Using Print to Support E-Commerce

Does your company or organisation have an online shop? If so, are you making the most of it from a marketing perspective? Does the online shop feature cross-sells, up-sells, recently viewed products, wish lists, live chat and a simple e-news sign-up to build a re-marketing list? Does it have voucher code functionality, a customer review facility, a decent user experience and an easy-to-accomplish check-out and payment facility? These are all the kind of things any decent e-commerce store should have if you are to get the most from your online shop.

How About Offline?

If you’re not using printing to support your e-commerce store, you are missing a trick. Printing, combined with your e-commerce operation, can make a huge difference to your success. We’ll explain how and why …

Example:

You receive an online order for a product. You dispatch it the same day with a packing slip and an automatically-generated email confirmation. It arrives the next day.

Perfect surely?

Well, not really. The speed and efficiency of your fulfilment offering is impressive, for sure. However, you have missed many golden opportunities if that’s all you do when dispatching online orders to customers. Take a look …

How to Make the Most out of Online Orders Using Print

1. Printed Branding

Firstly, think about brand recognition. A good, well-recognised brand is worth its weight in gold if you get it right. Thinks of Virgin, Ted Baker, Apple and even an organisation like The National Trust. Each has a brand that’s instantly recognisable. You could put their logo on almost anything and it would instantly make that product more desirable. So, the lesson here is to ensure that your brand looks great in the first place (our talented graphic designers can help with that), but also that it’s presented to best effect on everything the customer sees when they receive their order. The packaging should be well-designed and showcase your brand. So should the packing slip; labels too. That’ll all help with brand recognition. Keep doing that and your brand should become more and more popular and valuable over time.

2. Cross-Selling, Up-Selling & Repeat-Selling Through Print

As well as the nifty packaging and attractive paperwork, ensure you give your customer every opportunity to remember your e-commerce shop and brand. You can do this through the inclusion of a variety of printed materials:

• Include 2 or 3 attractive business cards or postcards for your customer to keep for future use. These are something that’s easy and compact for them to keep, ready to remind them to visit your store again in the future. Including more than one also gives them the opportunity to pass one on to a friend or relative (that’s free marketing for you).
• Take this a step further by including a compact but beautifully designed brochure about your brand or product(s). What’s the history? Is there a U.S.P. — something unique about your product or brand that sets it apart? What is the mission or ethos of the company? If it’s green make sure you tell your audience in the copy. Make your brand relevant, and the message and presentation engaging, and your customers will buy into it.
• Top Tip: One immensely worthwhile item to include with orders is a catalogue or mini catalogue. These are a great way to showcase additional products that the customer might have overlooked online. Such marketing pieces can include nicely shot product photos and descriptions along with quick/short links for online purchase — or order forms for offline ordering. As well as encouraging sales, printed mini-catalogues are also a great way to sell off discontinued products that are still in stock, or sale items that you’re keen to clear.
• Include a discount voucher or code, to encourage them to make another purchase. Even better, make it time-sensitive, so they’re spurred on to act (i.e. buy again) without delay.
• Include a printed ‘refer a friend’ offer of some kind. This could be printed on any of the above but might be easier to notice if it’s a on separate card, simple leaflet or coupon. It’ll stand more chance of success if there’s some sort of incentive for both the customer and the friend they are referring, so have a think about what you could offer each.
• Printed loyalty cards are also a good thing to send with orders, especially if you also offer a service. They are yet another way to keep customers coming back again and again to buy more!

Including printed items like these, with every online order, is a great way to remind your customers about your brand and products. It’s also a way to help customers ‘buy into’ the brand, feel part of it, and for the business to become much more tangible and real. After all, there is a real bricks and mortar business, with real people, behind most online shops. Printed collateral like this will help your offering stand out from the crowd and become memorable. At the end of the day, that means repeat business, more profit, and a likely increase to your business’s value as it grows. What’s more, before you know it, you’ll have both an online store and be supporting it with a parallel mail-order business. One shop suddenly became two in effect, with only modest extra cost and effort. Don’t forget to take that a step further, too, by bringing in all the relevant social media channels. Facebook, Instagram and Pinterest, for example, are brilliant for lifestyle type product marketing, without it looking too ‘salesy’.

Printers in London Bridge, SE1

If you are looking for high quality, reliable printers in London Bridge, please do get in touch. Our print shop is located in Tabard Street, close to Borough High Street, just a short distance from London Bridge station. We supply digital printing, large format printing and we’re also a very green printer. Quotes are free, so please do get in touch for more information.