4 Core Strategies to Grow Your E-Commerce Brand

Congratulations! You’ve done everything the experts say is necessary to develop a successful e-commerce brand.

• Developed a great product and selection
• Nurtured your community via social media and email marketing
• Designed a striking and easy to use storefront
• Honed your brand voice to stand out from every other digitally-based brand
• Created brand-loyalty by exceeding expectations at every point of the purchase process

These vital elements create a strong foundation for emerging retailers. But once the foundation is developed, the next step is often focused on strategic growth. As brands enter into this phase, many often have more questions… not to mention the current retail and economic landscapes can make growth strategies even more unclear.

As we look towards the new year, four strategies will help e-commerce retailers grow:

Understand What Being Omnichannel Means for Your Brand

• For many emerging retailers, it’s tempting to write off the idea of omnichannel as a trendy buzzword that doesn’t have much impact on strategy. However, at its core, omnichannel simply means ensuring that every customer has a consistent experience across all channels and platforms. This is a critical element of developing trust when your brand begins reaching new audiences and potential customers. Developing an omnichannel strategy can include items such as:
• Ensuring customers have a positive experience on desktop and mobile operation systems
• Creating brand standards that can be used with promotional partnerships and other collaborative opportunities
• Implement personalization strategies and personalized messaging when possible

Maximize Payment Capabilities

• As an e-commerce retailer, the question was never cash or credit. However, simply assuming that customers are paying by credit card means you may be missing out on sales. Aside from credit cards, some of the most common digital payment methods include digital wallets such as gift cards, Google Pay, or Apple Pay, PayPal, cryptocurrency such as Bitcoin. On platforms such as Shopify and WooCommerce, implementing these payment options can be a simple integration taking less than 10 minutes. 
• Accepting payments such as Google Pay or PayPal is easy and does not require much strategic consideration. 

Offering gift cards is a unique opportunity that gives your brand exponentially more power to capture sales.

• Offering gift cards is a unique opportunity that gives your brand exponentially more power to capture sales. Gift cards are unique for many reasons—not only is the purchase of a gift card a promise that the customer will return to redeem it, but gift cards also create unique spending behaviors not seen with other payments.
• Research has shown that when customers use gift cards, they often spend above and beyond the amount of the gift card. When your brand offers a gift card, you offer customers an easier way to say yes to a bigger sale down the road. Additionally, many emerging retailers utilize gift cards to capture sales during times when products may be out of stock or otherwise unavailable.

Know What Data You Have and Use It

• The amount of data readily available to digital retailers can be overwhelming. For retailers with small teams, digging into the data can quickly become a lower priority. However, understanding the data available can help you understand current customer behavior and potentially shift future behavior. Every retailer should know foundational data items such as: Total order numbers, average order value, and customer acquisition cost. 
• While these numbers may seem simple, they can be used as benchmarks in strategies to drive growth. For example, if your brand’s goal is to increase the average order value, an easy approach could be implementing a promotion with incentives for orders over the defined threshold.  
• For many digital retailers, plug-ins, integrations, and partnerships, all have additional data that can be accessed. It is important to understand what data is available from these platforms and review it regularly to make further decisions about strategic investments. 

Be Open to Unexpected Opportunities and Partnerships

• Historically, brands were hesitant to engage in strategies such as co-branded promotions or even closed to new promotional opportunities. Now, it seems as though new research comes out every day addressing the fact that audiences are banner blind and few pay attention to traditional advertising methods. Further, as the current social climate has drastically shifted consumer behavior, retailers have been forced to get creative to connect with potential customers.  In fact, Danette on the Prizeout team recently shared her thoughts about the importance of collaboration.