4 Ways to Stay Competitive And Grow Your eCommerce Business in 2021

2020 has been a rollercoaster.

In Q1 & Q2 we’ve seen COVID hit, lockdown happening, stimulus checks kick in along with a massive increase in revenues in the eCommerce industry.

During this time we’ve seen big corporations awaken to this digital revolution and build out massive digital teams and invest huge amounts of money into digital advertising.

As a result, advertising costs have increased, and some stores were struggling in Q4.

But we’re in 2021. Where should we focus our attention on to keep competitive and even grow our businesses?

This article will answer these questions.

1. Focus on the basics

We, entrepreneurs, have a tendency to be looking for a new shiny toy.

Traffic source, new hack, new technique… We want to cut the corners and get to our goal ASAP.

But if you truly want to grow your business - your basics of the business have to be right. What are these basics?

• Product quality
• Understanding your customers
• Knowing your numbers

These are such basics, but we tend to forget them growing the business.

2. Focus & master one traffic source at a time.

Last year we tested Snapchat, Tiktok, Youtube, Influencers… Guess what happened?

We have not had any success with the first 3, and only moderate success with influencer marketing.

Why is that?

Every traffic source has its own subtle nuances that you have to master. First - you have to understand the intention of the customers coming to a certain channel. Second - understand how they consume the media on these channels. Third - understand the way the media buying works, etc.

So realistically - if you have a business that is reaching only $10M in revenue, you only need 1-2 traffic channels to be driving growth.

So far - the best ones for us are 1. Facebook 2. Influencers 3. SEO.

And this is what we’re focusing on growing businesses to $50M+ in revenue.

3. Innovate within the channels you’ve mastered.

Since we know these 3 channels work for us - we are simply trying to maximize them.

If Facebook works - figure out how you can make it work with influencers. A hot topic right now is whitelisting the account, which means signing influencers under your business manager & running ads from their accounts.

People will see the ads not under your brand’s name, but rather influencers which creates a social proof effect. Your customers will think that everyone is talking about this brand.

We use the same philosophy around SEO. If we see an article work, we create an advertorial for it & then create videos for it (either with or without a spokesperson).

So instead of focusing on mastering more traffic sources, we simply maximize the ones we have.

4. Product launches.

“New” always works.

If you already have a business that’s working & generating revenues, you really need to focus on creating more products.

Product launches can increase your lifetime value of the customer & in most cases - open up more audiences to show your ads to.

The fastest-growing brands that I work with have a product launch every 1-3 months.

5. Stay agile

Things are changing rapidly.

Presidential elections, black live matters movement, covid… These things happened in 2020 alone.

In 2021 we’ve already had the Capitol, inauguration and I bet a lot of things will happen later on…

Without staying agile, adapting to the situations on the way it will be very difficult to stay competitive in this unstable economic environment.

As Jeff Bezos would say it “It’s always a day one”.

If you adopt this kind of mindset not only in 2021 but any year, you have a big chance of making it big.