Soapbox Engage Blog

It's a competitive fundraising world out there! As various sources for funding seem to be decreasing, many nonprofits are getting creative to diversify their fundraising streams. Grants and individual giving trends are shifting which leaves room for innovative funding solutions.

Having a variety of funding sources lays the groundwork for healthy, viable long-term success for many nonprofits. This creativity can include opening an online store for your nonprofit!

An online store can be a steady source of year-round revenue for your organization. Many nonprofits have challenges because funds may be linked to certain programs or might come in intermittently if they are tied to the timing of certain events or campaigns.

Adding e-commerce capabilities diversifies your funding sources and raises more money for your cause or programs. Keep reading to learn the various benefits of adding e-commerce, as well as the best practices!

Table of Contents

1. Benefits of Nonprofit Online Stores
2. E-commerce Best Practices
3. Choosing the Right E-commerce Platform for your Nonprofit

Benefits of Nonprofit Online Stores

E-commerce continues to grow each year. In 2022, total US e-commerce sales hit a record high of $1.04 trillion! This was an 8.5% increase from 2021.

When done correctly, an online store can position your nonprofit to benefit from this move toward online shopping and create a steady stream of consistent revenue year-round for your mission! In addition to the obvious benefit of reliable revenue streams, here are some other perks that nonprofits can enjoy from adding an online store:

1. Greater visibility for your nonprofit

It's no surprise that nonprofits are experiencing more competition than ever before. More organizations are trying to be visible and grab a piece of the fundraising pie.

An online store is a strategic way to make your nonprofit more visible because it helps you spread information about your message and work. As people purchase branded products, you build brand awareness in many communities.

2. Improve your SEO

Improving SEO isn't a singularly good reason to add an e-commerce store, but it's definitely a perk to consider!

Almost three-quarters of searches on the internet start on Google, and the first five sites that appear typically get about 67% of the clicks. Websites with a high SEO ranking will appear higher in the search results, garnering more clicks.

While there are many effective strategies to improve your SEO ranking, a quality online store can help drive more traffic to your website. Shoppers will click through your merchandise, but they're also likely to meander over to other pages on your site, too! All of this extra activity can help improve your ranking in the search engines.

3. Online stores make it easy to gather potential donor information

Strategic nonprofits treat their online store as a lead-generation machine. When people purchase items from the e-commerce store, it's easy to gather their contact information so you can follow up and add them to your donor recruitment strategy.

Even people who make small purchases from your store are likely at least a little interested in your mission and vision. It's worth the time and energy to cultivate a relationship and educate them further about your cause and opportunities to participate!

The Soapbox Engage Shop app integrates directly with Salesforce or Microsoft Dynamics, making it easy to store information for tracking, fulfillment, and follow-up.

4. Online stores offer consistent revenue potential with low startup costs

An online store offers a source of consistent revenue that can help you fund your nonprofit throughout the year. Whether you decide to sell branded merch or webinars or widgets, the sky's the limit!

Creating an online store with the Soapbox Engage Shop app is affordable and easy to use. It makes an online store a cost-effective strategy to generate more income for your nonprofit.

 

E-Commerce Best Practices

When building your online store, adhere to these best practices to make sure it’s as successful as it can be.

1. Use Appealing Images

According to content marketing influencer and social media strategist Jeff Bullas, 67% of online shoppers agree that the images of any product are more important than customer reviews or product descriptions. So choose the most attractive images and grab your customer’s attention.

To ensure the best quality of the pictures, stick to your own style and create your own content instead of relying on third-party images. Since the customers cannot physically touch your product, high quality images help them to imagine owning the product. It improves your conversion rate drastically. It’s one of the most common e-commerce design best practices.

Make sure you take e-commerce product images from multiple angles so that a prospective buyer can make an informed decision. Limited imagery indicates lack of effort, and will deter buyers.

2. Keep Navigation Simple

Simplify things! Cognitive load is the mental effort required to process and learn new information. In the user experience, cognitive load is the amount of mental processing power required to use your website. The higher the cognitive load, the tougher it is for the users to find what they want.

Then they might leave your website and never come back. So simplify your navigation bar. Use best homepage practices to direct the visitor where they need to go.

Keep navigation as simple as possible and allow users to move from one product page to another with relative ease.

3. Create Engaging Product Demos

Putting up product demos is a great way to boost sales. Essentially, you have to put up videos of products instead of simply putting up photos. This will help an average buyer make an informed decision about whether they should buy or not. Your job is to provide them with complete information about your products.

4. Cover a range of FAQs

Since you’re not available physically to answer every customer question, provide every single piece of information that will allow your customers to make a decision. Don’t overestimate what your customers know. Lay out everything as much as you can for them.

From Frequently Asked Questions to Return Policies, and from Shipping Dates to your Shipping Policies, be clear and transparent in your conversations and transactions with them.

Put yourself in the shoes of a buyer and then decide what their questions are likely to be. Cover everything that you can imagine.

