We decided to quit the guessing and ask the eCommerce webmasters themselves.
We asked eCommerce store owners and marketers what keeps them up at night, and if they were sleeping easy how did they do it?
Two things most keep me up at night vis a vis growing our brand online. First & foremost, the challenge of growing a better brand in a digital marketplace driven by discounts. Second – & probably more of the opportunity to seize but the challenge to harness – is leveraging the potential of age/stage relevant personalized experiences on giggle.com. Particularly for expectant to new parents that move through very different stages of purchasing needs as their child changes, online represents such a power full opportunity to provide information, products & services relevant to visitors specific needs.
Before giggle, Ali worked for companies ranging from Fortune 500 NIKE to multi-channel Bay Area start-up Gazoontite, the first-ever retailer of branded environmental control products for allergies and asthma, and later as brand strategist for Gruner + Jahr Publishing (Child and Parents magazines). Her education includes an MBA from Northwestern University’s J.L. Kellogg Graduate School of Management and a JD from the Northwestern School of Law
There is not one thing that keeps me up at night, but many, like all entrepreneurs.
eCommerce is evolving and right now content is at the heart of it. We have recently launched the ActivewearUSA Magazine which you can see here: http://mag.activewearusa.com
My biggest concerns are:
Avi Woolman, is a wife, mom, fitness enthusiast, entrepreneur and the founder of ActivewearUSA.
Red Hill Corp . was founded in 1978 and has been selling abrasives to the wood , metal, marine, auto, and floor industries for 36 years.
By specializing in depth in one trade, and by owning a vast inventory of just abrasives, we are able to offer a huge selection of both easy and hard to find sanding and polishing products, with mostly same day shipment, and economical pricing.
The “big box” stores carry just a few competing products at a higher price. They service the homeowner who wants to buy two sanding belts or five sheets of sandpaper. Red Hill Corp, doing business as “Supergrit” Abrasives, services the larger do-it-yourself buyers and the small to medium sized businesses. We ship nationwide, reaching areas which do not have locally available abrasive products.
We do have competition from other eCommerce companies in similar areas of business, but we try our best to offer a better product, at a very good price, with incredible shipping and service.
This formula has blessed us with over 60,000 customers, who mostly come back to order our consumable products again and again. Our eCommerce sales began about 20 years ago, comprising about 5% of total sales.
Today eCommerce sales through our website: www.supergrit.com, comprise about 45% of sales. The balance of sales are new and regular corporate and individual accounts which call or fax in orders responding to our catalog or website. We also sell retail at our store/warehouse located about 2 1/2 miles North of Historic Gettysburg, PA.
What keeps us up at night? By the end of the day, we have all worked so hard getting out orders, that very little will wake us.
I always end up worrying that I have every last T is slashed and I’s are dotted before I launch a Facebook contest; there’s so much code to worry about, and of course every single photo or graphic has to be PERFECT, otherwise the promotion will flop and you’ve wasted time and money. Mistakes can and do happen, but that first impression is so important in making sure that customers engage with you at the level you’re hoping for. Pre-launch testing is absolutely a must, but still there are things that get missed in the rush to launch- I stay up wondering what I’ve missed!
Ashley McNamara is the CEO of PurePearls.com, an e-commerce pearl jewelry company. You can contact her at Ashley@purepearls.com or through her blog http://www.purepearls.com/blog.
