Maintaining Ecommerce Growth Amid Increased Competition

It seems like every day a new brand enters the ecommerce arena, often in direct competition with those who went before.

No sooner had Moon Pig started offering personalized greeting cards delivered to the recipient’s home on a specified day, did Funky Pigeon pop up and offer more or less the exact same service. Like nature abhors a vacuum, ecommerce abhors a monopoly and competition will always be a very real and present threat to any online retail business.

However, competition also fosters innovation and brands will often do their best work when they know they have to stand out in a crowded marketplace. How then can ecommerce brands maintain the kind of growth which makes shareholders happy in an environment of ever-increasing competition?

Innovation

Customers are naturally attracted to brands which can offer unique experiences – especially those involving modern digital technology.

While older generations may prefer a simpler shopping experience, younger retail customers – the ones who are gaining increasing amounts of spending power and are going to be the customers of the next few decades – are attracted to more unique brands and experiences.

While you absolutely want your shopping experience to be a streamlined and friction free process, introducing periphery activities using virtual reality, augmented reality, social media engagement, and more will give your brand a better chance of standing out in the swirling melee of the contemporary ecommerce space.

Sustainability and Green Credentials

Staying on the topic of younger generations for a moment, this cohort of shoppers are increasingly aware of the harm human being have wrought to the planet in the pursuit of technological, industrial, and commercial advancement and are turning in great numbers to brands they feel are doing their bit to make the world a better place.

There is even evidence that customers are willing to pay more for a product, if it is produced and sold by companies which place sustainability high on their core mission statement. Small to medium sized businesses clearly have the greatest opportunity to benefit from this trend as it is often far easier for them to be transparent about their products and supply chains than larger and more nebulous organizations.

Humanize

On the subject of large nebulous brands, there is a greater need than ever for companies to present a human face to try and build more genuine connections with their audience.

This can be seen in the trend for many of the big brands on Twitter – such as McDonalds and Wendy’s – posting and even interacting with one another in a cheeky and humorous manner. Anthropomorphizing massive brands may not be to everyone’s tastes, but there’s no denying the posts gain a significant amount of traction, not just on the social media platforms on which they’re initially posted, but in the wider media as well.

Take care not to push things too far however, lest you be caught in a scandal such as the one some accounts found themselves in when bots programmed to respond personally to mentions on Twitter ended up sharing usernames containing racial slurs.

Plan

The most important step your brand can take to achieve growth in an arena of increased competition is to create a robust and realistic strategy to do so.

Those companies which craft and follow a plan tend to grow around 30% faster than those simply reacting to things as they happen with no well thought out strategy. Growth plans should be specific and clear about where, when, and how your organization will expand, and include every avenue through which that growth shall be achieved, such as new customer acquisition, locations, products, experiences, channels, and services.

They should clearly and realistically lay out the amount of growth expected and how that growth will impact market share.

Final Thoughts

It may feel that as competition increases, market share and growth must inevitably diminish and slow respectively. However, with the right attitude and a solid strategy, this does not need to be the case and your ecommerce brand can continue to rise to the challenge.

"In a market with hundreds (maybe thousands) of competitors, it becomes more challenging for businesses to make a mark that'll impact the core audience they’re aiming for," said the Young Entrepreneur Council. "This is why it’s so important for a business to develop a strategy that will give them an edge over the rest. Saturated markets can still be profitable, but only if the company makes its value proposition known to the target audience in such a striking way that it deeply resonates with them."

Maintaining ecommerce growth amid increased competition is set to be a hot topic at eTail Boston 2022, taking place in August at The Sheraton, Boston.

Download the agenda today for more information and insights.