When we talk about eCommerce, one size doesn’t fit all. Check out some tips to find the best insights for your business.
Luck can play a role, but most successful eCommerce businesses are built with planning and hard work. And there’s a lot to learn from other business experiences too. If you learn to navigate through the noise, you can find actionable insights even in these “7-figure-eCommerce-empires-built-overnight” stories.
Here are some key strategies to help you find the most useful eCommerce insights:
Sales and revenue increase are the outcome of many different factors. Check for concrete and industry-standard figures that can improve a business performance: conversion rates, customer acquisition costs, average order value, product, audience.
If someone claims their revenue increased X times, check for the factors behind it.
You can find useful information on PDF guides but take this data with a pinch of salt. Most PDFs are created to be downloaded after you fill in a form (and be contacted by a salesperson), so the main purpose is to be eye-catching and not necessarily useful.
For instance: “The laptops market is estimated at £3 billion in 2027” sounds like an amazing opportunity to sell laptops. But how was this figure estimated? How can someone estimate the sales of every laptop in the world in 3 years? Is this credible? Is this figure important to me? Do I need more specific data (i.e.: trends for laptops with specific features)?
Each eCommerce business is unique, with different customer acquisition strategies, products and audiences. Try to find businesses with problems like the ones you’re facing. Don’t blindly copy it – adapt it to your reality. Before implementing impactful actions, A/B test them.
On the other side, each eCommerce business is unique but can be copied. It’s not likely that a successful business will share the Google algorithm or Coca-Cola formula.
eCommerce gurus don’t usually claim they are eCommerce gurus.
Check out the author’s websites, social media presence, and past work they’ve done. Real eCommerce gurus are transparent about their methods and results.
A difference between real and fake gurus. Real gurus will try to sell their services while sharing their knowledge. Fake gurus will make everything to generate page/post/ video views.
Try to find two-way connections, where you can watch/hear but also talk: online forums, industry groups, apps, and local meetups.
Instead of one-time interactions, share experiences and have productive discussions with people facing the same challenges you do.
“Multiplying revenue overnight” and “ranking number 1 in one week” are favourites of eCommerce popstars. There aren’t enough number 1 rankings for all the SEO miracles.
Unfortunately, it doesn’t work like this – a reliable SEO professional will tell you SEO is a long-term strategy.
The best advice is to avoid any advice that might be against the rules of search engines.
Publishing a paper book demands a lot of work. There are terrible books, but the proportion of bad books is low compared to the proportion of bad videos and posts.
Take some time offline and read a book – for instance, books about human behaviour can give you many insights about sales and buying experiences.
It’s possible to be a successful global entrepreneur by expanding an eCommerce business worldwide.
However, it needs a lot of planning and preparation. In general, you must have a legal entity in the country you want to expand into You will also have to worry about customs, legal aspects, supply chain, fulfilment, customer service, language.
Be critical when you see on social media a digital nomad sharing their success managing their eCommerce from a beach in Thailand.
You can find reliable sources of information in our All Things eCommerce section.
