An ecommerce strategy is important because it provides a clear roadmap for achieving business goals, helps businesses stand out from competitors, and ensures a positive customer experience. It optimizes resources, allows for data-driven decisions, and supports scalability as the business grows. A solid strategy also drives marketing and sales, ensuring consistent growth, and enables businesses to adapt to new trends in the ever-evolving digital landscape. Without it, ecommerce businesses may struggle to succeed. My approach is a simple one and focuses mainly in these areas:
Determine what you want to achieve, like increasing sales, growing brand awareness, or expanding into new markets. Look at aligning your KPIs to deliver on your initial goals to drive growth.
Research your target customers' behaviours, preferences, and pain points. Get as much feedback from your audience in terms of why they buy from you and what they would like to see from you also.
Select an eCommerce platform that suits your business needs and can support your strategy. Consider functionality and future proof your platform - eg international expansion may be part of your plan.
Ensure your website is easy to navigate, mobile-friendly, and fast, providing a smooth shopping experience. Consider customer pain points and try to improve these in your roadmap.
Plan out a short and medium term product roadmap to build growth and synchronise with strategy. Feed any customer feedback into the product strategy and ensure you have a relevant backlog buld.
Build out your digital marketing plan to drive cost effective traffic to your website and convert - keep on top of the latest digital marketing and performance marketing trends to maximise your return.
Measure all your web activity and identify areas for improvement based on those metrics - feed these into your backlog to ensure you are continually refining your web experience for improved conversion.
Are you fully maximizing the potential of your digital marketing channels and preparing for the emerging technologies of the coming year? Could your current strategies be streamlined for better efficiency and impact? How well is your CRM strategy performing—are you unintentionally losing customers in the process? Is there room to scale your efforts, creating more seamless, engaging experiences for your audience?
How seamless is the shopping experience for your customers, and where are they dropping off in the funnel? Are you aware of the obstacles they're encountering when trying to engage with your brand? UX/UI plays a critical role in enhancing the shopping experience and boosting customer retention. By leveraging all the data touchpoints at your disposal, you can build features your customers will truly love and drive greater satisfaction.
Depending on your business model, you may be leveraging marketplaces to drive growth. While I’ve successfully driven growth through these platforms, they’re not always the right fit for every business. Are your listings fully optimized, and are your product feeds as complete as they could be? Is your customer service team responding within the agreed timelines? And is your logistics setup tailored to meet the specific demands of marketplaces?
A key factor in success isn’t just the platform capabilities, but also how well your platform aligns with your growth roadmap. Are you fully leveraging all the features your platform offers—Storefront, PDPs, Checkout, Marketing, Logistics integration, and more? Your platform should not only support your current needs but also be flexible enough to accommodate your future business plans and growth.
Aligned with your platform setup, is your logistics strategy equipped to support growth? Whether or not you have your own distribution center (DC), many DTC brands are increasingly partnering with a new generation of 3PLs. These providers offer streamlined connections to your owned storefront, marketplaces, and e-retailers, enabling more efficient operations and scalability.
This cannot be emphasized enough - for a growth strategy to succeed, the entire business must be aligned and committed. Too often, I’ve seen strategies falter because key teams weren’t fully involved. Whether you’re overhauling customer service to provide better support or introducing a new Product or CRO function, your organization’s buy-in is crucial to turning your vision into reality.
This one is essential - what is the brand ecosystem? How do you drive your brand advocates and develop a brand ecosystem which helps grow your business? Why do your customers shop with you and how do you develop a narrative which can be developed, carefully curated, and managed within this sphere to perpetuate an ethos.