flevyblog

Flevy Blog is an online business magazine covering Business Strategies, Business Theories, & Business Stories.
MANAGEMENT & LEADERSHIP STRATEGY, MARKETING, SALES OPERATIONS & SUPPLY CHAIN ORGANIZATION & CHANGE IT/MIS Other

3 E-Commerce Growth Strategies That Will Shape the Future of Your Business

Editor's Note: Take a look at our featured best practice, Growth Strategy (41-slide PowerPoint presentation). The reality is: all businesses face the challenge of achieving sustainable Growth. They need viable Growth Strategies. So, what is Growth Strategy? It is the organization's high-level Corporate Strategy Plan that outlines everything the organization needs to do to achieve its goals for [read more]

Also, if you are interested in becoming an expert on Strategy Development, take a look at Flevy's Strategy Development Frameworks offering here. This is a curated collection of best practice frameworks based on the thought leadership of leading consulting firms, academics, and recognized subject matter experts. By learning and applying these concepts, you can you stay ahead of the curve. Full details here.

* * * *

The landscape of e-commerce is one that is always changing, and as an e-commerce business owner, that can be a mixture of being scary but also exciting at the same time. These changes that occur can be very beneficial to your business and they can also be quite the challenge that’s hard for your business to overcome but either way you look at it, you’re going to have to adapt to the changes if you want your business to grow.

The Numbers Don’t Lie…

Because this industry is growing at a rapid pace, there’s no better time than now to learn more about buying and registering domain names to go on and get your online business started. Why is that? Because global e-commerce sales are expected to reach a whopping $4.9 trillion by the year 2021! Not only that but e-commerce sales have increased so much in the retail market that in the year 2021, it’s expected to account for 17.5% of total sales globally.

17.5% is still a very small percentage of global retail sales… so what does that mean for your business? That means that there is plenty of room for your business to get started “while the gettin’ is still good.” So in order for your e-commerce growth strategies to be successful, you have to base them on how customers shop, how well they respond to certain technologies that businesses present, and what type of products they’re buying.

Ideally, you need to stand out from your competitors because there are millions of business-minded people out there just like you trying to raise that 17.5% just like you are. So if you want to start your e-commerce business and you want it to grow, now is the time to do it. If you implement these strategies to your e-commerce site, it’s going to put you at a greater advantage of experiencing growth by leaps and bounds.

Interactive Product Visualization

There used to be a time where in order for you to see how something looked in your home or how an article of clothing looked on you, you had to physically go into a store… that was the best way. It allowed you to see the product, touch the product, and even smell the product. Online shopping didn’t and still doesn’t allow customers that luxury… it’s intangible, leaving customers with lots of guesswork.

BUT the technology works… technology wasn’t going to let intangibility be a problem with no solution for too long… thus came interactive product visualization. Now, this strategy still doesn’t allow customers to physically touch or feel the products but it does help them to study the product in great detail, like a zoom feature, allowing customers to zoom in on certain features of a product to help customers understand a product even though they’re not physically touching it.

Product demo videos are also very helpful. In fact, one study reported that 52% of consumers stated that they felt more confident in buying certain products online when they have product videos to watch. Also, 3D experiences are becoming very popular among customers now. This allows customers to see what a piece of furniture looks like in their home without purchasing the product or what glasses will look like on your face without buying them.

Every aspect of interactive product visualization will definitely boost customer engagement but it has the potential to substantially increase your conversion rates as well.

E-Commerce Personalization

Personalization in the world of e-commerce is quickly coming from being something that businesses were just learning about to now, and the forthcoming years, becoming an e-commerce marketing standard. Long gone are the days of personalizing marketing efforts simply by acknowledging a customer’s name… personalization has gotten way more sophisticated with its approaches.

In the world of e-commerce, personalization is now about giving customers a unique and memorable shopping experience by offering them products based on analyzing certain aspects  of the customer’s personal information including, but not limited to:

  • Past purchases
  • Buying history
  • Demographics
  • Browsing history
  • Other relevant shopping data

One of the other ways personalization is incorporated is by way of shopping cart suggestions. When a customer is shopping, you can suggest other products that are relevant to the products they have in their shopping cart.

