I often see in the nearby supermarket is to place an order can be drawn, sometimes it is 60 can be drawn once, the prizes are diverse, the most common is the drink, or the newly launched cheap drink, the cost should be lower, after all, in order to make the customer experience, these newly listed brands are definitely willing to give profits to the supermarket, let the supermarket help to tie it up. Sometimes if you are lucky enough to get an umbrella, this is even a surprise, although there are not many umbrellas in my family.
In fact, this action, which is often used to achieve good results on C-end customers, is also applicable to B-end. We can often see that there will be an order lottery event every once in a while, and some can be drawn as long as the order is placed, and the full amount can be drawn again, all in order to bring additional surprises to customers. I sometimes try my luck when I see a lot of prizes, although the probability of that jackpot is very low, but it is not necessarily me.
For the lottery, I have also seen some malls advertise that there are big gifts, but in fact the probability of winning is 0. Isn’t this playing with the customer’s expectations, there is no impermeable wall, the customer may know that you are playing with him one day.
There is also a more obvious surprise for placing an order, which is a full gift, directly reaching a certain amount of rewards, or according to the ranking during the event, what the first place will give, and what the second place will give. For customers, this kind of gift is more visible, more suitable for large customers to play, and it is also a good means for the mall to promote performance.
Some big players even give away cars, and one year Lichuang Double Eleven gave a Tesla to the top place, which was really big. This customer definitely didn’t make any money, but the publicity value and the profit from other customers placing additional orders for this car were far more than the value of the car.
I still want to make it clear here that some malls also engage in some high-value giveaway activities, but the threshold is very high, and only they know best whether customers can reach that threshold. Personally, I think you can’t play virtually, don’t treat customers as monkeys, and in the end you will only be yourself.
One year, the fat pier of the Winter Olympics became the darling of people all over the world, at that time it was difficult to find, there are malls directly use this as a starting point, customers have the opportunity to get it when they place an order, of course, I don’t know if it will be sent in the end, I want to say that there can be many forms of surprises, not necessarily money, and it may be some limited value preservation things, maybe everyone will play digital collections in the future, in short, there are additional surprises when placing orders, which is very helpful for attracting customers to place orders.
3. After-sales service
After-sales service is also very favored by customers when placing orders, if the various grasps we mentioned earlier are to attract customers to place orders, then after-sales service should be the support behind these grasps. No enterprise is willing to cooperate with an enterprise without after-sales service, because this is the focus of safeguarding its own corporate interests.
So our self-operated mall of electronic components, there are so many models on sale, if the customer has some problems in the production process, how to deal with it? Some technical problems, the mall cannot be solved, and the application scenarios of customers are so diversified, it is obviously not feasible to solve them by yourself. At this time, it would be best if you could communicate with the original manufacturer or agent and let them come forward to solve the problem.
If you encounter product problems with the components themselves, such as customer complaints that they are fake, the pins are bent, the solderability is poor, the parameters are not matched, etc., these problems are likely to be detected only on the production line, then the problem is big. As the mall itself is not authoritative, you are not happy to deal with the customer designation yourself, of course, you want an authoritative third-party organization to come out and speak, explain the specific problem, or find the original factory, give a solution, can be solved smoothly, if this pulls some reasons and shirks, in the end the problem can not be solved, and the compensation is not obtained, then the customer will first feel that the mall is unreliable, and will never buy goods in the mall in the future, and friends should not go.
You see, although no one is willing to sell problematic products, it really happens, and it ultimately affects the reputation of the mall and loses some customers. I have also said before that if the number of customers in this mall is large, this kind of incident has little impact on it, the big deal is to lose some customers, and then get some new ones, but this kind of incident occurs frequently, which will definitely greatly reduce the brand image of this mall.
So what to do? As a mall, it naturally wants to do a good job in the quality and service of goods, whether it is to dredge the relationship between the original factory, train special engineers by itself, or improve supplier access standards, or establish its own quality inspection laboratory, it can effectively deal with some problems, and can reduce the vicious expansion of the situation to some extent, but most of these need to be supported by time and funds, or it depends on the mall’s own strength.
I have also mentioned some related content before, our mall itself does not produce goods, the value of our mall itself is to provide services, this is necessary to mention again, and it is worth remembering. Therefore, doing a good job in service is the premise of the aforementioned various means of customer acquisition, and improving your own service links is the key to long-term operation.
