Scaling your eCommerce business

You’ve launched your online store. Sales are steady, and you’re building a solid base of loyal customers. But you can’t rest on your laurels. If you want to stay competitive and achieve long-term success, it’s time to scale your ecommerce business. 

Scaling your ecommerce business is a critical step toward achieving long-term success and profitability. It sets you up for growth and helps you adapt to market changes and new competitors. 

But scaling ecommerce doesn’t happen by itself — it requires a solid forward-thinking strategy. In this article, we’ll delve into how to scale your ecommerce business and lay the foundation for success.

Understanding scaling in ecommerce

For any ecommerce business, scaling should be your ultimate goal. So, what do we mean when we talk about scaling ecommerce? 

Scaling in ecommerce means expanding an online retail business to manage higher demand and sales. But knowing how to scale an ecommerce business means understanding the difference between growing and scaling. 

Growing a business means adding customers and employees while costs also rise. Your business grows in size but not necessarily in revenue. 

On the other hand, when you scale your ecommerce business, you add resources at a slower rate than the growth of your customer base. So, your margins increase slowly over time, and you can still manage the increase in demand.

To scale ecommerce effectively, you often need to invest in infrastructure, operations, resources and technology to manage increased sales and demand and keep your customers happy. 

It also means working out how to get more from your existing resources. How can your website work harder to win over customers? How can you automate processes to gain efficiencies in order management? With the right strategies, you can scale sustainably and boost your revenue.

Advantages of scaling up

Why should you scale your ecommerce business and not just stay with the status quo? The simple answer — scaling up ensures your business survives and thrives.

Here are some of the many advantages of scaling up:

• Attract new customers and retain existing ones:

Along with the obvious benefits of more revenue, a larger customer base helps you benefit from more positive word of mouth and customer reviews, which helps your brand grow.

• Stay competitive:

New competitors are constantly entering the ecommerce space. Scaling your business means you’re in a stronger position to take them on.

• Be ready for change:

The ecommerce world can shift in a moment. Scaling your business ensures you have the infrastructure to adapt to change, whether to market shifts or a global pandemic.

How to scale an eCommerce business

Step 1: Assess your current business

How do you know it’s time to scale your ecommerce business? Before deciding to scale, you need to clearly understand where your business is now:

• What does its current performance look like? 

• What are the strengths, weaknesses, opportunities, and threats? 

• Does your demand exceed your supply?

Use tools like SWOT analysis, sales data, and market research to evaluate your competitive advantage, product-market fit, and growth potential. 

Next, identify any gaps or bottlenecks in your processes:

• Are there hurdles in your operations, sales, marketing, customer service, or other areas that could hinder your scaling efforts? 

• Will your technology, infrastructure and website meet your current and future needs, or will you invest more?

If you have more orders than you can fulfil, it’s a good sign that you need to scale. If you scale your ecommerce business now, you can avoid losing customers and revenue and damaging your reputation.

Another sign you need to scale your ecommerce business is when new market opportunities open. For example, you may have an exciting opportunity to expand into new markets or niches.

If you don’t scale now, you risk missing out on growth potential, leaving the door open for one of your competitors to take the opportunity instead. 

Step 2: Set your scaling goals

Once you have an honest picture of your current situation, you’re ready to set goals for your scaling process. 

What are the key outcomes you want to achieve? And how will you measure your progress and success? For example, you might want to see steady monthly growth of 5 per cent. 

Ensure your goals are specific, measurable, achievable, relevant, and time-bound (SMART). Setting realistic goals will ensure you prioritise sustainable growth rather than rapid overexpansion.

Step 3: Develop a sustainable scaling strategy

Now you’re ready to develop your ecommerce scaling strategy. Here are some ways you can strategically scale your ecommerce business:

Go international

One way to scale your business is to go international. Expanding internationally allows you to tap into new markets and reach a much more extensive and diverse customer base.

Operating in multiple countries also reduces your dependence on a single market, which makes your business more resilient to market challenges in a specific region. For example, if customer demand for your product drops in Australia, you can still rely on demand in the Asia-Pacific market.

The first question you must ask yourself is whether you have the technology, infrastructure, and resources to serve a global market. Can your existing resources handle international expansion?

