Over a period of 10 years E-commerce has penetrated the American retail market by 16%. Keep in mind this 16% penetration came with the booming growth of Amazon, Shopify, Google, Facebook, and all of the other top-level technology companies that are players in the E-commerce game.
Over a course of 8 weeks in March and April 2020 during the current peak of the COVID-19 Pandemic, E-commerce penetrated the market by 11% - WOW.
While this growth will slow with brick and mortar retail reopening - it is obvious that people developed new habits, tendencies and expectations for E-commerce shopping - and these are not going anywhere.
With this growth comes the great challenge for direct to consumer E-commerce companies to elevate their sites - this means installing, tweaking, and/or upgrading a FULLY operating e-commerce system.
At Inspiir Media we focus on our Advanced E-commerce Systems™ strategy as a means to analyze the best way to do this. In our opinion a healthy e-commerce system operates much like an engine. If one part of the engine operates with strength (or weakness) disproportionate to the rest of the parts, it will cause other parts to malfunction or stop working. There is a balance to create a smooth, well-operating engine that is firing on all cylinders and producing optimal performance.
Advanced E-commerce Systems™ is a holistic approach to selling online. We analyze all performance factors that create the ultimate e-commerce engine in our minds - Paid Media, SEO, Email and CRO. Many agencies will sell brands a turbocharger to plug into one of these factors without ever checking out the rest of the engine to ensure it can handle it. There is not a miracle e-commerce channel or strategy that can make up for weaknesses in the other factors!
COVID-19 affected many e-commerce companies differently. It caused some to finally enter the game, some to recognize the immense opportunity of e-commerce as their website helped keep the lights on, and some to capitalize on the massive opportunity that was presented.
My message here to all companies looking to plan their E-commerce strategy for the rest of 2020 - make sure your engine can handle the performance upgrade first. A tune-up is often more important than a turbocharger. Analyze your system holistically before making large investments into the bells and whistles for your e-commerce engine.