Are you an eCommerce manager?
If you are, you know exactly just how hectic the job can sometimes be, and saying there arent enough hours in the day is an understatement.
Running your online business and managing your team across different departments while staying up-to-date on technological innovations and the latest consumer trends is, simply, overwhelming.
The following are 8 common concerns shared by eCommerce managers across the board and some hints on what you can do to stay proactive and productive during the day, so you can sleep well during the night.
1. Keeping Up With Innovation
The innovations in digital marketing are evolving so rapidly that it can be hard to keep up at times.
You could be up all night wondering if your competition is already using the latest and greatest conversion widget before you’ve even heard of it. Artificial intelligence (AI) has come a long way in reliably automating the important tasks and one of the greatest innovations to come from the world of AI to the land of eCommerce marketing is chatbots.
Chatbots are the new big thing in eCommerce and we’ve all interacted with them at one time or another.
Bringing machine learning to a customer service environment is enhancing the way companies can scale and be able to manage multitudes of buyer inquiries without the need to add additional employees or outsource to a call center.
Chatbots, however, only represent a fraction of the changing environment that is eCommerce marketing. To help keep one step ahead of the game, here are some of the best resources you can use for staying up-to-date on innovative marketing trends and technologies --
Blogs:
- Stay current with Google updates and new best practices that allure the search engine giant.
- Chief Marketing Technology Blog
- Expertly operated by Martech, a marketing technology company, the CMT Blog is a wealth of information that focuses on marketing trends and statistics.
- TOPO
- If learning to leverage your data strategically is something you want to do, TOPO is an awesome resource.
- Copybot
- Crafting strategic copy that allures reader-attention is an elusive artform; Copybot focuses on helping you create emotionally compelling content.
Podcasts:
- Amy Porterfield
- Although Amy focuses on monetization tips and tricks, she’s a ninja when it comes to dissecting the best technologies in marketing and how to apply them to your business.
- Conversion Science Podcast
- This amazing find focuses on optimization testing, and like its name suggests, uses actual science to forecast the best strategies that convert.
- ClickZ
- With a focus on providing interviews of the best eCommerce marketing professionals, Tim Flagg and his guests empower listeners with some incredible insight on where marketing intelligence will go.
Other Resources:
- MarTech
- On October 1st - 3rd, this annual event will showcase the most comprehensive “vendor-agnostic, graduate-level” marketing news, trends and innovations.
- Distilled
- Distilled, an online marketing agency, boasts a surplus of information for staying current with marketing innovation. From fantastic training and online courses, to their industry leading events, Distilled will help you master the art of marketing while stay up-to-date on all that is happening.
- Follow amazing social media influencers that specialize in marketing technology
2. Making Sure The Shopping Experience is Personalized
You’ll sleep better knowing your shoppers are having a customized shopping experience that leaves them at ease throughout their buying journey. A whopping 82% of consumers shopping online these days feel that personalization is extremely important to them and that it factors into their purchasing decisions, this according to a recent study by The 1st Global eCommerce Community.
Technological innovations play a big role in keeping up with today’s consumer’s shopping experience expectations.
Integrating solutions that engage the customer, such as chatbots that offer around-the-clock customer service, and contextual product suggestions that recommend items based on what you’ve browsed and bought and what others look at and buy. These intuitive and powerful methods open the door to a world of possibilities, and customers now expect to see (experience) them.
3. To Discount, Or Not To discount
So is discounting your products the only way to stay competitive in today’s landscape?
Not these days.
There are plenty of good reasons besides lower prices that consumers turn toward the Internet to make many of their purchases.
Many shoppers gravitate to the web to do their shopping for the sheer convenience, saving time and shopping when they want while benefiting from a plethora of information at their fingertips.
Being able to offer perks like free shipping, a no-hassle return policy, and 24/7 customer service is certainly going to give you an edge in the competitive online marketplace.
