E-commerce resources for brands who’ve plateaued

Growth is the name of the game in the e-commerce industry, but just as true as it is anywhere else, most brands are going to hit a slump. Especially in such a dynamic space, plateauing is perfectly normal and is bound to happen to every brand at some point. That doesn’t mean that plateaus are something you should just sit through, hoping for the best.

Getting back on track to more growth is crucial, but it isn’t always the easiest thing to do. There’s no one-size-fits-all approach to getting out of the slump, and if you ask a handful of e-commerce professionals, you’re bound to get an even bigger handful of suggestions.

We’re here to swear by two vital actions to take: study your data and study the frontier.

Study your data

Everyone preaches data analysis. So this is likely nothing new, but it’s crucial when it comes to problems like these.

Sometimes, plateaus happen because of something you and your team are doing incorrectly. Sometimes, a trend or target audience has simply changed or dissolved altogether before you saw it coming.

Whatever the source of the plateau is, the only way to identify it is to study the data and map it out for yourself. Luckily, there are plenty of great resources to take advantage of for all sorts of data analysis.

• Google Analytics is an all-around industry favorite, with an incredibly easy-to-use interface that gives you insights into the visitors to your site. If there were one tool that every small business needed to have and use, this one would be a lot of experts’ first choice.
• Crazy Egg is another great analytics tool that helps you make sure customers have the best possible experience and ease of use on your site. Their famous heatmaps show you which parts of your website are most visited, and which are largely left ignored. This is an important tool for making sure that every visit is a conversion, and for targeting reasons why conversions might not be happening as smoothly.
• Woopra tackles one big industry scare: shopping cart abandonment. Getting visitors to browse your site is half the battle, but it doesn’t mean much if they’re clicking away before going through with the purchase. This tool provides insights on how and when visitors are clicking away, and how long it’s taking them to do so.

Study the frontier

The other part of avoiding stagnation is making sure you’re keeping up with the times.

Whereas in more traditional commerce settings falling off of the right trends might happen over months or even years, in e-commerce, this can happen practically overnight. It’s crucially important to always stay up to date on what’s happening and what’s to come. The best way to do this? Listen to industry experts!

Amber Engine’s own e-commerce podcast, E-Commerce with Coffee?!, invites you to sip on your favorite morning brew while listening to experts and leaders in the field share the secrets to success in such an ever-changing game. Who knew that avoiding the plateau could taste so good?

Another great way to bolster sales, interactions, and traffic, in general, is with carefully optimized product listings. Optimization isn’t always the easiest task to take on, but Amber Engine’s Amazon Checklist makes it a breeze. If better product listings are what you need in order to break out of the slump, this might be the perfect resource for you.

Whatever your favorite tools might be, and whatever your favorite cutting-edge source of choice is, following these two suggestions is an incredibly important part of staying out of autopilot and picking up where you left off on growth. And again: in this industry, changes happen overnight, so it’s time to get studying!