Bridging the Ecommerce Knowledge Gap
Ecommerce is a highly complex profession, whether you work as an ecommerce manager or you are an entrepreneur in charge of a brand. Keeping up with the latest developments takes a lot of time. Changes happen all the time. Algorithms for Facebook or Google can change at anytime, affecting your brand’s visibility. SEO penalties can leave you scrambling.
In addition, your business faces customer support demands from customers unhappy with the order they received. In the midst of it all, it’s easy to get left behind and fall victim to the ecommerce knowledge gap. To have all the essentials in one place, below, we’ve compiled a bite-size summary of all the important ecommerce articles of 2018.
Product Quality
Product-market fit is key to brand success. If you want your products to thrive for years to come, don’t skimp on product quality. These articles will help you get it right.
1. Product Market Fit (A Visual Guide) - by Neville Medhora
Neville Medhora’s blog is one of the leading destinations for ecommerce copywriting and marketing tips. His visual guide to product market fit will help you refine your product idea so that it resonates with your target market. The article paints a visual portrayal of what it feels like when you achieve that sometimes elusive match between what your product does and what the market is looking for.
2. 11 Effective Practices For Maximizing Your Ecommerce Customer Service - by Acquire.io Blog
This article by Acquire.io focuses on the role that effective customer service plays in the overall customer experience. In the words of Laduram Vishnoi, CEO of Acuire.io:
“A satisfied customer is the best business strategy of all.”
Vishnoi recommends adopting a multi-channel customer service strategy. Your ecommerce business should be able to provide prompt and satisfactory live assistance to every customer.
3. A Guide to Building Business Loyalty with Your Customer Base - by Pixel Productions
Pixel Productions offers a bottoms up tutorial on creating lifelong customers by being authentic and transparent with your customers. The blog post advocates “aligning with your customer’s values” and paying attention to the customer experience of your brand. The authors rate transparency as the most important factor in cultivating long term customer loyalty.
Conversion Rate Optimization
The difference between paid acquisition programs that chew budget needlessly and those that give a positive return on investment is conversion rate optimization. Learn the best techniques with these articles.
1. Ecommerce Conversion Rate Optimisation Guide: 41 ways to increase your store's conversions - by Gorilla 360
Gorrila 360’s monster 20,000 word post on conversion rate optimization is a one-stop guide to get your bearings straight on improving your ecommerce conversion rate. It covers all aspects of CRO for online businesses, from optimizing UX on product pages to creating the right trust signals in the shopping cycle.
2. 83 Experts Share the Best Ecommerce Conversion Rate Optimization Strategies for 2018 [Expert Roundup] - by Shane Barker
In an expert roundup of 83 ecommerce experts, Shane Barker has collected conversion rate optimization wisdom in bitesize format for your quick education. Experts like Sam Thomas Davies from Sleeknote teach you how to effectively convert traffic from channels like Youtube with fun, engaging, landing pages.
Productivity/Team Management
Team building is essential for scaling your brand and successfully meeting the demands of your customers. Here is how you do it.
1. Building the Ideal eCommerce Team - by Nomad Ecommerce
This article covers the essential personnel any ecommerce business needs, along with the skills those people need to have. The skills a typical ecommerce team needs include:
- C-Suite executives who allocate budget and provide high level direction
- Finance
- Merchandising
- UX Specialists
- Web development
- Inbound Marketers
- Creative/Design
Pricing
How you price your products affects your potential market share and how profitable the business will be. Find out all about pricing and pricing intelligence in these posts.
1. How Pricing Is Now A Credibility Issue For Online Retailers - by Competitor Monitor
Today’s consumer has more information available about product configuration options and prices than ever before in history. Competitor Monitor covers the ways in which price has become an essential part of consumers’ product research process. Knowing what customers are looking for in terms of prices, deals, and premium product upgrades will help you set prices to win customers over your competition.
2. Pricing Strategy for Ecommerce – Is Your Price Right? - by Oberlo
Oberlo covers the fundamentals of pricing strategy in this post. You will learn how to select a pricing strategy, and how to set prices at an appropriate level. The post covers strategies like market-oriented pricing, cost-based pricing, and consumer-oriented pricing. In addition, you will learn how to define your brand’s unique selling proposition.
Marketing
Marketing is not the only thing that matters for ecommerce success, but it amplifies product quality, customer service, and pricing strategy. Become a better marketer by going deep with these tutorials from marketing experts.
1. 17 Social Media Marketing Strategies to Grow Your Online Sales - by Shopify
Mastering social media marketing is essential for today’s ecommerce brand managers. Shopify shares a variety of tried and tested strategies to boost your social media-generated sales in this comprehensive article. You will learn how to host micro-chats on Twitter to drive interest, as well as how to run treasure hunts on Pinterest.
The Sumo blog over-delivers in this detailed guide to putting together a solid ecommerce marketing plan for the whole year. They will show you how to do things like get started with influencer marketing, increase your Instagram following 150%, and run viral contests to grow your email list. As a bonus, the article includes a downloadable 12-month marketing calendar your business can use with minimal adjustments.
3. Creating a Content Marketing Strategy for Ecommerce - by Practical Ecommerce Blog
Content marketing involves addressing your customers’ interests with timely and captivating information to problem solve or educate. The Practical Ecommerce blog focuses on marketing and other key areas like SEO. Where content marketing is involved, the blog authors recommend getting clear on your target audience in order to aim your content precisely at that target’s needs.
Your Virtual Ecommerce Masterclass
From product quality tips to content marketing and and ecommerce pricing strategies, there is a lot you might have missed on in the ecommerce world. However, with these best of the year ecommerce articles, it is possible to get caught up with some light reading. True, some of the best articles, like that 20,000 word conversion rate optimization masterpiece resemble small books, but you will come away better informed. For ecommerce managers and teams alike, the right tips can make all the difference.
