1.      Give that little email signup box a prime location on your site.

2.      Integrate email sign-ups into the purchase process.

3.      Collecting email addresses doesn’t need to done online, use offline opportunities too.

4.      Try running a competition, people seem to think they stand a better chance of winning if they subscribe to your mailing list.

5.      Offer an incentive, such as a discount code.

6.      Let them do the hard work by offering an incentive if they refer-a-friend.

7.      Be upfront and reassure potential signups that they won’t get spammed.

8.      Add a “forward to friend” option on the email newsletter and try and entice them to signup too.

9.      Refine your list by asking useful questions at suitable opportunities.

10.  Track subscribers who open and/or click on an email, then contact them with exclusive offers.

It makes more sense to have 1000 relevant email addresses of people who are interested in your industry, instead of a million random web based email addresses.  Data collection can be tricky, but if they’re talking to you or they’re on your site then obtaining their email address could be the future of your business.

However the live stock system has not been up to scratch and has failed to display accurate stock information to the customer.  This in turn has put the Cuddly Kingdom team under pressure to answer late order queries instead of insuring stock is accurate and shipped as quickly as possible.

This is no longer the case with the new live stock system.  Cuddly Kingdom is now able to easily enter a true picture of stock levels, while displaying to the customer how many items are in stock and if they are out of stock when visitors can expect more to arrive.  Best of all if a product has became completely unavailable or there is no confirmed delivery date the “buy now” button is removed completely to avoid any problems.  If a customer tries to add more of an item than what is in stock a warning message will be displayed to the customer that they are taking a risk and may need to wait until stock arrives.  Alongside these customers are also able to pre-order new soft toys that are not yet in stock.

Early reports have shown no drop in sales, instead it appears customers simply choose another soft toy that is in stock and not opt to visit another store.