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Multichannel Selling: The Right Move Forward or Too Many Things at the Same Time?(Part 3)

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Multichannel Selling: The Right Move Forward or Too Many Things at the Same Time?(Part 3)
Mohab Growth Hacks 0

Multichannel Selling: The Right Move Forward or Too Many Things at the Same Time?(Part 3)

How you interact with the customers during and after a sale are also tightly controlled. Even outside these marketplaces, sales is expanding into the realm of customer service. As some studies note, as many as 88% of online shoppers say they are less likely to buy from you if you’re not responding to complaints or service requests posted on social media. This customer service element extends into order fulfillment too.

Nearly every channel has its own way of handling the flow and interaction with customers. Each has its own journey and process, which means you’ll need some salespeople to put those things in place.

The nice bit is that a lot of this can be automated after the initial setup, so you’re not always trying to force a sale with a specific individual. However, the other side of the automation coin is that it’s got to be set up correctly or you push everyone down a path that’s not optimized to sell.

Order Fulfillment

E-commerce warehouses are in the news often because of conditions customers don’t want to hear about — that doesn’t happen everywhere, and we’re working to show your buyers that it’s not the norm. The reason that this unnamed behemoth gets so much attention is because of its reach and how it changed the online conversation to always be about two-day and same-day shipping.

For multichannel sales, that means having the ability to get things out the door. It’s leading more and more businesses to just outsource the warehouse part of their operations because of the complexity that comes with fulfillment. You not only need a system that can take all orders from all sources and combine them for your warehouse, but you have to keep things in stock, monitor inventory demand changes over time, hire people, fill boxes correctly, negotiate rates with carriers, and be able to handle when a product is returned or an order is canceled in the middle of it being picked and packed.

That’s a lot, and each new channel makes it more complicated. It’s often even too much for a single third-party fulfillment company to handle for everyone. Red Stag Fulfillment only works with about 12% of the e-commerce companies we speak with because of how much things like product size and weight or the number of orders you ship can dictate costs and efficiencies. We do refer that 88% to some other great fulfillment companies and they’re in this list of the best fulfillment companies for 2019.

Each carrier will charge you differently for your products based on weight, size, location, and your overall volume. At the same time, warehouses have different prices for these and other factors. It gets overwhelming quickly, and it’s why we always suggest that e-commerce companies looking at multichannel fulfillment have conversations with multiple warehouse and fulfillment companies. Some might be cheaper to ship from while others are cheaper to store at and understanding that can be the difference between having enough money to expand your marketing or going to the bank to try and secure a loan. You’ve got to ask.

3 Thoughts to Help You Decide

Research. Research. Research.

Okay, that’s one thought, but we’re having it in at least three distinct ways. To understand if the opportunity is there, you’ve got to research your customers, costs, and metrics.

In this thought process, customer research is mainly about who your audience is and where they operate. Are they shopping for goods like yours on multiple sites and channels? Do they purchase on these channels, or do you require so much research that most sales still end up happening on your website?

Typically, there’s no good reason to choose every channel. Sure, it’s tempting, but your audience isn’t everywhere (even if you want them to be). Do your homework to find out where the buyers are and seek out the channels you need to reach them.

Our second research point is about the costs you’re facing. Every new channel adds complexity, and that can be expensive. You’ll need to expand marketing budgets to grow across those channels — even if you’re not buying ads, it still takes people to post on social and respond to customer concerns quickly. Expertise is costly, so narrowing down your list of channels and then looking at related costs can help you find the best spots you can afford.

In your selection process, remember that everything costs. Your fulfillment company may charge more for adding new channels, or you might need to buy new software to integrate your store and warehouse with whatever is new. If you’re targeting a brand-new channel, you might need to pay to have a developer create custom support too. Everything costs money, but budgets aren’t unlimited.

The final research we’ll leave you thinking about touches on everything else here: data. Track everything you can think of and use it to inform all the other decisions and choices we talked about today. There’s a lot, and here are a few highlights:

  • Customer data can help you understand if your old targets are still valid.
  • Product performance can give you insight into the channels that work best for you, especially ads.
  • E-commerce platforms can help you understand search volumes and if you need to switch up your keywords.
  • Warehouse data can show if you’re getting orders out on-time and correctly. It can also highlight what gets returned.
  • Channel specific data can show you when interest on a channel — especially around search and hashtags — is growing or dwindling, marking signs for a change.
  • Competition data can help you find trends that your data hasn’t identified yet.

