Identify Growth Opportunities With an Ecommerce Consultant

While there is a lot of talk about the "new normal" in a post-pandemic world, what exactly that is has yet to be determined. What we do know: Consumer behaviour has changed. People go out less and shop online more than they did last year. Since permanent changes in social behaviour and shopping habits will continue to evolve, ecommerce businesses have to be ready to adapt and attract new customers, while also keeping their current customers happy.

How to grow your ecommerce business today

Hopefully, you’ve already been thinking a lot about what your company needs to do to capitalize on the rise of ecommerce shopping. However, there are probably just as many answers to this question as there are product SKUs on your website.

Should you change your marketing first, add new products, improve your UX/UI, speed up your website, improve your analytics, or start at the foundation with changes to your platform? When it comes to these types of questions, a fresh set of eyes can help — particularly when those eyes have been focused on industry-wide trends and dozens of other ecommerce businesses similar to yours for a number of years.

Here are just a few of the ways an experienced consultant can help you with your ecommerce business planning

1. Access new sales channels and markets

Growing an ecommerce business requires one of two things: more customers or more items to sell to your existing customers – but preferably both. An ecommerce consultant can show you the best way to do this as quickly as possible, such as:

• Connecting with new partners and suppliers to increase your offerings to current customers while expanding your market to new realms.
• Use APIs to access readily available customer data from third parties to fine-tune your market segments and to find out what other products your customers are looking for.
• Exploring how to integrate your platform with one like Amazon to reach new customers who don’t yet know who you are, let alone what you have to offer.

2. Avoid costly mistakes

Too often, companies will know exactly where they want to go, but – having never been there before – they take a long and winding path through trial and error, making the same mistakes and encountering the same dead ends that other companies have already gone through. For example:

• Connect your high-traffic ecommerce storefront to a supplier’s lag-prone inventory system.
• Adding new features or connecting new software to a platform that is about to be retired.
• Reinventing your ecommerce business on a new platform when a hybrid solution would have been faster and cheaper with a better customer experience.

3. Get a fresh perspective

While your business and your goals are unique, the problems you face usually aren’t. With an experienced ecommerce consultant, you’re not just getting their time and ideas, you’re getting the experience of hundreds of other projects with businesses that faced issues similar to yours. This experience can show you how:

• To point out the roadblocks you’re likely to encounter.
• To show you alternatives to your current approach with cost comparisons.
• To give you insights into future-proofing your business solutions.

Contacting an Acro Commerce ecommerce consultant is a painless 15-minute introductory phone call, without a sales pitch and without pressure. Like a first date, it’s an opportunity to get to know each other and determine if you will be a good fit, before discussing whether or not to pursue a relationship.

One thing is for certain: You won’t know how well a professional ecommerce consultant will be able to help you or how much time and money you may be able to save until you talk to one. As your competitors are likely already racing to meet the current surge in ecommerce spending, there’s no better time to plan for the future than today.

_{David Weedmark is an experienced web developer and a former IT manager with a long and storied history in security audits and server migrations.}