Online sales in the age of Amazon can be difficult for sellers of common products like chocolates, coffee, and candles.

By devoting some uninterrupted and extensive planning time to your marketing, product line, and audience, you can learn how to make your online store stand out.

To get you started, here are four ways to boost your sales and avoid getting drowned out by similar, mass-produced products competing for the same buyers.

Tell a Story Around Your Products

You can develop a story around different products if you use your imagination and dig for them.

This increases the perceived value for the consumer. It makes them feel something amazing. It’s special. Again, by modifying the packaging, you can achieve quite a lot toward this objective.

Raise Service Quality and add It in Your Marketing

In the online world, standing out through quality customer service is easy because most online service leaves much to be desired.

Companies don’t call you back, package the wrong items, don’t respond to emails, list items for sale that are unavailable, fail to make delivery deadlines, build websites that don’t work – there is a near-endless list of service-related frustrations you could come up with if you felt the need to make one.

If you want your ecommerce business to stand out, make impeccable customer service a priority. Get specific about what it looks like so you can describe it in your marketing. Use service guarantees to show how serious you are.

All you need to do is take time to collect stories of terrible online customer service experiences, figure out how you can stay clear of those gaffes, and then guarantee good service to your customers.

An easy one: Don’t require anyone to sign up to buy from your store. Not only is this extra step annoying and cumbersome, but it also forces people into a process they may not be ready for. A first-time buyer – the kind you want to turn into a repeat customer – may not want to join your club to buy a single item. When they experience excellent customer service in the purchase and delivery process, however, they’ll be much more likely to return and consider joining.

Here are two cases where you could do this:

• A customer spends above a certain amount in your online store.
• They buy more than a certain number of items.

In both cases, you could set that to trigger a free bonus to include with their delivery.

Leverage Limited Availability

Not only can you create special product bundles, but you can include an item that’s so unique you’ll never sell it again as part of the bundle. When they’re gone, they’re gone. And you can do this repeatedly.

Some brick-and-mortar stores thrive on the concept of offering an ever-shifting line of products. A large part of their success is due to the clearly-stated reality that you may never find a particular product there again.

This appeals to the treasure hunters and deal seekers among us. It’s a form of limited availability.

You can do the same thing in your ecommerce business, using this strategy in combination with many others on this list. Create a special line of products, limit the production, and then close it down to drive up demand. One way to do this is to relate the product to a national or local event, like a sports team winning a title or local competition.

Limited availability also increases the power of your upsell offers.

Create Niche Products

Anyone can sell sugar cubes. One big-box retailer sells a pound, or 126 cubes, for US $1.25. That’s less than one penny per cube.

If you try to go up against major retailers for a product like that, you’ll lose.

But what about the horse sugar cube niche? People love their horses. If they want to give a horse a treat to express love, they’re probably not going to a big box store for sugar cubes.

They might, however, purchase specialty sugar cubes specially designed for horses.

Flavored with ingredients like berries and apples, these products can sell for more than double the price of your standard sugar cube at a big box retailer. You can bet that people who love their horses are willing to pay a premium.

If you sell a product that faces stiff competition, the best way to stand out is to find a niche audience. Create a brand and messaging that appeals to that audience, and devote your marketing budget to reaching them. Find here more, unique product ideas trending right now.

Creativity breeds attention, and attention makes sales.

In the online and ecommerce world especially, it’s all about getting attention. Now you have four new ways to go after.