According to Statista, the biggest challenges that business owners face in global ecommerce are navigating customers (44.5%), cross-border logistics (37%), cross-border returns (33.5%) and managing delivery expectations (34.5%).

Partnering with a 3PL company like eStore can help you navigate these logistical challenges easily and efficiently to streamline your global logistics.

Expanding your ecommerce business globally also requires a deep understanding of the markets you wish to target. Do extensive market research to identify opportunities and potential challenges and understand customer needs.

You’ll also need to adapt your online store to cater to the new market. This involves more than just translating your website into a different language — it requires localising your online store to a diverse target audience’s needs and cultural preferences.

Optimise your website

Is your website set up for growth? Or is it holding back your ecommerce business? Your website is the foundation of your whole online business—it’s your virtual storefront. Its performance can make or break your sales and revenue, so website optimisation is essential in your scaling journey. 

Scaling an ecommerce website means ensuring it can handle increased traffic, accommodate more products, and deliver an exceptional user experience. With 70% of customers abandoning purchases because of a bad user experience, optimising your UX can make all the difference to your business scalability. Investing in your UX also helps with your search engine optimisation, as Google rewards websites that provide a good page experience.

Start by focusing on these UX elements:

• Page loading times:

Does your website load quickly and consistently across devices? Nearly 70% of users say an online retailer’s site speed impacts whether they will buy from that retailer. And 40% of online users will abandon a website that takes longer than three seconds to load.

• Navigation:

Are menus organised with customers in mind? Visitors who come to your site should be able to figure out quickly where to go.

• Accessibility:

Does the online store meet the latest accessibility standards? For example, do all images have alt tags? Is there a strong colour contrast? Use this list of accessibility checks from Semrush.

• Mobile responsiveness:

Does the website function beautifully on mobile devices?

Supercharge your marketing

Companies with a long-term view of targeting and sustainable business growth spend at least 10% of their annual revenue on marketing. This might seem like a lot, but there’s a good reason — marketing is a revenue driver. 

Creating brand awareness, attracting customers, and driving sales are what makes your business scale, and that’s what marketing sets out to do. So, where should you spend your marketing dollars to scale your ecommerce business efficiently?

Here are the top channels to invest in:

• Targeted online advertising:

Strategically investing in paid advertising can be a rocket booster for brand awareness. You can reach qualified audiences, boost awareness, and see your sales soar with targeted campaigns. Retargeting ads are a great place to start, as they reach customers who have already shown interest in your ecommerce brand, reminding them of your offerings and encouraging them to purchase.

• Search engine optimisation:

More than half (51%) of shoppers use Google to research a purchase they will make online. So, if you want to scale your online business, you need to get in front of these ready-to-buy shoppers when they are looking for your products. That’s the goal of SEO: to ensure your website is shown on the top of search engine results when people are looking for what you are selling.

As part of your SEO, do keyword research to find out what people are searching for. Then, invest in content marketing and on-page optimisation (such as headings and product descriptions) to target those keywords and help your online business soar to the top of the results.

• Content marketing:

Your content defines a large percentage of your success in winning over customers. Adding a blog to your website can increase your chances of ranking in Google results by as much as 434%.

High-quality content optimises your website for organic search engine traffic while guiding visitors through their customer journey. Focus on creating blogs and videos that resonate with your customers’ pain points and goals. Try the free tool Answer the Public, which helps you discover the questions your potential customers are asking.

• Email:

Email is one of the most cost-efficient channels for marketing, especially retention marketing. Use segmented campaigns and automation to deliver relevant messaging to customers depending on where they are in the customer journey. This could include special offers, birthday messages, abandoned cart emails, etc.

• Social media:

A strong social presence is one of the secrets to scaling your ecommerce brand. This creates trust and brand awareness and is also a great way to reach your ideal customers where they spend the most time online.

Consider setting up social ecommerce – shopping within a network is easier than ever on Instagram, Facebook and TikTok with features to make product discoverability and shopping a seamless experience for your customers. Also, look at partnering with influencers who can amplify your message to targeted audiences.

