The following factors combine to influence ecommerce company growth and drive revenue.

Ecommerce is a fantastic innovation, rapidly revolutionising the value exchange industry. The sector’s growth in the past decade is nothing short of remarkable. Admittedly, it had a little help from the global lockdown that occurred during the 2020 coronavirus pandemic. The circumstances helped to drive several ecommerce companies’ growth. But then again, we can attribute it to a situation where opportunity meets preparedness.

But not to lecture you about the ecommerce industry’s growth history, of which you might know enough already. Instead, we’re here to discuss something more pertinent to you as a business owner. And that involves factors affecting your ecommerce company’s growth and development.

Expectedly, you have been in the venture for a while and have a wealth of experience in it. However, for some reason, your business isn’t growing as you would like it to. Now, if you can identify the factors affecting your ecommerce company’s growth, then you’ve done well, and you’re amazing. On the other hand, if you can’t tell the issues, then no problem; you’re also remarkable. 

Regardless, we intend to help you by providing detailed information about how you can drive your ecommerce company’s growth. So, to achieve that, we’ll examine the factors responsible for ecommerce company growth. We’ll also explore some techniques and systems you can use to push your venture. 

Why Your Ecommerce Business May be Stalling 

Typically, varying factors can adversely impact your ecommerce business sales and cause your business to stall. These hindrances may include;

Lack of Strategic Focus

Imagine someone attempting to chase two cats running in different directions simultaneously. The chances are that the individual will catch neither of the animals. Unfortunately, that happens when you run your business without a specific focus. 

Ideally, it would be best if you had a specific goal as your primary focus per time. But, then, the said goal may have several objectives under it. Of course, each of the objectives will require certain strategies to achieve them. However, since they’re also towards the same goal, they’ll have some semblance, and you can pursue them simultaneously.

On the hand, having several differing focuses may be too distracting. It makes it difficult to give adequate attention to the most important factors that drive your ecommerce company’s growth. As a result, you’ll be chasing too many ends and missing all of them. Needless to say, that’ll impact your business’ growth adversely. 

In this case, it’ll only take a little tweak to boost your ecommerce company’s growth. You only need to shift your focus to the most important things and see how the situation changes.

Strategies Don’t Align With Goals.

Many people quickly label strategies ineffective when they’re not achieving their desired results. However, we don’t believe there’s such a thing as an ineffective strategy. Instead, your design may not align with what you intend to accomplish.

Needless to say, such a situation is equivalent to you wasting time and resources on what doesn’t work. In other words, it’s probably the factor affecting your ecommerce company’s growth and hindering its development.

In the same vein, you may be working with the wrong employees (or tools). There’s such a thing as misalignment in talent and working culture. The ecommerce business is quite straightforward to grasp, but that doesn’t mean everyone can muster the competency for the job. As such, the problem may be due to certain employees not doing their tasks appropriately.

That said, you want to ensure your strategies match your goals every step of the way. In addition, scrutinise your employees consistently to get the best out of them. It’ll surprise you how simple changes like this can drive your ecommerce company’s growth and improve your profitability.

Short-Term Orientation Impairing Long-Term Development

Many ecommerce business owners are guilty of this mistake. They set out without a proper plan for the business in the long term. 

How many years did you plan ahead for when you were starting in the industry? How many have you been in the business? Have you achieved the goals you stated while starting out?

The problem often happens because ecommerce business owners typically start the venture as a side hustle – which isn’t bad. However, due to their mindset towards the setup as a side hustle, they fail to consider long-term strategies. And of course, this factor will impact their ecommerce business sales and growth in the long run.

You probably started without considering how you want the business to be in 5 to 10 years. Understandably, you were only concerned about making quick profits and cashing out on the side. However, now you’re ten years down the line, and your lack of foresight at the business’ inception is coming back to bite you.

So, what do you do to accelerate your ecommerce company’s growth in this situation? Simple! You must return to the drawing board and create a proper plan for your business. Next, you must reconsider your venture’s structure, goals, forecasts and projections. Then, create a strategy to maximise available resources to achieve your objectives.

Market Saturation

Sometimes, the stall in your ecommerce business’ growth may not be entirely your fault. External factors can also impede a venture’s upward trajectory. 

In some cases, the external factors can be several competitors entering into the same space and grabbing market shares for themselves. In other cases, it may be that your primary offering as an ecommerce venture is going out of vogue; hence the demand for what you offer is dwindling.

In a third case, an unfavourable economic climate may stunt your business growth. For example, the UK experienced a 9.4% inflation rate in mid-2022 and that caused product prices to spike. Consequently, the situation negatively affected individuals’ and businesses’ purchasing power. 

