Hey guys,
I've lurked for a while and seen a lot of talk about eCommerce, but not so much the slightly more mundane improvements that help build successful stores.
So many times the boring details are lost in the glamour of sales, and I wanted to produce a valuable resource that highlighted some of these dull tasks that eventually lead to success. It's taken around 2 months but hopefully details every step you need to take to launch, and some tips for after.
Here's a link to the 14,000 word blog post, but I've included the best bits below.
Invest in Stock Management - Buy Good Shelving!
I've worked in a few stock rooms and all of them have had terrible cheap shelving systems.
In one company I was responsible for shipping all of the orders around Christmas. Everything was small, light and easy to package (small notebooks / cards / books) and would shift around 500 - 2,000 units a week.
Year 1 was a mess, with loads of returns because stock was disorganised. I had no idea when we were close to running out and in the rush often picked up the wrong unit to ship (SKU BOOK01 may fall into the spot for BOOK03).
Year 2, we bought a picking wall (stacking bins with open fronts) and life was so much easier. Returns reduced, ship times reduced and I knew how much we had of everything. Why? Because everything was in it's place, didn't move, and meant that muscle memory grabbing of products was accurate.
Takeaway: A little bit of planning and investment can make life so much easier if your stock room is organised and stays that way. So often shelving is overlooked, yet literally supports your business.
High Traffic Isn't Always Good
I recently joined a company and was put in charge of PPC.
Long story short - my predecessor had been spending £1,000 a month on display marketing for a product that was unprofitable but had high search visibility. So we were getting thousands of hits a month, quite cheaply, but for a product we never sold.
I killed the campaign, but had a hard time explaining to the CEO why it was a good thing.
Takeaway: Traffic isn't always good - focus on quality traffic that converts well, not just numbers.
Define Your Audience
Maybe I'm preaching to the choir, but always define your target audience.
I work with a lot of companies that have never done this, and it results in a high wasted spend on generic marketing.
The earlier you define several audiences, the easier the rest of your operations become. Especially growth, as you focus on finding more of your ideal customer.
Calculating Margins
Simple but often overlooked as an essential process - here's a spreadsheet I made to make life easier. Don't do anything else until you know how much profit you have to spend to acquire a user.
Calculate Target CRO to see potential Revenue
Also on the spreadsheet is a tab that you can enter in your current conversion rate, and a target. This is very useful for showing to stakeholders why you should be focusing on CRO as a business goal.
E.g. an existing CR of 0.5% going to 1% will double sales without any major restructuring or growth cost. But sometimes it takes putting figures in front of the boss to prove it.
Check Postage Sizes before starting FBA
Quite simply I fucked up! Bought a product to sell via FBA, but then for reasons it got removed and I had to sell it directly myself.
All the calculations I did were for FBA, not for normal post. One larger dimension meant it had to be shipped small parcel not large letter, so I am now spending £3.50 to ship a £5 item.
Takeaway: Measure and cost out all shipping options before buying product.
Choosing a CMS
This is a very rough and ready guide, but here's a rule of thumb I would go by:
- Singleman Operation - Shopify / Squarespace
- Small Business or have tech exp - Prestashop, WooCommerce, Shopify
- Small Business AND have tech exp - Magento
Working with Agencies
Make sure they have build good eCommerce sites before, and ask for their conversion rates. You would be surprised at how many web dev agencies don't understand some of the intricacies of eCommerce.
Some issues I've encountered:
- Not knowing what Google Shopping is
- Forgetting to design important pages - Basket / Checkout / Categories
- Inserting default manufacturers text on every product page that you can't edit
Takeaway: Be thorough with picking an agency, and ensure they have worked on successful ecommerce sites before. They're so much bigger than a static site that a non-ecommerce agency may miss a lot more.
Competitor Research: Find domains your competitor has
This is my final and favourite tip! Using a free BuiltWith account you can see the "relationship profile" tool to see what other domains relate to the original.
I've used this countless times to find out what other stores may they may be running. Particularly handy for Magento installations as they so often run multiple storefronts using the same product catalogue.
Let me know if you have any other questions!
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