The Brazilian e-commerce is increasingly mature and with this, we are going through a natural selection moment, where those who are not well structured will pay a high price for it. There's no room for amateurism anymore.
Having a detailed e-commerce strategy for 2018, is the way to maintain or grow in this dynamic market, which will require a lot of technique and agility from the entrepreneur. Immediate solutions such as social media posts, e-mail shots or ads compete for consumer attention within the email box, within the feed and even in the CPC (cost per click). Ensuring survival in the market requires planning and optimal execution:
Contents
Toggle- Budget Base Zero
- Renegotiate prices
- Dispose of the expendable
- Analyze your profitability
- Review your mix
- Analytics is your best friend
- Retention is the solution
- Content is king
Budget Base Zero
To ensure maximum profitability of your e-commerce, it is necessary to carry out the Budget Planning for the year from a zero base, that is, without taking into account the revenues, costs, expenses and investments made in 2017 or in previous years. In times of fat cows, it is common for entrepreneurs to relax a little in terms of costs and returns, a serious but recurring error.
Renegotiate prices
Look for substitute products that can do more with less, or else the same with less. Do the DRE (Exercising Result Demonstration) of your sales channel and analyze the channel's contribution margin for your company. Raise the cost of all suppliers, for example, your e-commerce platform or email marketing. Compare with other suppliers, and if you are far above the market, try to negotiate with the supplier. Seek to enter contracts by CPA that make sense for your profit margin and for the customer's LVT (Lifetime Value).
Dispose of the expendable
Over the years, it is common for the e-commerce manager to hire additional services for the virtual store, which in fact do not contribute to the increase in sales. Know how to measure the results of each tool and if not possible, cancel. If you can't measure, you can't manage.
Analyze your profitability
To analyze in detail its profitability metrics, product by product, is essential for a sustainable e-commerce operation. Learn what products are making your store profitable, which are stopped, which deserve to be liquidated and so on. Raise CMV (Sold Goods Cost) and know how much you can invest in your sales on suppliers, operations and marketing. If you are anticipating receipts, know exactly how much you are paying (you can outperform 20%) and set out a sustainable financial strategy. Learn the percentage of the payment gateway, anti-fraud control, platform and all vendors.
Review your mix
After the profitability analysis, analyze the mix of products from the store. It may be too big and making it difficult to maintain the consistency of sales and even harm marketing campaigns. We always recommend “nipping” the business, working with a more specific product mix, to be more assertive in segmentation and sales discourse. Market niches in e-commerce can improve your store's performance and optimize disclosure costs. It is worth more to be very relevant to the few, than irrelevant to many.
Analytics is your best friend
The data doesn't lie. If your direct traffic went down, your mark fell off. If your organic traffic has crashed (except brand name), it's time to optimize your website. If your social media traffic has gone down, your strategy is not engaging your followers. If your e-mail traffic has crashed, your list is tired of the same emails. Take the data as your greatest advisor, they'll tell you whether your business is on the right track or not. Explore all of Google Analytics' resources, analyze metrics and KPIs to exhaustion, to find out where the money is coming from and where it is being thrown away. Enjoy CheckStore's custom reports free of charge on Google solution gallery.
Retention is the solution
Do not think sending a newsletter a week will increase your retention by 10%. E-mail is one of the best retaining tools. Send diverse content, preferably personalized, product recommendations, blog posts and brand news. With more advanced tools, you can automate all these emails and play on autopilot. The proposal is to send messages, so you can diversify by using other features such as push notifications in your app, SMS messages and even Facebook notifications.
Content is king
The brands are increasingly far from consumers. This is because they are seeking performance and result in all actions. Whoever is thriving in e-commerce has already learned that it is necessary to generate relevant content and talk to the consumer in a non-transactional way. You don't have to sell every time, you have to connect and keep your presence every time! Reduce investment in paid media to the fullest. Of course Google AdWords and Facebook Ads are fundamental, but you need to get out of the comfort zone and generate traffic and conversion from across other channels, and the way to that is the combination between Branding + Content + SEO. If your e-commerce can benefit from Inbound Marketing, or content marketing, start by generating relevant content, then become a reference in your segment of activity and thus attract traffic to the store. You will have free brand exposure, increase the relevance and authority of the site with the search tools while generating conversions to your store.
By Eric Scorpioni
Executive Director of CheckStore E-commerce
Partner company of the Nationalvox – NVX for E-commerce B2C and E-commerce B2B solutions
