Ecommerce can be a gold mine–if done right.
Currently, the global ecommerce market is valued at around $6 trillion, and is projected to reach $7 billion or higher by 2027. Numbers like these show that there is uncapped growth potential in the ecommerce industry. Achieving sustainable growth is a key objective for ecommerce businesses, requiring a focus on long-term strategies that ensure consistent revenue and market presence. But that potential needs to be strategically tapped into: it won’t come automatically by simply operating an online store in the fast-paced e commerce world.
Lucky for you, the strategy behind ecommerce success is simple. Ecommerce marketing is a core component of building a successful approach. In this post, we’ll teach you how to develop an e commerce growth strategy for your shop. Ecommerce brands of all sizes can benefit from these tactics. Let’s take your business to the top!
Understanding the eCommerce Market
First things first: before developing an ecommerce strategy, it’s important to understand the market itself and your place in it. In such a booming market, there are common trends you should be aware of so you can stay ahead. Ecommerce has evolved over time, and the most successful online retailers are utilizing the latest technology to keep up with buyer needs. The way consumers shop has changed dramatically, with a significant shift from brick and mortar stores to shopping online, and the adoption of new methods like voice commerce.
- Omnichannel Capabilities: shops are using omnichannel ecommerce capabilities to create a consistent shopping experience across channels. Online stores now complement physical stores, allowing businesses to reach customers wherever they prefer to shop.
- Voice Commerce: with the rise of more refined voice assistants, like Amazon Alexa, Siri, and Google Assistant, shops need to be sure purchases can be completed via voice, reflecting how consumers shop in the digital age.
- AI & Automation: AI is getting smarter, and top ecommerce shops are using AI to personalize shopping experiences, automate their inventory, and power virtual chatbots.
- Social Commerce: ecommerce doesn’t just take place on websites anymore. Many shops are utilizing shopping features on social media apps such as TikTok Shop and Instagram Shopping to allow customers to purchase wherever they’re at in the digital world. Social media channels are now essential sales channels for reaching and engaging customers.
- Augmented Reality: similar to going into the store and trying on a clothing item, augmented reality capabilities allow customers to “try before they buy.”
- Dynamic International Pricing: the internet is accessible from anywhere. Top sellers make sure their pricing adjusts according to the customer’s location and market.
As technology evolves, customer priorities are changing as well. Today’s ecommerce customers value privacy and company values more than ever before. Online sellers should prioritize communicating that their customer data is protected, and should clearly define the business’s values to help build trust with users in a world of scam websites. E commerce businesses must stay ahead of these trends to remain competitive, as the e commerce landscape continues to rapidly evolve.
Why Develop an eCommerce Growth Strategy?
So why is developing a strategy so important? Can’t you just open your online shop and market the shop, assuming customers will complete purchases? Growth strategies and ecommerce growth strategies are essential for long-term success, providing a roadmap to sustainable expansion and profitability.
Trying to operate without an ecommerce growth strategy is like opening a brick-and-mortar store in a remote alley with no business structure and no signage. For an e commerce business, thriving requires effective e commerce strategies that adapt to changing trends and customer expectations. You will not sell anything unless someone stumbles in by random and just happens to be ready to purchase right away. Chances are slim.
A strong ecommerce growth strategy covers everything from customer acquisition to post-purchase care, turning intentional buyers into loyal, returning customers. Implementing a customer loyalty program can further encourage repeat purchases and foster brand loyalty among loyal customers. And that is what builds a business. When you develop a comprehensive ecommerce growth strategy, you will have:
- More efficient and intentional customer acquisition,
- Higher ROI from marketing investments,
- Reduced operational costs due to automations and smart online tools,
- Revenue growth through increased customer retention and higher customer lifetime value,
- The ability to proactively adjust to market changes.
Strategy should be the blueprint behind every ecommerce website development. There should be a reason for everything you have on your site, from design and functionality purposes to backend logistics. A significant investment in strategy and customer experience is necessary to balance customer acquisition costs with retention and maximize long-term profitability.
And developing a strategy once won’t be enough. A good strategy will continue to evolve with business changes to maximize its earning potential by driving repeat purchases, nurturing loyal customers, and building brand loyalty. Marketing efforts should also focus on increasing brand awareness and attracting potential customers and new customers to grow your customer lifetime and overall business value.
Build a Solid Technical Foundation: Optimize for Site Speed and Mobile Traffic
When building a store, whether online or as a physical building, you have to lay a solid foundation. For ecommerce specifically, this foundation lies in your website development. Here at Big Red Jelly, we build our ecommerce sites using Shopify and WooCommerce. When building sites, our team begins with a focus on making sure the sites can function technically the best they can.
Site speed is essential for acquiring customer conversions, and it also plays a huge part in gaining traction with Search Engine Optimization (SEO). When it comes to site speed, every millisecond matters. Features like live chat on your ecommerce site can also significantly boost user engagement by providing real-time support and upselling opportunities.
You can test your site’s speed using tools like Google PageSpeed Insights and GTmetrix. If your site speed is slow, take a second look at your website development. Here are some tips to improve your site speed:
- Use lightweight design themes. Themes like Dawn on Shopify or Astra on WooCommerce will minimize the number of assets that need to load on your site, making the site speed faster as a whole while using the same assets.
- Compress your images. You wouldn’t believe how much slower big image sizes can make your website. Shopify and WooCommerce have built-in tools and plugins you can use to compress your image sizes.