The great thing about ecommerce marketing is that it’s highly scalable. Measure everything and analyse the data to see progress and identify where you can invest more for better results.

Optimise your infrastructure

Your infrastructure holds the key to scaling your ecommerce business. To meet demand and fuel sustainable growth, you must invest in a robust back-end infrastructure to ensure seamless order processing, delivery, and customer support. 

Should you outsource fulfillment to a 3PL partner or invest in your in-house operations?

Outsourcing to specialists like eStore can enhance service quality, leading to customer satisfaction and business growth. Outsourcing warehousing minimises capital expenses, ensures operational efficiency, and provides business flexibility when adapting to changes. 

Third-party logistics providers offer invaluable expertise and infrastructure, allowing businesses to focus on core functions like product development and marketing. 

However, it may mean sacrificing some control and flexibility. Maintaining in-house operations offers more control but requires significant technology, systems, and staff investments. And even though you retain flexibility, if your processes are too dynamic, it can hinder scalability and efficiency.

When scaling your ecommerce business, one of the significant benefits of outsourcing is that you have access to best-practice processes and technology.

For example eStore uses a warehouse management system (WMS) and proprietary optimisation algorithms for inventory and fulfillment. These systems automate decision-making, optimise packaging and carrier selection, and dynamically allocate orders to maximise efficiency. This approach minimises manual intervention, enhances accuracy, and adapts to varying order profiles, ensuring seamless operations during rapid scaling.

Automate processes

One of the main challenges of scaling is maintaining efficiency and customer satisfaction while increasing volume and complexity. To overcome this challenge, look at automating and streamlining your processes as much as possible, from marketing to order processing. Strategic automation can help you free up time and resources for critical tasks like creating marketing campaigns. 

Where should you start? Automating the following processes can make the biggest impact when you’re scaling your business:

• Order processing and fulfillment:

Automating the fulfillment process speeds up the picking and packing process by removing manual work and automating warehousing tasks. For example, eStore’s fully automated retrieval process uses algorithms and a state-of-the-art robot army to ensure instant order scheduling and speedy stock picking and packing. 

• Email marketing:

Send abandoned cart emails, birthday/anniversary messages, and relevant content based on customers’ purchases and preferences. 

• Customer service responses:

Chatbots and automated email responses immediately assist with your customers’ most common queries, freeing your customer service team to handle more complex issues and ensuring a great customer experience.

• Inventory management:

Use software to automate inventory tracking, reduce manual inventory monitoring, and speed up reordering.

Stay on top of future trends and innovations 

With technology advancements, changing consumer preferences, and increased competition, the success of online businesses relies on their ability to innovate and adapt. That’s why staying ahead of market trends and emerging technologies is fundamental to scaling your ecommerce business. 

Conduct market research to identify emerging customer demands, industry innovations, and competitive landscapes. This knowledge will allow you to identify opportunities for expansion, diversification, or modification of your offerings. By proactively adapting to market trends, you can stay ahead of the competition and cater to evolving customer needs. 

One of the easiest and most cost-effective ways to do this is through social media. Social media is one of the most powerful tools for identifying trends and monitoring what customers are discussing in your niche.

Ecommerce business owners and marketers need to use social media to track customer sentiment, identify emerging influencers and trends, and keep an eye on competitors. Tools like Hootsuite and BuzzSumo can help with trendspotting on social media.

You can also stay up-to-date on industry trends by attending industry events, such as eTail Australia, Retail Fest, and Online Retailer, which offer excellent opportunities to connect with your industry peers.

Summary

In a rapidly evolving market, scaling an ecommerce business may seem daunting, but you can accomplish it with the right strategies. Learning how to scale an ecommerce business can put you ahead of the competition and position your business for sustainable growth in the ever-changing online retail landscape. 

Your logistics processes should make it easier to scale, not be a hurdle for growth. With eStore as their partner, businesses regularly experience over 200% business growth due to faster, more accurate fulfillment.

Whether you’re shipping 1,000 or 500,000 units per month, our customised solutions, world-class robots, and rigorous warehousing management systems ensure fast, accurate, and cost-effective order fulfillment that turns every shopper into a loyal customer. 

Ready to scale? Talk to our team today.