Advance Product Filtering

As technology advances, does it not seem like people are becoming busier and busier? Well, they are, if you haven’t noticed already. People go to work every day and are tired afterward, so when they have any moment of free time, they want to utilize their free time relaxing and any shopping they need to do, they want to do it in the quickest and most efficient way possible by shopping upfront.

Advance product filtering allows your customer to go to your site and find exactly what they’re looking for without having to look through multiple pages. A good example of this would be like going to a physical store needing a particular product. Instead of walking down aisle after aisle hoping to stumble upon this product, you can just go to a store employee and ask where that product is and they’ll tell you which aisle it’s on so that you can just grab the product you need and leave.

Unfortunately, around 16% of e-commerce stores give customers a good filtering experience, according to smashingmagazine.com… but that doesn’t mean that your business has to give customers similar filtering experiences; that should motivate you to do 10 times better than other business with your filtering options. Remember, you’re trying to put yourself at a greater advantage than other businesses and this is a step in the right direction.

Conclusion

As mentioned earlier, the landscape of e-commerce is continuously growing and the industry is going to get considerably larger in the future. By adopting these growth strategies, the success of your business will be inevitable. As an e-commerce business owner, it’s imperative that you keep track of the emerging technologies and utilize the ones that fit your business best… that will help you achieve success now and on into the coming years.

25-slide PowerPoint presentation
This presentation introduces a framework for entrepreneurs to use when building and navigating their business from a nascent, startup state to an enterprise with a global footprint. This framework, called the 5 Stages of Business Growth, is based on the fact that all businesses experience common [read more]

Want to Achieve Excellence in Strategy Development?

Gain the knowledge and develop the expertise to become an expert in Strategy Development. Our frameworks are based on the thought leadership of leading consulting firms, academics, and recognized subject matter experts. Click here for full details.

"Strategy without Tactics is the slowest route to victory. Tactics without Strategy is the noise before defeat." - Sun Tzu

For effective Strategy Development and Strategic Planning, we must master both Strategy and Tactics. Our frameworks cover all phases of Strategy, from Strategy Design and Formulation to Strategy Deployment and Execution; as well as all levels of Strategy, from Corporate Strategy to Business Strategy to "Tactical" Strategy. Many of these methodologies are authored by global strategy consulting firms and have been successfully implemented at their Fortune 100 client organizations.

These frameworks include Porter's Five Forces, BCG Growth-Share Matrix, Greiner's Growth Model, Capabilities-driven Strategy (CDS), Business Model Innovation (BMI), Value Chain Analysis (VCA), Endgame Niche Strategies, Value Patterns, Integrated Strategy Model for Value Creation, Scenario Planning, to name a few.

Learn about our Strategy Development Best Practice Frameworks here.

Readers of This Article Are Interested in These Resources


104-slide PowerPoint presentation
Why should you buy Breakout Sales Growth (ak; BSG)? "Because BSG is a best practice strategy designed to consistently achieve revenue goals, that's why! And… Breakout Sales Growth has just been updated to reflect marketplace changes, I think you will like it," Howard [read more]


 
186-slide PowerPoint presentation
 
 
76-slide PowerPoint presentation

About Shane Avron

Shane Avron is a freelance writer, specializing in business, general management, enterprise software, and digital technologies. In addition to Flevy, Shane's articles have appeared in Huffington Post, Forbes Magazine, among other business journals.


Complimentary Business Training Guides


Many companies develop robust strategies, but struggle with operationalizing their strategies into implementable steps. This presentation from flevy introduces 12 powerful business frameworks spanning both Strategy Development and Strategy Execution. [Learn more]

  This 48-page whitepaper, authored by consultancy Envisioning, provides the frameworks, tools, and insights needed to manage serious Change—under the backdrop of the business lifecycle. These lifecycle stages are each marked by distinct attributes, challenges, and behaviors. [Learn more]

We've developed a very comprehensive collection of Strategy & Transformation PowerPoint templates for you to use in your own business presentations, spanning topics from Growth Strategy to Brand Development to Innovation to Customer Experience to Strategic Management. [Learn more]

  We have compiled a collection of 10 Lean Six Sigma templates (Excel) and Operational Excellence guides (PowerPoint) by a multitude of LSS experts. These tools cover topics including 8 Disciplines (8D), 5 Why's, 7 Wastes, Value Stream Mapping (VSM), and DMAIC. [Learn more]
Recent Articles by Corporate Function

  

  

  

  

  

The Flevy Business Blog (https://flevy.com/blog) is a leading source of information on business strategies, business theories, and business stories. Most of our articles are authored by management consultants and industry executives with over 20 years of experience.