Cases like this often cause businesses to stall as people buy less and business owners also lose purchasing power. However, whatever happens in your business ultimately boils down to you. Hence, you still have some blame regardless of the unfavourable economic climes. 

But rather than take the blame, you can take action. Next, we’ll consider the things you can do to drive your ecommerce business’ growth below.

Factors You Can Leverage to Drive Ecommerce Business Growth

Hopefully, now you can tell why your venture hasn’t been performing up to your expectations. Next are the factors driving ecommerce company growth that you must know and incorporate into your business. Applying these elements to your setup can help push it to the next level.

High Product Quality

Customers love getting good value for their money. One of the tricks to selling is to get buyers to believe they’re receiving more value than the amount they’re paying you. So regardless of whatever they’re offering you, give them exceptional value for their money.

The best way to provide exceptional value for your customers is to give them high-quality products. The buyers will appreciate it and won’t hesitate to return to you whenever they need the same items again. 

In addition, high-quality items advertise themselves and the manufacturer/seller. In addition, it’s often easier for purchasers to refer others to you if they trust your products. Plus, you’ll get good reviews from satisfied customers. Needless to say, poor quality products will get you unsatisfactory feedback which is bad for business.

Admittedly, the product quality may be out of your control if you don’t manufacture them. But then again, it’s ultimately your decision to either sell or not deal in the said items. So instead of settling for low-quality commodities, you can look for goods of the quality you prefer, even if it means switching product brands.

Interestingly, a product’s perceived quality may also influence its sale. For example, how likely are you to buy a product with the “made in China” label? Probably very unlikely. That’s because the popular opinion about Chinese products is that they’re of lower quality, even though that’s not always the case. 

So, while offering high-quality products, you must also ensure the customers know how excellent the goods are. This element may be all you need to drive your ecommerce business growth and performance upwards. 

Competitive Pricing

The primary goal and motivating factor for most ecommerce businesses is profit. As we mentioned earlier, chances are you got into the venture with the idea of making money on the side. Then the setup eventually grew into something you’re now committed to. Keeping that in mind is also a factor you can leverage to drive your ecommerce business growth and development.

However, as much as you want to make huge profits, your product prices should not push your customers away. In other words, you need to employ competitive pricing strategies for your business to improve your market chances. This factor is even more critical if you deal with several competitors in the same market.

This factor is important because most customers look for the best quality at the cheapest price. The average buyer will consider cheaper alternatives before making a purchase. For example, an average shopper will probably not buy a Samsung TV from your store for 1500 GBP when they can get the same item from another retailer for 1350 GBP.

Plus, it’s worth noting that many consumers may not mind spending hours searching for the cheapest deal they can get. Of course, that’s not saying you must continually offer your items cheap and jeopardise your profitability. However, be reasonable with your profit margin so you won’t push buyers away with exorbitant prices.

The best way to balance profitability and reasonable pricing is to benchmark your fees across several competitors. Look at the amount others sell for and put your prices within the same range. Of course, ensure not to go too far ahead or fall all the way behind.

Customer Experience

Experience is essential to how a customer perceives your offerings and interacts with your business. For example, if they enjoyed looking through your ecommerce website, they’d come to take a look again. It’s that simple. 

Then again, a major factor responsible for the general ecommerce industry growth was that it enabled people to get things they needed conveniently. The buyers didn’t have to go out of their apartments or visit a mall before buying whatever they wanted. And they can simply place an order on their computers for subsequent purchases.

Ecommerce solutions were successful because they allowed people to do things without experiencing inconvenience. Now there are several ecommerce solutions, and it’s no longer enough to enable customers to procure items online. Instead, you must ensure they have a good time doing so.

You must provide an intuitive, user-friendly ecommerce store for your shoppers. In addition, your platform should be able to save customer information to facilitate transactions for returning buyers. Then, of course, the shipping and delivery process must also leave a good impression on the buyer. 

Those are the fundamentals of good user experience for ecommerce businesses. But more importantly, you must pay attention to your competition. Essentially, you don’t want them to leave you behind. In other words, you don’t want your company’s customer experience to be inferior to your competitors. This factor can significantly impact your ecommerce business sales and overall bottom line.

Branding

One aspect of the ecommerce business that several owners tend to pay little attention to is their branding. But this singular factor has a significant influence on your venture’s growth. Big ecommerce companies like Amazon and eBay provide premium examples of how exceptional branding helps to drive ecommerce business growth and development.

Every business has an identity. And what serves as the core of that identity is the brand. In addition, the brand embodies your organisation’s values and guiding principles. It should clearly reflect your mission and vision. 

