As e-commerce continues to propel in popularity, don’t let your own business fall behind the curve. We’ve created this handy guide that will help you to grow your revenue from 7 figures to 8!
BRANDED is sharing our top tips for a successful growth strategy and to help you take a fresh look at your online business, accelerating your transformation into a global brand.
Top Line Growth
Once you have decided your e-commerce business is ready to take the next step and expand into a multi-million-dollar super brand, it is time to set clear goals and implement your growth strategy, or let BRANDED do the hard work for you. Here are the top growth levers:
- Launch new products or introduce a new direction for your range following an in-depth customer analysis.
- Consider geographical expansion and whether your business would suit selling in physical stores
- Expand into other e-commerce channels such as alternative third-party marketplaces (e.g. Walmart), direct-to-consumer (DTC) and offline
- Increase community and social media engagement to support growth across all selling channels
- Create portfolios: bundles and product variations (new formats, product sizes, colours)
Take a look at BRANDED’s Guide to Developing a Custom Business Growth Strategy to learn more about shaping a strategy that’s right for you and your brand.
Keep Up to Date With Changes
With the constantly evolving privacy and cookie changes, future-proofing is at the forefront of most businesses’ plans. It has already happened on some platforms but third-party cookies, for example, are set to become a thing of the past. To prepare for the impact these changes will have, your first-party data and existing customer lists are an invaluable source of information. Experts recommend using these lists to leverage the information you already have about your customers and use this to target ads to the right audience.
Compliance
Compliance is often a hot topic for those looking to expand their business. Whether you’re introducing your existing products into a new market, expanding your offering or using social influencers, compliance is something we always need to think about.
Making sure your brand stays compliant when promoting across social media can sometimes be hard, especially when you bring in new influencers. The biggest challenge you’ll have to manage is the claims your brand is making, even if this comes from an influencers’ mouth and not yours.
BRANDED’s number one tip for managing this is to make sure your influencers are given a guide on what they can and can’t say about your brand.
For more information on how compliance impacts your business when moving into new markets or launching a new product, click here.
Decrease Costs
E-commerce costs are varied and can be hidden. Having complete accountability for all costs is an absolute must – even more so when growing your online business.
Several factors can help decrease the cost of goods sold (COGS) but the main ones to consider are automating jobs that can be done by machine, buying in bulk, substituting to lower-cost materials (without creating an inferior product!), shopping around for suppliers who can provide lower prices or quicker delivery times, and moving your manufacturing offshore.
Unfortunately, many expenses are inevitable. Amazon fees can vary based on your product prices and turnover, and as they are likely to grow, these fees need to be carefully planned for otherwise you might end up with a nasty profitability surprise. Among many other fees, some which also need to be factored in are other selling platform fees, consultant fees, subscriptions, marketing, advertising, and more.
Contact BRANDED to understand how being part of a platform can decrease your costs even further.
Increase Your Customer Average Order Value (AOV)
The easiest way (and most heart-attack inducing!) to boost your AOV is to increase your product prices. Many businesses tend to undercharge their customers out of fear of losing sales but, in fact, customers are still likely to follow through with the sale if they’ve had previous satisfaction. Buying from a familiar brand or marketplace is convenient and many customers purchase from the same companies purely out of habit.
You could ‘justify an increase in price in the eyes of your customers by improving packaging, adding small extras or developing item quality – helping your customers appreciate the value of the product they are buying.
A popular way to increase your AOV is to connect more deeply with the right target audience, via your marketing strategy. This is where BRANDED can step in and ensure the cost of increasing your AOV doesn’t outweigh the benefit of the potential revenue it creates.
Awareness and Business Reputation
It’s a well-known fact that people are far more likely to share a bad experience than a good one, and not only that, but most customers will trust advice and recommendations from family and friends rather than direct from a business. Investing in these customer relationships is key to converting loyalty to reliable revenue. BRANDED’s social team works on an integrated marketing plan that will boost your online presence and build a loyal customer base.
Social media is still a huge influence on consumers and is one of the most vital marketing routes to get sales. Regular posts, responding to customer comments and keeping up to date with the latest trends or customer needs all massively benefit your social media presence and ranking. However, a common mistake that many online businesses make is to focus on sales rather than building that relationship with the customer.
Finance Options
Finally, in these uncertain times where supply chains are disrupted and the economy is in the balance, there comes a point where you may need to decide whether to re-invest or ask for help.
There are always buyers looking to snap up established e-commerce businesses and take them to the next level, with the opportunity to sell an e-commerce business soaring since the pandemic.
At BRANDED we’re keen on partnering with talented entrepreneurs and want to make sure we strike the right deal that benefits both parties. We put together our thoughts for sellers on how to approach selling your e-commerce business here.
Having the means to be able to invest more heavily in supply chain efficiencies, inventory, and particularly marketing can transform your online business to be right up there with the big players. When challenger brands become part of the BRANDED family, they are able to truly benefit from our platform & expertise to realize success.