5. Don’t Force Shoppers to Create an Account

One of the most popular e-commerce best practices to follow is to give users the option of a guest checkout. Don’t force a shopper to create their account, especially on the checkout page. Your shopping cart abandonment rate is going to increase by a considerable margin.

If someone doesn’t want an account, they shouldn’t have to create one. Just ask for an email address to build your list and send them an order confirmation email, and you are good to go.

 

6. Add Quality Product Descriptions

Product descriptions are important. SEO product descriptions for e-commerce stores are even more important. You need to focus on writing product descriptions that inform, create value, and also rank well on search engines.

According to the Nielsen Group, on a full Amazon page, only 18% of the time was spent on viewing photos. The remaining time was spent on the text. Not optimizing your product descriptions is similar to flushing your money down the drain.

Tell a story about the product. Humans love stories. We pass on information from one person to another through stories. Telling a story around your product will increase its value for your customers, thus encouraging higher conversion rates.

7. Send Emails for Shopping Cart Abandonment

People who abandoned your shopping cart probably had a reason for doing so. Stay fresh and relevant in such users’ minds, by sending them follow-up emails.

Ask for their feedback about what led them to abandon their cart, or give them a small discount if they choose to complete their purchase.

8. Improve Your Website’s Responsiveness

Your website needs to be responsive so that it can load up on different devices with varying screen sizes with ease. Google pays great attention to your website’s responsiveness, and rewards this with visibility.

You need to constantly look at different ways by which you can optimize your website’s responsiveness and maximize performance. You can do this by reducing the size of your images and using responsive web design practices throughout your website.

Also, make sure you get rid of unnecessary page elements from your website.

9. Have Mobile Optimization

One-third of internet users in the US buy something online with their mobile phones every week. So having a mobile-optimized online store—or better yet, a dedicated e-commerce app—is crucial.

Make good use of your category pages to ensure that your site is well organized and easy to navigate.

10. Make it Personal

Personalization plays a significant role in e-commerce merchandising. Use product recommendations to help guide online shoppers on their customer journey. Utilize an algorithm that groups similar products. That way, if they’re interested in a specific piece of clothing, you can automatically suggest one or more complementary items.

Choosing the Right E-Commerce Platform for Your Nonprofit

There are so many features and options to consider when choosing an e-commerce platform for your nonprofit. While every organization has unique needs and preferences, here are a few specific features to consider.

Choose a platform that integrates easily with other software: Since your online store will be part of your overall fundraising strategy, it's essential to choose a platform that integrates with other software you use, like your CRM and payment processing systems.

The Soapbox Engage Shop app links directly to Salesforce and Microsoft Dynamics Integrations, so you can instantly save order details and follow up with individual customers. Since many nonprofits incorporate their e-commerce store into specific fundraising campaigns, the Shop app lets you link order forms with fundraising campaigns for easy tracking and reporting.

Be aware of processing fees and payment methods: Some e-commerce platforms charge dual payment processing fees to the shopping cart and the payment processor. These fees can really add up quickly. While you'll probably have to pay a small monthly subscription or hosting fee for your site, choose a platform that does not charge additional service fees.

Additionally, it's critical to offer your shoppers a range of payment options. With the Shop app, you can select from a wide range of high-quality payment processing services or allow shoppers to pay with their PayPal account or receive an invoice.

 

Pick an e-commerce platform that can grow with you: You might begin with a limited product line, but you'll want an online shop that can grow to meet your evolving needs.

Unlike a traditional e-commerce store, you might offer products or resources for a limited time, creating a "revolving door" of products. Choose a platform that allows you to easily add and remove products without limitations.

With the Shop app, you'll be able to easily create as many products and individual stores as you need. You can customize the store overview and confirmation experience with text, images, video, and other content to create a high-quality shopping and educational experience. Even as your e-commerce fundraising strategy evolves, the Shop app can change to meet new demands.

Choose an online store that offers valuable marketing insights: Since your e-commerce store will be part of your fundraising and networking strategies, choose a platform that offers data and insights into marketing and sales.

The Shop app gives you tools to create tracking URLs to use with different marketing campaigns and channels. This lets you track the performance of specific campaigns and marketing strategies so you can boost your sales.

And there you have it! With these best practices, you’re sure to have a successful e-commerce store for your nonprofit.

Learn more about fundraising with these resources.

• Nonprofit E-commerce Platforms: 8 Things to Consider: E-commerce stores can be a great way to diversify your fundraising income, grow your visibility, and create a greater sense of community around your organization and cause. There are many factors to consider when selecting an e-commerce platform. This post sets out a roadmap for launching and running your online store with minimal technological headaches.
• 10 Strategic Ways to Improve Your Online Donation Form: If you want to raise more money, you must make the giving process easy and pleasant. Your online fundraising growth is directly tied to the quality of your donation page. This blog post offers some best practices to ensure your donation page is a top-notch donation gathering machine!
• 5 Nonprofit Website Design Tips for New Organizations: As you’ve probably gathered from this post, website design is crucial to the experience of someone who is on your site. This blog post offers 5 tips for new organizations designing their websites.