Your business brand is its identity and what customers recognise. Therefore, good customer experience and loyalty rewards may help retain customers. But exceptional branding and marketing will bring in new ones. Of course, you can’t always count on customer referrals no matter how well you treat them. But you can take a proactive approach to attract customers through branding and marketing.

Ensure your ecommerce business has a recognisable and pleasant identity. Furthermore, you should keep it consistent across all channels, i.e. it must always give the exact representation of your venture.

Other Techniques To Accelerate Ecommerce Company Growth

It’s great that you are now familiar with the fundamental factors that drive ecommerce business growth. So, let’s assume you have all the basics down, but your business is still not moving as you’d like it. What do you do then? 

Below are some techniques and tools you can use to boost your ecommerce company’s growth. Of course, they’re not substitutes for the fundamentals; instead, they’re augmentative options.

Give Loyalty Rewards

One of the most significant growth factors in the ecommerce business is customer retention. I.e. if you can get your customers to keep coming back after every purchase, your business should be just fine. 

There are many excellent ways to retain customers. However, one of the most effective customer retention avenues is loyalty rewards. I.e. you can easily get customers to come back by rewarding them for it. 

That said, do you know what customers love more than getting good value at a low price? Getting a deal without paying at all! Yes, they love the free stuff! So an excellent way to reward customers for their loyalty is to give them freebies. 

Let them know you appreciate and value their patronage, so you’re giving something back. That’ll give customers the impression that you care and encourage them to do more business with you.

Of course, don’t just reward your customers with random items. Instead, you want to ensure you’re rewarding their loyalty with something they’ll find useful. Otherwise, your attempt at improving your business with customer loyalty rewards may prove unrewarding. 

Up Your SEO

As an ecommerce business, your venture is primarily online. And, of course, your visibility on the internet space is a primary factor that can drive your ecommerce company’s growth. 

How visible are you online? Is your business always showing up where people can easily find you? What efforts are you putting into ensuring your business shows up in the customers’ faces when they search for something you offer?

At this point, you should know how most search engines work. Exceptional SEO gets you a good spot on search engine reports, and that’s where the goodies are. 

The average internet user won’t go past the search engine report’s second page before getting what they need. But you can expect that the top 5 results on the first page will get the most traffic. 

So, you want to always have your ecommerce business in the top 5 results for the main products you offer. Given that you’re serving a UK market, getting the top 5 results for a countrywide search is good enough. The traffic should help significantly accelerate your ecommerce company’s growth and popularity.

However, most search engines, notably Google, constantly update their algorithm. Hence, your old SEO strategies may no longer yield the desired results. Therefore, you must consistently review your SEO strategies and push up the bar to keep up with the changes.

Invest in Appropriate Tools and Infrastructure

Ecommerce platforms don’t exist in a vacuum; you’ll always have to integrate with other systems to improve operations. For example, most ecommerce platforms don’t come with pre-equipped payment systems. You’ll need to integrate those yourself. In the same way, many don’t come with analytical tools to compute data. 

So, essentially, your ecommerce business will be a relatively complex integration of systems, tools and setups. But what if your setup is the reason your business is stalling. Undoubtedly, what you have on the ground will influence your ecommerce business growth and drive it forward. 

However, using the wrong tools will undoubtedly affect your productivity. So you have to determine what frameworks you currently have in place and the effectiveness level.

Take a step back to survey your company’s overall tech infrastructure. Find out what’s become outdated and update them. The following questions will give you direction on what you need to work on;

• Does the current platform interface appropriately with other primary internal systems and customer channels?
• Are there plans or schedules for replacement or upgrades on some internal systems? If so, how will the changes affect the current platform? Will the new technologies interface efficiently with the platform as it is?
• What are the trends going on in space? What new tools are competitors using to get results? Can you apply such tools to your business and get the same results? 

Getting the right tools can provide the necessary boost for your ecommerce company’s growth directly or indirectly. Plus, they help make processes easier and faster while eliminating errors or wastage.

Conclusion

Several factors can help drive your ecommerce business growth. You can either be complacent or proactive in identifying and dealing with elements that cause your venture’s upward trajectory to stall.

In other words, you’re the biggest factor responsible for your ecommerce company’s growth. Your decisions, actions and reactions will make or break the venture. You must work on yourself first and ensure you have all the knowledge and skills to run an organisation.

Then you can start looking at tweaking your business structure or getting outside funding.  Axis Shift can help with the latter. We’re a private ecommerce investment outfit with a track record of revitalising struggling ecommerce companies. Call us today to learn more about how we can help your company thrive and increase revenue.