- Use caching plugins. These plugins store static versions of your web pages so the page doesn’t have to generate from scratch every single time. This is especially crucial if you offer a wide selection of products. WooCommerce offers plugins like WP Rocket that are easy to use and install.
When optimizing your website, pay special attention to your product pages and product descriptions. Well-optimized product pages improve user experience and conversion rates, while product descriptions tailored for both SEO and voice commerce can help capture voice search traffic and meet the needs of voice-activated device users.
Another thing to keep in mind with ecommerce website development is that over 70% of ecommerce traffic today is on mobile devices. Optimizing your shop for the mobile experience isn’t just an optional luxury–it’s crucial to your shop’s success.
When refining your checkout process, offering multiple payment methods is essential to reduce friction and improve conversion rates. Additionally, monitoring key performance indicators like average order value and average order can help you identify opportunities to increase revenue and profitability through upselling, promotions, and a seamless checkout experience.
Use Simple Navigation to Create a Seamless User Experience
Once you have the technical aspects of your website development sorted out, you need to think about your customer. Optimize the user experience and navigation from the get-go to enhance the overall customer experience and ensure you are meeting customer expectations through intuitive navigation. Make it as easy as possible for customers to learn about and purchase your products.
Website menus should be intuitive and simple. Utilize breadcrumb trails by showing customers their location within your website’s hierarchy. Customers should be able to jump back into a previous category or discover new products with as few clicks as possible.
Make calls-to-action (CTAs) clear. Use contrasting colors to make buttons stand out, and reduce visual clutter around the CTA buttons and make them visible without scrolling to improve visibility. Secondary CTAs, such as “save to wishlist” should be placed lower on the page. CTAs shouldn’t be vague (like “click here” or “submit”). Use strong verbs to help customers make the next step in their purchasing journey. Here are some examples of great CTAs you can use on your site:
- “Add to Cart”
- “Buy Now”
- “Get 20% Off”
- “Continue to Checkout”
Trust signals like reviews and testimonials are essential for building credibility. Incorporating social proof and user generated content, such as customer reviews, photos, and videos, can significantly increase trust and conversions. Additionally, influencer marketing and influencer partnerships can further enhance trust and authenticity by leveraging the reach and credibility of trusted voices in your niche.
Once your website is up and running, you can install heatmap plugins to analyze user behavior and identify where users are abandoning your ecommerce store. This data can help you optimize your website layout, more clearly define your customer journey, rework menus, and more. On Shopify, you can use heat map apps like Lucky Orange or Plerdy, and on WooCommerce, you can install plugins like Hotjar and Microsoft Clarity.
If you’re having a hard time defining the customer journey to improve user experience (UX) on your website, take a step into your customer’s shoes. Pretend you’re looking on your site to buy a specific product, and try working through your site navigation. Maybe even have someone you know test it out and see if the navigation makes sense! Encapsulate the full customer journey: it’s important to be sure customers can move from new product discovery all the way to purchase confirmation with ease.
Good UX not only reduces bounce rates but also leads to higher customer satisfaction and stronger customer relationships. Ongoing engagement can be supported by using email marketing, personalized email campaigns, and automated email marketing campaigns to retain customers and encourage repeat purchases. Additionally, integrating social media marketing and paid advertising into your broader marketing strategy can drive engagement, boost conversions, and support your ecommerce growth.
Improving UX in your ecommerce website development will help reduce bounce rates from your site, and will also assist in boosting your SEO rankings online.
Optimize the Shopping Cart for Maximum Conversion Rates and Average Order Value
Users can now successfully navigate your shop to find what they want. Now what? Find them where they’re purchasing: work on streamlining your checkout processes. This is called Conversion Rate Optimization (CRO). The goal here is to make it as easy as possible for customers to complete a purchase and maximize sales. Any tiny bit of friction can cause a customer to abandon your website at any given point in time. Don’t lose them in the shopping cart!
There are plenty of tools available on Shopify and WooCommerce to help develop a simple checkout process. Shopify offers tools like Shop Pay that saves customer information across Shopify-based sites so the customer doesn’t even have to input any information. You can also use Shopify’s default one-page checkout and enable customers to complete the purchase in just a few clicks. On WooCommerce, be sure to focus on limiting the number of fields required in the checkout process and enable guest checkout to reduce this same type of checkout friction.
Our Build team actually created a list of Shopify apps that can be helpful when putting together your ecommerce store. Check it out here.
To minimize the number of customers who abandon their shopping carts, include FOMO triggers (limited-time offers, low stock alerts, live sales, etc.) and free gift. This increases customer engagement and satisfaction, and improves your conversion rate.
Trust signals are also crucial for shopping cart success. Make sure there are visible customer reviews in the shopping cart, and list out any return policies, guarantees, and secure checkout icons. Help customers feel safe purchasing from you.
Consider implementing live chat and support features that utilize AI chatbots to handle routine questions, allowing your customer service agents to focus on more complex issues. This technology can complement your team and enhance the overall customer experience.
Ecommerce success in 2025 is desperately contingent on having a well-rounded, proactive ecommerce growth strategy. When you prioritize technical site optimizations, user experience improvements, and work to maximize shopping cart conversions during website development, you’ll be all set for continued marketing efforts. Onward and upward from here!
Need help developing an ecommerce growth strategy for your online business? As a business owner, you can benefit from implementing these strategies to drive growth and stay competitive. Our team of experts is ready to help. Book a call today:
