Strategies for Fast-Tracking Fueling Revenue Growth and Accelerating eCommerce Business Sales

Take your brand in a new direction. Diversifying your revenue streams reduces business risk and positions you to sell more products across a much wider audience.

Start growing your business faster with the five revenue-building strategies contained in this article, including:

• Multiplying sales with drop shippers and affiliate partners
• Converting reluctant shoppers by offering product subscriptions
• Expanding your audience by exploring new digital marketplaces
• Affirming your brand identity with unique shopping experiences
• Earning customer loyalty with ultra-personalized content and offers

Content Summary

Strategy #1 Get more partners—and make it easy
Strategy #2 Offer product subscriptions
Strategy #3 Get on Amazon and other marketplaces
Strategy #4 Deliver unique and delightful experiences
Strategy #5 Serve ultra-personalized offers and content

Start selling smarter and faster by diversifying your revenue sources. Stop waiting for the money to find you. If you’re ready to start selling higher volume to a wider audience, we’ve got five strategies for how you can begin adding new revenue streams to your digital business. Start selling smarter and faster by rethinking your business model:

• Developing partnerships with drop shippers and affiliate partners
• Offering convenient product subscriptions to reluctant shoppers
• Accelerating audience growth by expanding into new online marketplaces
• Defining your brand identity with exclusive shopping experiences
• Serving shoppers ultra-personalized content and special offers

Read on this article and start fast-tracking your revenue growth today.

eCommerce is one of the world’s most dynamic markets.
Barriers to entry are low, but it can be hard to compete with large, established digital players. Adopting advanced eCommerce strategies can help you stand out from crowd, even if your operations are lean. They’re not prohibitively costly to implement, and they reduce risk by diversifying your business.

So what’s the catch? You must be willing to try something—and you must have a commerce platform that’s flexible enough to support multiple business models.

This article looks at 5 ways you can add new revenue streams to your digital business.

Strategy #1 Get more partners—and make it easy

There are more ways than ever to sell your products. And there are more people than ever ready to help you. Drop shippers, retail partners, resellers, and affiliate partners can all multiply your sales efforts. In fact, roughly 23 percent of online sales are delivered to customers through drop shipping. 10 percent are driven by affiliate marketing. If you aren’t working with drop shippers, partners, or affiliates, it may be time to see if those models might work for you.

23% of online sales are delivered to customers through drop shipping. – Kim Souza, “The Supply Side: Drop shipping an ‘interesting option’ for online retailers,” TB&P, September 26, 2017.

10% of online sales are driven by affiliate marketing.

A Little Lovely Company thrives on partnership.
A Little Lovely Company sells affordable—and adorable—decorations for kids’ room. They employ a hybrid business model that includes direct-to-consumer sales as well as an extensive network of retail partners. And it works! In business only since 2014, the company now has products available in more than 4,200 stores.

Strategy #2 Offer product subscriptions

More people than you’d imagine hate to shop. They’re often too busy to compare products or make decisions. You can target this shopping-averse demographic with subscriptions to curated products. 15 percent of online shoppers have signed up for recurring— often monthly—deliveries of one or more products through subscription.

Today, a wide range of products, from shaving supplies to clothing, are available for purchase via subscription. If your product is something that people consume or collect, a subscription model just might be right for you.

15% of online shoppers have signed up for recurring— often monthly—deliveries of one or more products through subscription. – Louis Columbus, “The State of the Subscription Economy, 2018,” Forbes, March 2018.

Coyuchi offers a more sustainable subscription.
UK-based Coyuchi is now taking a novel, appealing, and sustainable approach to selling bed linens. With Coyuchi for Life, customers get new sheets every 6, 12, or 24 months. They then return their old sheets to Coyuchi for renewal, upcycling, or recycling.

Strategy #3 Get on Amazon and other marketplaces

Amazon now represents nearly 50 percent of US online retail sales. In fact, Amazon is so big that it now functions as a search engine. And some retailers are creating “Amazon-lite”-type marketplaces for specific industries. For example, Albertson’s operates an online grocery marketplace that includes a wide variety of food providers. The bottom line? Adding your products to Amazon and other marketplaces is a great way to reach new consumers. If you’re not on Amazon or a similar marketplace, you should be.

Amazon now represents nearly 50% of US online retail sales. – Amazon Now Has Nearly 50% of the US Ecommerce Market,” eMarketer, July 12, 2018.

Hoopologie brings hula hoops to Amazon.
Hoopologie makes all kinds of hula hoops, from beginner hoops to hoops designed to be lit on fire. To light a fire under sales, they began selling hoops on Amazon—and shortly thereafter, Hoopologie’s total revenues grew by around 30 percent.

Strategy #4 Deliver unique and delightful experiences

A fun and original shopping experience can attract new customers and delight existing ones. It can help you stand out from “cookie-cutter” commerce sites and define your brand. For best results, the experience should be unique to your business. It should also be consistent and accessible across channels. Examples include allowing customers to try on clothes in a virtual fitting room—or to order a product by playing a game.

Sugarfina delivers a sweet and delightful experience.
Los Angeles-based Sugarfina, a candy boutique for grownups that offers best-sellers like Champagne Bears and Tequila Grapefruit Sours, gives online customers a virtual shopping experience in one of their 24 brick-and-mortar stores. Shoppers can easily drag and drop candies into a digital box to create a custom order.

Strategy #5 Serve ultra-personalized offers and content

Personalization is a critical part of marketing today. 79 percent of consumers say they are only likely to engage with an offer if it has been personalized, and 44 percent of consumers say that they are likely become repeat buyers after a personalized shopping experience. With artificial intelligence, websites can increase sales by serving up unique offers based on customer behavior. They can also automatically suggest products to add on to each sale. The good news is that AI is now in the mainstream and accessible to merchants of all sizes. You can add extreme personalization to your store without killing your budget.

79% of consumers say they are only likely to engage with an offer if it has been personalized. – Market survey of more than 2,200 consumers worldwide, 2015.

44% of consumers say they are only likely become repeat buyers after a personalized shopping experience. – 2017 State of Personalization Report, Segment.

Beer Hawk hones in on customer tastes.
Beer Hawk is a UK-based craft beer emporium. With more than 1,000 different labels in stock, the online purveyor is on a mission: to match each customer with great-tasting beers. And personalization is their not-so-secret weapon. Customers who visit the site receive personalized offers based on their purchase history and real-time browsing data.

Source: Magento