Case Study: An E-Commerce Success Story
July 5, 2023
This last year was a tough one for small business owners in many different industries. Social distancing and economic uncertainty have made regular business operations difficult to impossible.
However, like with everything in life, the damage caused by the pandemic and economic recession hasn’t hit all businesses equally. In fact, some industries, like e-commerce, have thrived.
Some stats you should know:
- 62% of US consumers say they shop online now more than they did before the pandemic
- 36% of consumers say they shop online on a weekly basis
- Despite consumer spending being down overall, retail e-commerce sales grew 27.6% in 2020
- E-commerce sales are projected to grow to more than $5 trillion by this year
- 75% of consumers have tried a new shopping behavior since the pandemic began
It’s never been a better time to get into the e-commerce game, but not every online store has experienced the same kind of success. You can’t just build an e-commerce website and hope for success.
Similar to any other industry, e-commerce businesses need to stay nimble with both their product offerings and marketing strategies and budgets.
Driving sales by staying nimble
In a time when consumers are spending less money on non-essential products, one online retailer, with the help of their Marketing Success Manager, has managed to grow their sales from around $280,000 in 2019 to more than $1,000,000 in 2020!
2019:
2020:
How did they do it?
The first thing this online retailer did right was being open to change when it comes to their inventory by constantly making updates and paying close to attention to the items their customers were looking for.
For this retailer, one of the best performing products was puzzles. By purchasing all of the puzzle inventory they could and building out specific audiences to target on social media around puzzles, they were able to capitalize on new-found puzzle popularity when stay-at-home orders were in place.
In addition to doubling down on popular products, this retailer worked to provide their customers with a better online shopping experience by focusing on mobile responsiveness for their product pages and building trust by adding trust badges to their popular products.
Another thing this online retailer did right was to increase their advertising budget for Google Shopping and social media retargeting campaigns. This was especially impactful since so many other small businesses have pulled back their advertising budget.
Conclusion
Things change, and life happens. Staying nimble and changing it up will not only help you meet the moment and drive success, but it will also help you better serve your customers and meet their needs.
There’s a famous quote by a man named Charles R. Swindoll that says,
“Life is 10% what happens to you and 90% how you react to it.”
This success story is a prime example of why it’s just as true about small business marketing as it is about life in general.
This e-commerce business could have never predicted a pandemic, but they were able to meet the changing needs of their customers, who suddenly found themselves at home a lot more often, by shifting their focus.
They also didn’t back down. They took advantage of the fact that their customers were spending more time online and the less competitive advertising space to increase their budget and drive results.
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Account M14548
Data pulled 1/6/21 from Shopify
*Results are based on past client performance. Individual account performance may vary. Results are not guaranteed.
Originally published on 2/5/21
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