That’s the tip of the data iceberg, and there’s definitely a whole lot more lurking beneath the surface. Multichannel selling represents a significant opportunity for many, and it’ll come back to your audience and the data you have around them to see when it’s worthwhile to expand.

Multichannel Selling: The Right Move Forward or Too Many Things at the Same Time?(Part 3)

About the author

Jake Rheude is the Director of Marketing for Red Stag Fulfillment, an ecommerce fulfillment warehouse that was born out of ecommerce. He has years of experience in ecommerce and business development. In his free time, Jake enjoys reading about business and sharing his own experience with others.

5 years ago
Multichannel Selling: The Right Move Forward or Too Many Things at the Same Time?(Part 2)
Mohab Growth Hacks 0

Multichannel Selling: The Right Move Forward or Too Many Things at the Same Time?(Part 2)

The Trifecta of Trouble and Growth

The tumultuous nature of multichannel marketing is going to keep you on your toes to accomplish your core business functions. In e-commerce, that’s marketing to help people find you, actually capturing the sale, and then getting the product to customers on-time and in a way that they enjoy.

By needing to be available across each channel, you’re going to always have more work to do. Customers are everywhere, and there’s a feeling that you should be everywhere too. We’re going to touch on that briefly at the end, but let’s look at the big picture for what it takes to be everywhere.

Marketing

Studies vary, but somewhere between roughly 80% and 90% of your audience are going to do significant research into your product before they buy. They’re looking for you everywhere, whether that’s to see what influencer is wearing your shorts on Instagram to Amazon’s “Choice” and “Best Seller” designations, and what podcast you’re sponsoring this week.

Marketing also needs to think about mobiles because this technology accounts for 92% of e-commerce order growth. So, your ads and site and other efforts need to not only work on mobile, but they have to be +optimized for this low-impact space. Minimalism isn’t just a fancy trend for luxury offices and site designer websites; it’s also a focus for your team to make the most out of the limited screen size by prioritizing what’s important.

Today, you’ll be stretching that same old budget to meet new people on more channels and give them information to support research instead of just selling. Look for opportunities to grow your impact with content that works across multiple channels, partnerships with people who your audience turns to for education and keeping everything easy to scan to determine its value to the audience.

Sales

Here’s an area even more complicated. Sales is specific to every channel, and you’re going to have to do your own research to understand what and where you can sell. Amazon has a drastically separate set of rules and requirements (especially if you’re Prime) than most other channels, and you’re building an independent reputation on many of these sites.

The channels you “own” tend to be restricted to those where your products aren’t always next to others. So, that’s your website and social channels where you’re controlling the message and some of the discovery. These follow traditional e-commerce and online store rules, where you can build your sales funnel to move people through and capture the sale.

Online marketplaces have their own audiences (with different preferences), rules, and requirements for success. There are excellent guides on the different audience desires, but what is essential at the outset is that your profiles and product descriptions will need to be different for each. In general, eBay will be a little more free-from, while Amazon is much more SEO-minded.

How you interact with the customers during and after a sale are also tightly controlled. Even outside these marketplaces, sales is expanding into the realm of customer service. As some studies note, as many as 88% of online shoppers say they are less likely to buy from you if you’re not responding to complaints or service requests posted on social media. This customer service element extends into order fulfillment too.

Nearly every channel has its own way of handling the flow and interaction with customers. Each has its own journey and process, which means you’ll need some salespeople to put those things in place.

The nice bit is that a lot of this can be automated after the initial setup, so you’re not always trying to force a sale with a specific individual. However, the other side of the automation coin is that it’s got to be set up correctly or you push everyone down a path that’s not optimized to sell.

To read part 1 click here

*to be continued

Multichannel Selling: The Right Move Forward or Too Many Things at the Same Time?(Part 2)

About the author

Jake Rheude is the Director of Marketing for Red Stag Fulfillment, an ecommerce fulfillment warehouse that was born out of ecommerce. He has years of experience in ecommerce and business development. In his free time, Jake enjoys reading about business and sharing his own experience with others.

5 years ago
Multichannel Selling: The Right Move Forward or Too Many Things at the Same Time?(Part 1)
Mohab Growth Hacks 0

Multichannel Selling: The Right Move Forward or Too Many Things at the Same Time?(Part 1)

The more places your company and products exist online, the easier it is for someone to find you and buy from you. That sounds amazing, but it camouflages the sheer amount of work it takes to keep your channels running and profitable.