4. Customer retention
And one of the best ways to enhance your chance of having repeat buyers, do your best to ensure you’re giving them the best shopping experience available.
Retaining customers and getting that repeat business is the only practical strategy to achieve long-term profitable growth for your eCommerce store.
Advertising strategies like retargeting and follow-up email marketing have bolstered the ability of online retailers to capture their target audience’s attention and convert browsers into buyers again and again.
When you deliver a seamless and integrated customer service and shopping experience, it’s only natural for past customers to turn to you again when they can feel confident that they’ll have a positive buying experience again.
5. Generating Targeted Traffic
Getting more traffic to your eCommerce site is usually a good thing, but if that traffic isn’t targeted traffic coming from potential customers who are actually intent on making a purchase, all its really going to do is water down your conversion rate.
While you should focus proportionately on marketing methods that bring back the highest return on investment per dollar, it is also important to make sure you aren’t relying on just one avenue or channel to generate new customer leads.
Diversifying into a variety of inbound and outbound marketing methods can capture new kinds of leads and lead to future return customers if you’re selling what someone out there is looking for.
6. Lack Of Integration
Customers want a seamless experience.
When the user interface suddenly changes due to a lack of integration between systems, it can be a disorienting and trust-diminishing experience.
When a customer visits your eCommerce website, streamlining and integrating the various applications that make up the user experience, such as order tracking software, order management, customer support services, site settings, etc., has the effect of enhancing the buying journey and ultimately increasing conversion rates.
Repeat business is more likely to occur as users have a hassle-free, uniform experience throughout your online store.
Getting everything fully integrated across all of the systems in place allows synchronization of data and user activity, and keeps information up-to-date and easily accessible.
Displaying everything a customer needs in a single organized interface is crucial to delivering an effortless and enjoyable buying experience.
Designing a great user experience with systems seamlessly integrated and easily managed is important not only on the shopper’s side but on the administrative end as well. Being able to easily and accurately update inventory and publish new content is vital to ensuring integrity and building trust with new and returning customers.
7. Maximizing the mobile shopping experience
There just cannot be enough emphasis placed on the importance of harnessing mobile traffic and utilizing it for maximum impact on your eCommerce store’s bottom line.
We are increasingly using our mobile devices to navigate and make decisions in our everyday lives. It has become 2nd nature for consumers to pull out one screen while viewing content on another screen so they can multitask without interruption.
Many consumers are even beginning to ditch the computer altogether just as many households have opted to cancel their landline phone service. If your web store isn’t fully optimized for mobile browsing, you’re losing revenue.
Customers are very quick to move on to the next website if the site they’re trying to load just isn’t downloading fast enough. Content should be tailored to the mobile user, who is usually on-the-go and looking for a solution to an immediate need rather than a lofty read.
8. Preparing for the big shopping days
More retail shopping is happening online every year, with eCommerce companies competing with the brick-and-mortar stores and with each other, too.
Giants like Amazon have gained major market share but they also create avenues for you to distribute your products as a vendor, so there is still plenty of room for “the little guy.”
Communicating with the IT department about projected traffic surges to your online store can be a practical way to help keep the site online and operational even during the busiest buying times, most notably landmark shopping days like Prime Day, Black Friday and Cyber Monday.
Keeping good communication with your engineering team is critical in times like these.
Conclusion
Being a great eCommerce manager involves gaining a deep understanding of eCommerce as a business.
You must have top-notch analytical skills, and maintain a thorough understanding of the customer journey and buying experience so you can offer a shopper-centric design that responds to the needs of your customer base, and you have to do all this while having empathy for both the customers as well as the employees under your guidance and command.
If you love what you do and you keep up on the trends and technology that pertain to your market and your industry, you can rest easy at night knowing that even if you aren’t where you want to be with your numbers yet, there’s always room for improvement.
Some of our greatest inspirations come to us in our dreams, so you can always feel good about giving yourself a good night’s rest.
Want a fully integrated eCommerce solution that you can depend on?
