In my last article, I surveyed the range of activities that fall under the heading of e-commerce. I said you should try to understand how this dynamic channel will impact your industry and company profoundly in the years to come, even if it’s hard to know exactly how. I would like now to mention several frameworks that help CEO’s of emerging growth companies evaluate and exploit e-commerce opportunities.
Many of these frameworks date back to the rise of e-commerce during the first Internet boom of the mid-1990’s. E-commerce back then was something of a land grab, as merchants rushed to sell direct to the consumer beyond the geographic limitations of a physical store. The goal was to achieve scale as quickly as possible, and history is littered with early failures.
Audience Micro Targeting
Companies registered domains like Pets.com in order to attract shoppers inclined to buy products from a site that identified itself with their interests. Audience micro targeting remains a key capability of e-commerce. How are you defining the “long tail” niche markets that you as an on-line merchandiser can exploit consistently with specialized offerings?
Make Your Site "Sticky"
Second, an innovation of the early e-commerce pioneers that has become a core methodology was to deploy crowd-sourced content to make a site more “sticky” for potential buyers. Amazon attracted millions of consumers by encouraging them to share their opinions of items like books and CD’s. Getting users to share their favorite products or “wish lists” was another early form of social media. Since then, attracting the attention of search engines with on-page key words and off-page meta tags has blossomed into the art and science of search engine optimization (SEO) and inbound marketing. What is your strategy for potential customers to find your products or services via Google? Do you have a disciplined, consistent strategy of using key words and meta tags to help you rank high in potential customers’ search results--across all online forums, which today include mobile, Facebook, Twitter and LinkedIn along with your web site?
"Sweat the small stuff"
Third, while readily available infrastructure “in a box” allows you to deploy a reliable shopping cart and pay system; you still have to “sweat the small stuff.” Executing merchandise returns, ensuring credit/debit card security, and executing customer service perfectly remain an e-commerce imperative.
Great Design & Navigation
Fourth, brand-appropriate design and well-structured navigation remain key ingredients for attracting an audience across online platforms and getting them to come back to buy more products. Providing a complete browsing experience across online platforms requires the increasingly sophisticated art of adapting merchandising techniques to the online world. But the basics haven’t changed. If you want to sell backpacks to college students, for instance, use vibrant colors with a flashy design to evoke a sense of youth and adventure.
In my next articles I will take up the market opportunity involved in e-commerce and the role of technology in achieving it.
About the Author
Jennifer brings to Newport over 10 years of C-level experience. She has demonstrated an ability to take strategy from conception to execution, achieving excellent results for family businesses and private equity-owned companies. Contact or learn more about Jennifer here.
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