There’s a whole lot to discover for e-commerce and multichannel retail, and we want to look at where it can all go right or terribly wrong. So, we’ll review the triforce of multichannel efforts, some core concerns, and a few specific areas you must get right to understand if it’s all worth it for your specific company.

What Is E-commerce Multichannel Retail?

Multichannel sales have changed significantly since the term was first brought into the popular domain. It now covers more than just making products available to customers generally online and in-store. That early focus was often for brick-and-mortar stores expanding into the growing world of digital, which came with its own set of unique challenges as stores turned from large-scale shipping to locations to fulfillment direct to the consumer when a product is sold online.

The E-commerce space introduces further complexity — which, thankfully, software can now manage for most brands — of understanding demand and orders across a variety of online locations. Now, your multichannel efforts tend to consist of providing products on your website, through marketplaces like eBay and Amazon, on social channels such as Facebook and Twitter, and whatever comes next.

That next is often a result of search, such as how you can now order some products through virtual assistants. While they’re locked in closed gardens (buying only from Amazon, iTunes or the soon-to-be TV App, etc.), every such digital revolution we’ve seen has eventually opened up to include a variety of third-party sources.

So, your new multichannel e-commerce selling efforts are designed to distribute your products across as many apps, marketplaces, shopping and search engines, social, and other digital channels focused on letting customers browse and buy how they prefer.

Good news: Software can do much of this heavy lifting thanks to data standards, APIs, and integrations, so you’re not coding things yourself or having to update product availability for each channel manually. Payment is one area where you’ve got some genuinely savvy options.

Bad news: New channels are always emerging, and consumer trends often flow to new channels, so you’re always going to have a mix of staples and an ever-changing roster of newbies that require effort and thought to do well. For instance, Facebook’s own study shows young people are paying less attention to it now, especially when it comes to videos and video ads.

Tough news: The challenge is never going to go away, and channels will likely continue to grow. So, to capture your audience and then build loyalty, you’re going to need to be visible and buyable on the channels they use.

About the author

Jake Rheude is the Director of Marketing for Red Stag Fulfillment, an ecommerce fulfillment warehouse that was born out of ecommerce. He has years of experience in ecommerce and business development. In his free time, Jake enjoys reading about business and sharing his own experience with others.

5 years ago
Localize Your E-commerce Business to Grow Faster
Mohab Growth Hacks 0

Localize Your E-commerce Business to Grow Faster

E-commerce businesses come with the benefit of global reach; however, there is also the need to give a local touch to your enterprise so that customers from different countries to warm up to you. Localization is essential for ensuring that you are able to customize your offerings for different markets within your overall global market. At the rudimentary level, localization may entail providing different language options on your website. However, you can go beyond that to provide a unique touch to each market. Here are some of the strategies which may help you in localizing your e-commerce business.

Why Do You Need E-commerce Localization?

Several studies have shown that online consumers are more willing to buy a product if they are presented with all the necessary product information in their local language. However, merely changing the language does not do the trick as you also need to customize the content to suit local cultural norms. You should also pay attention to various nuances of a language. For example, the French spoken in Paris is vastly different from the French practiced in Francophile regions of Canada.

Localization is equally important for small businesses run online. Despite the size of the business, the owners still need to compete in the international markets as a vast majority of internet users hail from emerging economies such as India and China. The key to success for small online businesses is to optimize their local reach within the constraints of their limited budget.

Know the Local Rules

Chevrolet made a massive marketing mistake while promoting its Nova car in Latin America, where the word ‘No va’ literally translated to “it doesn’t go” in Spanish. So, it is important to ensure that when you localize your online business, you understand the common societal norms, regulations and customs. For this purpose, it is advisable to engage the services of localization specialists, who are familiar with the subtle characteristics of a market. These specialists have the expertise to help you localize your products and services to best meet the requirements of your target market.

Use Social Media the Right Way

The role of social media in promoting online businesses cannot be overemphasized. Similarly, you can also use social media to provide local touch to your e-commerce business. You can create different social media pages or identities for different markets. This segregation will allow you to generate localized content and connect with the prospective buyers in a more customized manner. Again, the hiring of localization specialists may come in handy to ensure that you get the right message across.

Pay Attention to Payment Gateways

The success of an online business depends on a variety of factors, including the ease of completing the transaction. One way to ensure a pleasant online shopping experience is to offer appropriate payment gateways to the buyers. So, when you list down your product or services on your website, take some time to ensure that the prospective buyers are quoted the prices in their local currencies. The use of local currency will help the consumer in making a more informed decision, ultimately earning you their loyalty. Also provide different online payment platforms to suit the current cultural and commercial environment. For example, different international websites have offered payment services like Cash on Delivery in emerging economies such as India, where the use of credit or debit cards is still in a nascent stage.

