In order to achieve success in your eCommerce business, it is vital to learn how to best establish a good foundation for your growth strategy, first and foremost. Afterward, it would be much easier for you to offer constant support to, and even maximize, your future progress.
With consumers shifting to digital channels, companies have been experiencing exponential growth and have been witnessing major shifts in their business landscape. Mainly because of the digital and eCommerce boost that the pandemic has installed in the online industry. But eCommerce businesses need to take this industry boost with a grain of salt and learn how to handle this escalation in a smart, forward-thinking way.
To help merchants stay on top of these industry changes, 2Checkout (now Verifone) hosted the fifth CommerceNow online event earlier this year, bringing together some of the greatest minds in eCommerce, digital marketing, fraud prevention, conversion rate optimization, customer retention, global payments, and more, to share their knowledge and expertise.
In this article, we’ll share some key takeaways from two of the CommerceNow ’21 presentations. To watch each of the full recorded webcasts, register for free here.
Two of our industry experts talked about the best ways to scale your online business through experimentation and data-driven pricing. Their main takeaways:
- Fostering experimentation not only answers questions, but can lead to powerful innovation
- Data-driven pricing is a powerful tool, and companies just need to learn how to use it
Siddhartha Kathpalia, Senior Product Manager at VWO, shared his thoughts on experimentation in his presentation “What Does it Take to Build an Experimentation Culture?”
“Sophisticated technology can fast-track experimentation, and it’s available to everyone,” Siddhartha began. “You can use experimentation to achieve your business goals.”
Siddhartha addressed the four main questions every business should ask:
- Why experiment?
- What should we experiment with?
- How should we experiment?
- Who on our team is our experimenter?
Why Experiment?
Experimenting, especially with A/B testing, can give you the confidence to make needed changes, and helps you know more about your audience, Siddhartha emphasized.
Even failed experiments—those which reveal that your current approach just isn’t working as well as you’d hoped—will provide valuable information about your customers. Ultimately, he added, when you’re in the mindset of asking questions, you’re more inclined to innovate.
What Should We Experiment With?
“Everything!” Siddhartha said. “It is endless!” The difficulty, he points out, is in prioritizing.
Companies need to come up with ideas and then think of the corresponding metrics those novel ideas will impact. Naturally, the metrics with the highest impact will be those that should be experimented with. After you’ve settled on your metrics, look at and text macro and micro conversions.
How Should We Experiment?
Select tools and the right methodology that can help with experimentation, whether they are free or paid, depending on your budget and priorities.
A/B testing is mandatory, Siddhartha emphasized, and he provides some variations to test. Once an experiment has been started, he adds, stick with your original hypothesis from start to finish, as it will take a while for your experiment to stabilize.
Frequency of test-running varies, Siddhartha continued. Experimentation requires being very involved with the project, “spending time to observe visitor behavior, get visitor insights, collect data—all of this will make your experiments stronger because they will be backed by data.”
Don’t abandon experiments, even if they seem to be failing. See them through, was Siddhartha’s message, and you’ll gain the greatest insights.
Who on Our Team is Our Experimenter?
Sometimes it’s an individual on the team, Siddhartha explained, with an idea that comes from the top of the company (which means it’s more likely to be supported over time, even if initial experimentation fails).
Knowing the mindset of your organization and how open team members are to sharing their opinions is important for the experimenter, he continues, because it will help them find the best way to get buy-in by presenting evidence that the experimentation will advance the organizational goals.
“Fortunately, right now we are in a time where experimentation and A/B testing are things people believe in,” Siddhartha closes. “The likelihood of starting an experimentation culture is stronger because of that.”
Learn more about driving more sales with A/B testing and experimentation by watching Siddhartha’s full session here.
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Burc Tanir, CEO and Co-Founder of Prisync, talked about “How Data-Driven Pricing Can Level Up Your eCommerce Game.”
“Regardless of your industry,” Burc emphasized, “We should all be more data driven, in general,” as he was starting his pricing focused session. “Data-driven pricing is a powerful tool, you just have to learn how to use it.”
Why is it so important to rely on data? Burc shared the following:
- It’s a crowded and transparent market, with competition on price and thin margins overall
- People can very easily compare prices
- Your competitors are watching what you’re doing.
Burc introduced his four-step plan to overcome these challenges and use data to build a pricing system provisioned for success:
1. Understand the competition and market dynamics to help guide how you react. Don’t just resort to discounts without really knowing what is going on in the market.
- Employ automated monitoring capability—this is vital in the ultra-competitive eCommerce environment
- Ensure price positioning is in line with brand positioning
- Build a perception of a unique selling proposition—best price, fastest delivery, widest assortment, etc.
2. Remember to focus on your products’ purpose and unique niche; not all your products have the same characteristics.
- Sell popular products at competitive prices
- Keep regulars on board with personalized discounts on repeat purchases
- Cross-sell accessories and inexpensive products effectively.
3. Pick your battles wisely.
- Drop unprofitable products
- Leverage pricing intelligence when negotiating with suppliers
- Add alternatives to your assortment.
4. Keep price testing!
- Test different price points, and find the sticky prices that hurt your profitability
- Increase profit margins when other stores are out of stock
- Test price increases at the right time
Burc walked us through some examples of merchants Prisync works with, showcasing how they use data to boost their efficiency, and the positive results they saw in terms of efficiency, sales growth, monthly revenue increases, etc.
Burc closed his presentation by pointing out that building a data-driven pricing system benefits from using a pricing software platform, as automation is effective, affordable, and ultimately far more efficient than trying to build on your own.
Find out more about leveling up your eCommerce game with data-driven pricing by watching Burc’s full session here.
To learn more about the trends, insights, and tips and tricks that some of the greatest minds in eCommerce, digital marketing, CRO, and customer experience shared at CommerceNow 2021, sign up here to access all the sessions.
