E-commerce strategy

The strategy determines how your company will progress. Strategy development is the process of thinking out the way in which company’s key goals will be achieved.

All good strategies have a basic logical structure, which I call the “core”. It consists of three elements: diagnosis, guiding policy and concerted action.

Real-world example

Online headphones store. Store owner is a big fan of high-quality audio. His store ranks fifth in its market niche in Kyiv. The owner wants to take first place and open new stores in other cities of Ukraine. His business is profitable, he saved up some money for redesigning the website and implementing some other measures, but he doesn’t have a ton of money. The owner didn’t know what to do and how to do it. So he turned to us for assistance.

Diagnosis

It was quite difficult to make a purchase on the website. Images of headphones placed against white background didn’t give a clear idea of what they would look like in real life. Music fans were also deprived of the opportunity to evaluate audio quality which made it even harder to choose the right product. Customers could be encouraged to visit the offline audio store, but it is located on the outskirts of the city and nobody wants to go there. As a result, only those customers who knew exactly what they want beforehand made purchases on the website. And only those who live in the same neighborhood visit the offline store. All the rest pass by. Having acknowledged this problem, store owner came to us.

Guiding policy

First of all, it is necessary to radically redesign the website and relocate the offline store to the city center. Secondly, it is expedient to  refresh the interior design of offline store and turn it into a gathering place for affluent connoisseurs of high-quality audio. This will allow store owner to save up money for taking next steps.

Concerted action

• Relocating the offline store. Now it is situated in a convenient place where visitors can sit in the chair and enjoy the music.
• Creating a photo story of audio store, so that customers know exactly where do we invite them to.
• Writing the story of owner’s business, so that customers understand that these are not mere sellers, but true music fans. It is always a pleasure to give money to true fans, rather than flat-eyed profiteers.
• Making a user-friendly web interface so that online customers have no difficulties with choosing a product and checkout process.
• Introducing augmented reality in the form of “headphones virtual try-on” , so that customers immediately understand how the headband sits on the top of their heads.

Result

• Visitors of new website are more eager to come to offline audio store and make purchases there.
• Visitors rarely have any unanswered questions about the work of audio store or who they are.
• The addition of real-life photos of headphones led to a significant increase in the average purchase amount and, consequently, business turnover.
• Repeat purchase percentage has grown thanks to launching a new website and opening a good store in the city center.

Turnover has increased 5-fold in just one year (on the basis of existing website traffic and without any advertising expenses!). Our customer became the leader of his market niche in Kyiv, saved up some money and opened a new store in the city of Dnipro.

What’s next

We carry on working. Our near-term plans:

• Connect CRM.
• Work out a loyalty program.
• Develop and implement email marketing strategy (that is, connect an additional sales channel with due account for the earlier elaborated loyalty program).

Do you like it? We can do the same thing for your business.