ECOMMERCE CAN BE A GAME CHANGER FOR BUSINESS OWNERS IN THE NEW NORMAL

The pandemic has turned a modern business pivot…into a disruptive industry shift. Ecommerce has gone from a 10.7% contribution of U.S. sales to a forecast of almost 15% of sales for 2020 year end. The pandemic has been an accelerant to the ecommerce industry’s growth and given ecommerce business owners the opportunity to position themselves in a unique competitive advantage.

To compete, business owners can no longer just have a website that displays products and communicates services. Customers are used to technology with increasingly improved resolutions. Ecommerce sites must rival the displays of the newest ads on the newest TV technology. It would be beneficial for business owners to invest in the highest resolution, video, 3D interactive models and engaging communication. 

As traffic shifts from brick and mortar to online, customer expectations overall are also shifting. For ecommerce businesses to differentiate from an infinite number of competitors, a shift to solving problems instead of just selling products or services should be priority. There are also key differentiators that can be leveraged to attract more online traffic. 

Voice shopping functionality, as it continues to be increasingly in demand, allows customers to simplify their experience by using voice command to find and purchase their products using a voice-powered device and a voice assistant. Businesses can provide this as a convenience aspect of the experience reducing time and effort on the part of the customer. 55% of U.S. households will own a device enabling voice shopping to hit $40 Billion by 2022.

Social media influences shopping for 57% of consumers. 

Ecommerce businesses can embrace social retail as part of omnichannel and as a new way to engage customers and increase market share. Social commerce is becoming a more normalized shopping environment with stores on Instagram and Facebook and relevant content on LinkedIn. And, the pandemic has encouraged shoppers to browse and purchase outside of their comfort zones. With that said, make note that customers’ level of adaptability should not outpace that of businesses. 

AR (augmented reality) mobile experiences immerse the customer in a hybrid interaction with the “try before you buy” aspect of a brick and mortar and the convenience of online. 61% of online shoppers prefer to make purchases on sites that offer AR technology and 53% of them feel that retailers are failing to take advantage of AR. Ecommerce businesses that implement AR now will be ahead of the game.

In order to change the game, ecommerce businesses owners will also need to stay on top on both their business and the competition’s. And yes…business owners already have a full agenda staying on top of their own business.

So…take a look at some tools that can help minimize tasks and/or improve productivity:

• Smile.io: Software to set up a loyalty program
• Veequo: All-in-one platform to manage orders, sync inventory, execute shipping, and handle returns
• Segmentify: Personalized customer experience, encourages impulse purchases with product suggestions based on what other people with similar profiles bought
• Lucky Orange: Pinpoints where the customer drops off in the customer journey
• CartsGuru: Helps businesses target customers who abandoned carts on their site and enables re-targeting to convert 20%+ back into sales.
• ADMD AI Growth Suite: Eliminate marketing being wasted on bots, reduce Ad spend 26%-43%, increase conversion 88%-327%, reduce customer churn 11%-42%
• Gatsby: Identify your most socially active customers
• Outfly: Connect products from your online store to all your social networks
• Prisync: Track competitor pricing and incorporate dynamic pricing rules that enable price adjustments in real time to stay competitive without sacrificing minimum margin requirements
• Personizely: Conversion and personalization marketing toolkit
• Limespot: Uses AI to drive sales through personalized recommendations, up sells, cross-sells

As the ecommerce industry continues to benefit from “new normal” growth, improving productivity will allow business owners to lean into maximizing the customer experience driven through their site. The website is the only interaction ecommerce business owners have with their customers. Ensuring the customer experience continues to improve from the customer perspective requires ecommerce data. 

Having ecommerce specific financial acumen enables business owners to evolve the experience in the right direction and in a way that will be profitable. 

7 key metrics for ecommerce are:

• Cost per acquisition
• Conversion Rate
• Average Order Value
• Average Daily and Monthly Sales
• Shopping Cart Abandonment Rate
• Repeat Purchase Rate
• Refund Rate

Tracking and knowing the business metrics drives growth and gives insight around customer experience. Researching and knowing your competition’s pricing and the experience they are providing customers gives insight around how to create competitive advantage and can drive market share. Investing time in social media efforts and money in technology positions ecommerce businesses to be ahead of the competition. 

The pandemic has been a benefit to those leveraging ecommerce…but business owners must leverage the things that make ecommerce a true differentiator from physical locations if they want the competitive advantage to truly maximize experience and profit.

Kiesha King-Brown

Differentiated Consulting

[email protected]