Have you found your ecommerce business stalling?

Maybe it’s time to look at all aspects of your business with new eyes. Seek improvement across the board.

Perhaps you'll find the skill sets and competitive advantages that got you to this point need to evolve. It’s no longer enough to be really good a just a few things.

Evaluate your business in these four areas:

1) How well are you dealing with the technical     side of your business?

a. As you grow, are you using technology to improve the efficiency of your processes (shipping, inventory, CRM, warehouse management etc.) or are you throwing more bodies at the problem?

b. Are you using custom tools to make your site more valuable to customers, improve search results and create competitive barriers to entry?

c. Are you doing big-boy hosting or are you still trying to do it on the cheap?

2) Are you making yourself visible to all potential customers?

a. How good is your SEO?

                                 i. Are you doing the basics for In-site SEO? How about beyond the basics?

                                 ii. Off site - are you getting quality links? Do you have a strategy?

b. Are you using the shopping engines and are you optimized for them?

c. Are you optimizing your Google Product Feeds?

d. How well is your PPC performing? Did you try it and give up on it?

e. Are you in marketplaces like eBay or Amazon?

                                 i. Should you be on them? (it’s not as simple as you might think)

                                 ii. How much can you really sell there? (a ton)

f. Are you using RSS product feeds?

g. Are you using trigger-based emails?

h. Are you doing things like “deal-a-day” promotions?

i. Are you blogging?

j. What’s the health of your affiliate programs?

k. Have you looked into creating micro sites that appeal to different segments of you marketplace? Would you like to become you own competition?

l. Are you working at increasing international business?

3) How well are you converting traffic and maximizing your profit?

a. How can you increase your Conversions?

                                 i. Trust – Are you doing all the basics to show you are trustworthy?

                                 ii. Is the checkout process easy and re-assuring? Do you have a way to re-engage abandoned carts?

b. Analytics - What's the score?

                                 i. What are you tracking?

                                ii. How are you making it actionable?

c. Optimization – Are you doing multivariate testing for your important/profitable pages (i.e. home, product & checkout)

d. How can you improve the User Experience?

                                 i. Information Architecture

1. Is your navigation simple and clear? Where are people getting confused?

2. Do you offer multiple filtering capabilities?

                                 ii. Does on site search work really well?

                                 iii. Are you merchandizing your products in an appealing way?

                                 iv. Are you using ratings & reviews?

                                v. Are you providing educational guides, product recommendations and customization tools?

                                 vi. Do you have multi-media? How-To Video’s?

                                 vii. What are you doing to increase your average order size

1. Up Selling

2. Cross Selling

3. Promotions

a. Are you testing which are most profitable?

b. Are you getting your vendors to support you?

4) Repeat Customers are the cornerstone of a successful ecommerce business.

a. Are you finding ways other than price to compete?

                                 i. Can you customize products?

                                 ii. How can you improve customer service and self-service?

                                 iii. What can you do to be seen more as a trusted resource than just a store?

                                 iv. Have you created custom tools?

b. Word of Mouth works for you or against you. Are you doing reputation management?

c. Are you using sophisticated email methods or just a “mailing list”?

d. Are you finding creative ways to build community?

Can you do better in these areas?

Focus on building your ecommerce business, not Amazon's

A couple of years ago, I worked with a merchant with a love/hate relationship with eBay. He used the analogy of being “addicted to eBay like a crack addict”.

He did a ton of business on eBay but that takes a ton of effort. His staff was constantly overwhelmed and worked on little else. They relied so heavily on eBay for sales, they were, in effect, addicted. He was afraid he couldn’t afford (or so it seemed) change.

Most importantly, he wasn’t able to focus on other, more profitable, ways to grow his business.

I covered some of the negative aspects of eBay on my personal blog a couple weeks ago.  

But how about selling on Amazon’s seller central? That’s totally different, right?

I mean, how could it be anything but positive? You get to sell to Amazon’s vast customer base, don’t have to pay a penny until something sells and don’t have to deal with eBay’s demanding and cheap users.

Well, just like your mother once told you, there is no such thing as a free lunch. And selling on Amazon’s seller central is no different.

To understand why, I need to explain my simplistic view of ecommerce. I believe there are three things to worry about:

1)      Exposure - Getting in front of as many of the right prospects as possible as cheaply as possible.

2)      Profitable Conversion - Maximizing the profit and revenue generated from those prospects

3)      Ownership - Maybe the most important - is getting them to buy from you again and again and again.

Well, how does Amazon match up?

1)      Exposure? A+ There is nothing like Amazon’s installed base.

2)      Profitable Conversion? Hmmm…. A little more mixed. There are tons of ways to be creative on Seller’s Central, but at the end of the day, you are competing on price. After including your commission, you aren’t making a ton and what worse, most of the cross-selling and up selling opportunities all belong to Amazon.

3)      Ownership? F- Basically, you are paying a 15% commission to build Amazon’s business. You do a great job of customer service and offer a product at a great deal? Great! Amazon’s relationship with that customer just got deeper.

The problem is that it all looks easy. It all seems so predictable.  You list products; you ship products and you collect the money from Amazon.

But you aren’t building your own business. Think about it – in essence, you are an interchangeable fulfillment house for Amazon.  They can (and will) replace you in a blink of an eye.

I have a friend who had some temporary issues with his warehouse outside his control. Despite a couple years of stellar service, Amazon shut him down overnight.

He ended up not just laying off his employees but declaring bankruptcy.

If he had been building his web business, the warehouse issue still would have been painful. He would have lost some customers, but he would still be in business today.

So sure, keep selling on Amazon, but don’t forget to build the rest of your business.

And my friend addicted to eBay? I just talked with him. He is doing great. He’s broken his eBay addiction and business is better (and more solid) than ever.