Ecommerce Consultant and Growth Strategist for small businesses
07592 629885 | Dominic Smith - Ecommerce Consultant
Running an E-Commerce website is a daily challenge for businesses, but it’s filled with potential pitfalls that can negatively impact sales. There are many tasks that must be managed on a day-to-day basis, and below I’ve highlighted a few key areas to focus on when managing your D2C (Direct to Consumer) website.
Data Accuracy
Understanding how customers are interacting with your website is essential. Identifying pain points on the site is crucial, as without this insight, it’s difficult to grasp what challenges your customers are facing. If you've recently re-platformed your site and noticed a drop in sales, the new website might be creating friction for your users.
I’ve often seen clients make decisions based on assumptions of what the problem is, but without hard data, this approach can be risky. Would you be willing to make decisions for your business based on guesswork? Data is essential, and ensuring you have a properly set-up Google Analytics account is a must. Many clients I’ve worked with have seen their data become skewed over time due to new platforms, channels, or features.
When sales start declining, your first instinct might be to launch discounts. However, before rushing into promotions, it’s wise to first review your Google Analytics account and look for underlying issues.
Marketing Channel Synergy
It’s important to understand how your various marketing channels work together. I recommend looking at your budget and identifying the best mix of channels that will maximize your ROI.
Not all customers are the same. For example, some may be actively engaged with your brand and contribute to your organic traffic, while others might only visit once through an affiliate voucher code and never return.
Knowing how each channel functions, where it fits in the customer journey, and how it impacts the Lifetime Value (LTV) of your customers is essential for any retail business.
Conversion Optimization
Once you’ve secured marketing investment and are ready to drive traffic to your site, you may be disappointed if your conversion rate is lower than expected. It’s not enough to just attract visitors; your website needs to be optimized to convert them into customers.
Consider the following:
Do you display trust signals like reviews (e.g., Feefo, Google Reviews, awards, certificates)?
Is it easy for customers to find relevant products?
Does your checkout process feel seamless and quick?
Is your delivery offering clear and visible upfront?
Does your site load quickly enough?
A key part of the growth model I use focuses on website trading—understanding what’s missing and what can be improved to increase conversion rates.
Instant Discounts vs. Long-Term Growth
When sales decline, the immediate reaction is often to push a discount offer. However, relying on discounts without understanding the broader picture can harm your long-term sales strategy. A more sustainable approach is to focus on year-over-year (YOY) growth and plan for the future.
Here’s how I approach it:
1 - Growth Plan: Around four months before the year’s end, it’s crucial to discuss what growth looks like for the next year and identify where that growth will come from (e.g., new channels, brand activation, product expansion).
2 - Traffic: Based on your growth plan, you should be able to project traffic from new initiatives. Look at each marketing channel to determine how they can help boost growth.
KPIs: Define clear KPIs to measure the success of your growth initiatives.
Reacting to sales drops with discounts without tracking the right KPIs will prevent you from understanding the real reasons behind the downturn.
For example, I once worked with a client who discounted heavily for 15 days because of sales drops, only for us to discover that a new feature release had inadvertently affected the checkout process. Fixing the issue cost just £500, but they had already lost £20,000 in promotional costs.
Trading Calendar
A well-structured trading calendar is essential for any retail business. From planning product photography and styling to launching campaigns and hitting targets, the trading calendar is a critical component that many of my clients overlook.
Having a consistent trading calendar, ideally with similar weekly/daily cycles each year, helps track YOY growth, run rates, and pinpoint potential issues (e.g., lack of interest in a new collection).
Product Management
Regularly analyzing product performance is key to driving growth. What are your customers purchasing, and how can you improve the product offering to attract more buyers? Understanding category shifts and customer behavior as the seasons change helps you stay ahead of trends and make data-driven decisions.
Do you frequently review your product/category data and listen to customer feedback to adjust your offerings?
Purchase and Conversion Funnel
Once a customer completes a purchase, the journey doesn’t end there. You need to understand every step of the customer conversion process, from initial education and interest to retention and advocacy.
Using a customer retention model like Attrition/Customer Retention helps you identify key stages in the customer journey. By focusing on these stages, you can encourage repeat business and leverage satisfied customers to advocate for your brand, which in turn fuels the top of your conversion funnel.
Stock and Product Management
Managing inventory, especially with high SKU counts or fast-moving products, can be challenging. Keeping outdated stock on the site might help with SEO, but it can also cause issues like high bounce rates and poor SEO performance.
It’s essential to have a strategy for managing these products. The right approach depends on your platform’s capabilities and the resources available for development.
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