Flevy (https://flevy.com) is the marketplace for business best practices, such as management frameworks, presentation templates, and financial models. Our best practice documents are of the same caliber as those produced by top-tier consulting firms (like McKinsey, Bain, Accenture, BCG, and Deloitte) and used by Fortune 100 organizations. Learn more about Flevy here.
  


OUR CORE OFFERINGS
Flevy Marketplace: Top 100
· Strategy & Transformation
· Digital Transformation
· Operational Excellence
· Organization & Change
· Financial Models
· Consulting Frameworks
· PowerPoint Templates
FlevyPro (Subscription Service)
KPI Library
Streams (Functional Bundles)
Flevy Executive Learning (FEL)
PowerPoint Services

FREE Resources

About Flevy
Management Topics
Marcus (AI-Powered Consultant)
Partner Program
LinkedIn Influencer Marketing
FAQ / Terms / Privacy / Blog
Contact Us: support@flevy.com



CONNECT WITH US!
       
TOP 100 TRENDING TOPICS
Acquisition Strategy
Agile
Analytics
Artificial Intelligence
Balanced Scorecard
Best Practices
Big Data
Breakout Strategy
Business Continuity Planning
Business Plan Financial Model
Business Transformation
CMMI
COBIT
Change Management
Cloud
Communications Strategy
Company Financial Model
Competitive Advantage
Competitive Analysis
Consulting Frameworks
Continuous Improvement
Core Competencies
Corporate Culture
Cost Reduction Assessment
Customer Experience

BROWSE BY FUNCTION
Strategy, Transformation, & Innovation
Digital Transformation
Operational Excellence and LSS
Organization, Change, & HR
Management Consulting

Customer Journey
Customer Service
Cyber Security
Data Privacy
Decision Making
Digital Marketing Strategy
Digital Transformation
Digital Transformation Strategy
Due Diligence
ESG
Employee Engagement
Employee Training
Enterprise Architecture
Growth Strategy
HR Strategy
Hiring
Hoshin Kanri
ISO 27001
ITIL
Information Technology
Innovation Management
Integrated Financial Model
Kaizen
Kanban
Key Performance Indicators

ADDITIONAL RESOURCES
Business Strategy Frameworks
Case Studies
Consulting Training Guides
COVID-19 Trend Data
Digital Transformation
Financial Advising Services (FAS)

Knowledge Management
Leadership
Lean
Lean Manufacturing
Logistics
M&A (Mergers & Acquisitions)
Manufacturing
Market Research
Marketing Plan Development
Maturity Model
McKinsey PowerPoint
McKinsey Templates
Operational Excellence
Organizational Change
Organizational Design
Performance Management
Post-merger Integration
Pricing Strategy
Process Improvement
Process Maps
Procurement Strategy
Product Launch Strategy
Product Strategy
Project Management
Quality Management


Free Resources
KPI Library
Lean Management
Lean Six Sigma Training Guides
Marcus Insights
Operational Excellence

Real Estate
Remote Work
Restructuring
Risk Management
Robotic Process Automation
SWOT
SaaS
Sales
Scrum
Service Design
Six Sigma Project
Social Media Strategy
Strategic Planning
Strategic Thinking
Strategy Development
Supply Chain Analysis
Sustainability
Target Operating Model
Team Management
Total Productive Maintenance
Value Chain Analysis
Value Creation
Value Stream Mapping
Visual Workplace
Workplace Safety


Product Strategy
Small Business Owner
Startup Resources
Strategic Planning
Strategic Planning Process
Value Innovation Strategy


© 2012-2024 Copyright. Flevy LLC. All Rights Reserved.