How to nail Hyperlocal Ecommerce Marketing

Are you new to the hyperlocal ecosystem? Have you just launched one recently? In that case, you must be wondering how other players did it all! 

Well, the good news is that you can launch your Hyperlocal Ecommerce store in less than ten minutes using a reliable online platform. However, it takes careful planning and one of the best platforms to market your business, once it is live. 

Why is it important to market your hyperlocal ecommerce business in the current times?

Considering the current lockdown scenario, a lot of business owners are trying to reach out to customers in innovative ways. Like for instance, Dominos recently came up with Dominos essentials to supply essentials products like groceries to customers. 

Likewise, food service aggregators like Swiggy collaborated with hyperlocal ecommerce stores to supply fast-moving consumer goods and grocery essentials. Amazon too has tied up with ShopX to digitally connect Kirana stores with large retailers and FMCG companies. 

There is tough competition amongst various brands to supply daily essentials and win customer satisfaction. But only those brands who communicate with the customers in the right way and add value will come through. 

Hence, it is very important for you to market your business well. After all, you do not want to tailspin your business in a pool of ordinary startups.

How to nail Hyperlocal ecommerce marketing

A correct marketing strategy to become a local favourite requires you to weigh different options. It’s quite possible that the gimmicks that work for an FMCG store might not work for home services. 

‘Marketing’ is a constant trial and testing of different ideas that work at different times. And as the owner of the multi-vendor business, it is your responsibility to find turnkey solutions to market your products/ services. This also includes the online platform to build your store. 

Here’s what it takes to sell your hyperlocal ecommerce idea like a pro! 

1. Identify your customers and target them

Defining your audience is one of your most important tasks as a marketer. That’s perhaps the base of your marketing strategy - like a starting point that will define how and where you will lead your business in the future. 

Identifying your customers will also give you a few other insights such as;

• Where and how to find your customers - offline and across social media platforms
• What kind of a multi-vendor ecommerce website design will appeal to them
• What kind of vendors will attract more customers - sellers with a range of products or vendors with niche and quality stuff
• What kind of marketing strategies will work for your audience group 

Your key takeaway here

Not everyone is your audience. If you are selling groceries, get into the shoes of your primary customers, eg, housewives. If you are selling medicines, your target audience will most likely be middle-aged or old people. Identify key customers and then market your idea accordingly to see better ROI metrics.  

2. Optimise your mobile site/ app

Why duplicate your hyperlocal ecommerce website into a mobile version when you can build it with the mobile-first technology? The mobile-first approach ensures that your store can be easily browsed from any screen size right from the beginning and you do not need to create another version of it for mobile users. 

Even better, have a Progressive Web App to enhance your users’ experience. With a PWA, give your shoppers a native app-like experience. PWAs also eliminate the need of creating and maintaining a mobile version of your store. You can also come up with Android or iOS Mobile apps to help your users have better store accessibility. 

Sell to customers on their cell phones

SMSes might not be the most in-trend option these days. But stats show that SMS messages have an open rate of around 86%. Also, people tend to act on them quickly. Hence, optimise your hyperlocal ecommerce mobile site and then go for an SMS strategy to tap into your target group. 

3. Create powerful and relevant content

A lot of people search for local businesses online before they decide to make their purchases. Hence, content marketing could be a good idea to appear in organic searches and get the word out. 

However, while creating your content, you need to; 

• Focus on different keywords related to your business and use them in blogs, reviews and product descriptions for your multi-vendor ecommerce store
• Expand your content marketing ideas to high-quality videos to engage customers, raise brand awareness and build credibility
• Create content in various languages or in your customers’ native language to build an instant connect. 

4. Upsell and cross-sell products

How can these simple and powerful marketing tactics go amiss? You can always upsell and cross-sell products to increase your average ticket size.

If your hyperlocal ecommerce store is selling home essentials such as toiletries then you can offer your customers a better or expensive shampoo then the one already chosen. You can also cross-sell a combination of hair conditioners, serums or hair oils to boost the average order value. 

For vendors under the retail category, this marketing hack comes like a boon. 

5. Bundle items together

Product bundling is yet another handy hack to make your shoppers purchase more during each visit. If your vendors are selling groceries, they can simply create a pre-packed bundle of essentials such as rice, different types of daals and spices. 

Bundled and pre-packed products can then be promoted on the home screen of your multi-vendor ecommerce website by announcing specials deals. 

You can also come up with a pre-packed combo of products for pre-paid orders during this crisis when the majority of customers want to avoid cash payments. 

6. Onboard quality vendors and manage them well

Besides nailing all marketing hacks to promote your business, this one comes first: you need to have quality vendors listed on your website. This is important to;

• Build customer trust and credibility
• Offer value for money to your buyers

Vendors make an important and perhaps the most essential part of your hyperlocal ecommerce. With systematic vendor management processes and tools, you need to give them adequate freedom to run their business, manage their seller pages and inventories and take care of their shipments. 

Separate vendor dashboards to enable your sellers to take charge of the entire sales cycle - display to delivery can help in this process. 

7. Offer seamless delivery of products

Mastering logistics can help you emerge as a successful player in a very short time. 

Since the concept of hyperlocal ecommerce deals with quick deliveries in a short time, it is important to craft a seamless logistics strategy. 

Customers would not want to wait for more than 24 hours to receive essential supplies like milk, bread or medicines. 

You can look at automated shipping solutions like bulk product uploads or scheduled pick ups by delivery partners.  This can help reduce your dependency on staff members and also save time. Other than that automated tools like real-time tracking also helps customers to check that their order is in progress. 

You can employ a fleet of reliable delivery boys that are professionals in carrier-service. Reliable carriers will not only promise to deliver products quickly but also provide you good rates to help sellers on your multi-vendor ecommerce earn a profit. 

Your ecommerce journey - from making an online store to marketing it

Wondering how so much of this that’s mentioned above can be achieved? Well, StoreHippo online platform is here to handhold you! 

Our modern-age platform is an end-to-end solution for entrepreneurs looking to have a quick head start of their business. Using StoreHippo’s extensive features of customisation, technology and marketing, you can become a best-seller in your niche! 

What’s more in store for you

• Go ‘Live’ with a Saas-based ecommerce software instantly
• Appealing storefronts and DIY tools to create your design
• Multi-store feature to enable admin to create multiple geolocation stores to boost sales
• Mobile-first technology and power of PWAs
• Faceted search options and custom filters for ease of navigation of your hyperlocal ecommerce store
• Customer geolocation through Google map
• Targeted marketing to fine-tune selected audience and achieve better ROI

Sounds intriguing? Well, the experience of these features is even better! Check out our feature-rich platform with a 14-day free trial to know more. Drop us a line below to get connected!