Strengthen Brand Loyalty

In order to win long term business from your target market, it is imperative to create a unique brand and command loyalty from your followers. There are several ways in which a business can build sustainable customer base. You can focus on providing user generated localized content as it may help you in building credibility. Studies have shown that online customers rely upon the feedback provided by their peers on the internet. Such feedback is even more potent when it is delivered in the localized context. Another strategy to create local brand loyalty is to diversify your products and services. For example, you can expand the menu to include local delicacies or modify your recipe to suit local palate.

Localizing end to end experience for your customer base may seem time consuming and resource intensive. However, the strategy has long term implications and may help you in creating a long lasting cross border online business.

5 years ago
Launch Your First eCommerce Website : Setting up a website and e-commerce platform (Part 2)
Mohab Growth Hacks 0

Launch Your First eCommerce Website : Setting up a website and e-commerce platform (Part 2)

The next process involves setting up the online e-commerce portal. Developing an e-commerce website from scratch involves the following steps: obtaining a domain name, roping in a web hosting provider, integrating a payment gateway, a platform to build the online store with product listing, initial capital to fund the manufacture of products and packaging the final product for delivery and shipping.

Web Hosting service and registration of domain name:

What’s in a name? A lot actually, especially if it’s a domain name. It’s important to choose a suitable, available domain name for one’s business or brand. Some tips in selecting a name are:

  •  The name should be connected to the business line: Its best to pick a name that gives customers an idea of the product offerings. The name should clearly highlight the focus behind the online business. In case of an unrelated name, the e-commerce business would have to invest significantly in marketing and branding initiatives to win customers mind share and have a better connect.
  • A short name is easier to remember for customers. It would also result in fewer word entries and hitting the correct website in no time. This might improve visits to the web page and enhance sales conversions.

Registration of the domain name: Having zeroed in on the domain name, one needs to register the same via a domain registrar by paying the requisite fees.

Selection of the e-commerce solutions: This is the crux of the entire e-commerce business. The e-commerce solutions depend on the following parameters i.e. type of platform, size of the business, desired features and budget.

Type of platforms: The following are the two available platforms:

  • Self-hosted solution: These are open source platforms by which the one would have to set up, host, run and maintain the online store with the help of a technical developer. There is considerable flexibility as regards the features, customizations and options in this case. They require advanced technical knowledge as the design needs coding in order to be implemented. While the software is free, there are costs towards server fees, development and maintenance fees and hiring skilled labour.
  • Fully Hosted platforms perform the functions of setting up, hosting and maintenance. These are easy to understand and use. Even non-technical persons can create a website on their own in this option. There are easy drag and drop features with sample templates and in-built key functionalities like stock management, marketing and other presentation tools. The platforms include a fee towards subscription and is influenced by product, user and sales volumes, desired features etc. The updates or feature release will be entirely dependent on the solutions provider. The merchant has limited options as regards customizations and would have to opt for the existing themes.

Evaluation of options: Its best to research the pros and cons of both the options before taking a decision.

  • Trying it out: It might be a good idea to opt for a demo version or free trail period to confirm the quality of the interface and the reliability of the platform. One can even list a few products and gauge the customer response. Alternatively, one could browse the site and judge the speed and response rate.
  • Communicate with the sales team: One can also discuss one’s specific requirements with the solution provider and get an understanding of the process and support services.
  • Check the track record: It would be prudent to obtain feedback from a few merchant clients as to their satisfaction with the e-commerce platform. Often social media provides useful reviews on a particular solution and help take a decision.

Evaluate the features on offer: It is advised to consider the additional capabilities being offered like SEO optimization, brand building via social media etc.

Integration with add-ons: Often one may plan to integrate the portal with a payments gateway, accounting software or logistics and shipment facility. The platforms must support such external add-ons and continue to function smoothly.

Establishing the e-commerce website is a highly technologically intensive stage and most important stage of an online business which could impact the success of the online business model. In case you want to have an operational site in a quick turnaround time, it is best to opt for hosting platform. However, if one wants to customize a site and adopt a gradual site building approach, the open source solution might work better. In continuation with this series, we shall discuss the next step i.e. the crucial money matters. In other words, the selection of the appropriate payments partner to ensure timely and smooth customer payments.

5 years ago