8 Elements That Might Be Impacting Your Ecommerce Sales
Are you feeling a bit uneasy about your DTC business performing or not performing?
Have your sales declined? Or even worse, have they come to a full stop?
As businesses navigate uncertainty, here are the 8 elements you can examine to determine if there is room for improvement for your eCommerce business.
Product Relevancy
Does your product serve a need people have right now? If people still want the solution you’re offering, are they using it differently? Are they buying less frequently? It’s important to understand how your product speaks to your customers needs, and WHY they buy your product. If you don’t have sufficient evidence to back it up, it might be time to consider a pivot.
Where is Your Customer?
It goes without saying, but you have be where your customer is - otherwise any effort you make will just be in an echo chamber. If you’re on Instagram , but not getting traction - are you on the right platform? As social media expert Matthew Kobach (@mkobach) puts it, “If you’re new in town you can’t throw a party and just magically expect people to show up. But you can go to someone else’s party and say interesting things to people to make new friends.”
User Experience
Many brands (unfortunately), put little effort into creating an outstanding user experience on their website.
Do you make your website easy to navigate? Is it easy to “get” what makes your products unique? Do you make it easy for customers to make a choice? I.e. How do they select between two eye creams? Or even more challenging, selecting a the perfect brow pencil shade.
Positioning
Is your space saturated with competitors? If so, are you sufficiently differentiated? Consider identifying a smaller “pond” to swim in - understanding the nuances of a smaller sub-category will allow you to understand a focused group of customers and concentrate your efforts.
Product Assortment
If you have an extensive product assortment - or perhaps a lot of micro variables (green tea VS decaf green tea VS matcha green tea), your customers might have difficulty making a purchasing decision. Key considerations - educate your customer about your products, structure your products so that they are easy to navigate and if you haven’t yet, check out my post about creating a high performing product assortment here.
Pricing
There are too many angles to pricing to go into here - but here are some primary considerations.
How are your products priced in relation to your competitors? What is the “collective” value you deliver for the price? Some attributes that may be valuable to your customers include: free shipping, organic, recyclable packaging, cruelty free, $% of proceeds to social cause, gift with purchase, etc.
Product or Experience Fail
This is more of a reflective aspect - but if you’ve made sales, and are not successful acquiring returning customers, you may need to evaluate whether your product or customer experience delivers on its promise. Unfortunately not all unsatisfied customers are willing to tell you even when prompted, so this will require some deep evaluations.
Tonality
Many brands fail to realize when their tonality falls flat with customers. Some brands are serious and clinical; some are playful and humorous; some are bold and in your face. Finding an authentic tonality that aligns with your values, products, audience and look/feel is key if you want to build trust.