Drawing in customers for the first time is often quite hard. It can also be expensive if you add up the advertising costs. In most situations, it’s the repeat customers or repeat business that has the most to contribute to an online store.

That’s because whether or not you can bring in a high influx of new customers, repeat customers give you guaranteed sales. Bringing in thousands of visitors to your store every day won’t automatically translate into thousands of sales. Securing repeat customers is essential if you want a successful store.

Here are some of the things that you can do toward this end (for those who run Magento e-shops).

Consider Free Shipping

One of the things that please customers more than anything is free shipping. You don’t have to offer this for all your products. But you should at least make it an option for some product categories or orders that reach a certain price threshold.

Saving a few bucks on shipping is enough to make some customers come back for more. What’s also interesting is the fact that free shipping also encourages shoppers to add more items to their carts. So, this is a move that can increase your revenue in two ways.

First by securing repeat customers and second by increasing the average number of items sold per order. With increased sales, you can also negotiate lower shipping rates so offering free shipping may not cost as much as you think.

Integrate Multiple Payment Options

Offering safe payment options is one of the cornerstones of operating a successful E-commerce business. But apart from security, you also need to offer your customers enough variety. Not everyone shops with credit or debit cards.

People today may be keeping money on various platforms. Some people just don’t feel secure with traditional credit card payments. So, how can you encourage repeat business on your E-store? Give your customers more payment options.

Integrating PayPal payments is a great way to create repeat business as some prefer it for online payments. Also, accepting more than one type of credit card or debit card is also appreciated by customers.

Someone that’s happy with the accepted payment methods is more likely to shop again at your store.

Optimize Your Store for Mobile Visitors

This is almost a no-brainer. People want their online shopping to be as simple as possible. They want a fast-loading website that they can access from anywhere.

Besides optimizing your filters and shop’s search engine, you’ll want to take care of mobile users. Make the site as user-friendly as possible and focus on smooth navigation.

Include specific promotions for mobile users so that they know they’re getting a royal treatment. You can even have targeted advertising campaigns directed at mobile users.

Use the customer analytics provided by Magento’s platform to understand what your customers need and keep them engaged. The goal is to keep them coming back for more purchases.

Accessibility is one of the keys to success for an e-shop. And with more and more users relying on their smartphones and tablets for shopping, a mobile-friendly store is a must.

Implement a User-Friendly Checkout Process

Having a user-friendly checkout process accomplishes two things. Firstly, it can secure sales as customers won’t be as likely to abandon their shopping carts. This often happens due to complex checkout pages.

Secondly, a simple one-step checkout process allows customers to save time while shopping online. As a result, they’re more inclined to revisit your store because they know they can get what they want in record time.

This is something you can do with the One-Step Checkout Extension that’s easy to implement on the Magento platform.

Offer Rewards and Store Credit Refunds

Customer retention is often best achieved with incentives. You need to show them that your store values their business. One way is to set up a rewards system.

You can set one up so that your customers get rewards based on how much money they spend and how often they shop, among other behaviors and metrics. Reward points can then be turned into discounts or store credit. This incentivizes customers to come back to your store more often.

Another tactic you can use is offering refunds. But, if you can’t afford to offer cash refunds you can always offer store credit. In most cases, this is enough to show customers that you value them and that you want to keep them happy.

Even if customers won’t get their money back they still get a chance to use that money and purchase another product. Magento has pre-built store credit and virtual gift card extensions.

Start an Automated Email Marketing Campaign

Email marketing is still very effective, especially in terms of low costs and the attendant outsized ROIs. As an E-store owner or manager, you have access to many email addresses. Use Magento to its fullest potential by tracking important customer analytics.

Use those analytics and create professional and customized marketing campaigns. Target user groups that haven’t shopped on your store for a while. Offer them unique discounts that will incentivize them to revisit your store and buy one or more items.

What’s great about Magento is that it allows you to use live store data when creating dynamic campaigns.

Update Past Customers with Newsletters

No matter how great your store is, you can’t hope that all your customers are going to come back without sending them some interesting promotions or updates.

It’s best to take advantage of the fact that many customers give out their email addresses in exchange for newsletters. Set up an automated newsletter system where you share new product information or limited-time discounts.

Enable RSS feeds too and make sure than any subscribers get real-time alerts on products that might interest them, as well as coupons, discounts, and other promotional items.

In this way, your past customers know what’s happening even when they’re not visiting your store.

Offer Free Returns

If you want to go a step further to show your customers how much you value them, you may want to offer more than store credit. Accept free returns like most online stores in the US are offering.

Research has shown that this would actually encourage people to spend a lot more. To the tune of 457% according to a study. That’s going to easily cover the cost of return shipping and returned products with a lot more to spare.

It also builds a higher level of trust with customers and consumers. They won’t hesitate to purchase anything on their mind and the odds are they might ignore sending the items back even if they’re not suitable.

Research Your Competition

Unless you’re dominating your niche, chances are you need to constantly research your competitors. Follow up regularly with your direct competitors and check out the products that they offer.

Find out how they market their products, the demographics targeted, and the things that you and your competitors are doing similarly that might not appeal with shoppers. Go beyond simple website navigation and functionality.

Are your competitors offering frequent sales? Are they running marketing campaigns at the same time as you? If possible, find out if they’re stealing clients from you. Is your competition offering in-demand products that you neglected?

By keeping tabs on your competitors, both good and bad, you know what you need to improve. And also the tactics to avoid if you want to secure more repeat business.

Never Forget to Ask for Input

Maybe some of your customers haven’t been coming back for a while. There’s no guarantee that they would let you know what happened. But just as you can use newsletters and customer segmentation and dynamic marketing campaigns, you can also ask your customers for input.

You have to look beyond analytics and popular customer retention tactics to make sure that you’re doing everything you can to keep your customers happy. In some cases, this involves asking your customers what you can do for them to enhance their experience.