Enhance Your Ecommerce Store with Website Management Services

From battling endless technical glitches to chasing elusive customers, managing an ecommerce store is fraught with challenges. Whether you’re operating a newly opened store or have been running one for years, you’ve probably already realized the importance of proper ecommerce business management. Give your ecommerce store a massive performance boost with Coalition Technologies.

What Exactly Is Ecommerce Website Management?

‘Ecommerce management’ is a catch-all term covering all the activities of running a successful online store. This is a comprehensive approach to website maintenance and management that includes:

• Marketing and sales optimization
• Technical maintenance
• Customer service
• Order fulfillment
• Inventory management
• Data analysis for continued improvements

Running a successful ecommerce store means that all these operations have to be firing on all cylinders. We’re talking about proactively managing virtually every aspect of your online store, from optimizing the customer journey to fine-tuning page load times. Ecommerce management, in turn, helps you reach that point. 

Product Selection and Inventory

Product selection and inventory management are both integral parts of ecommerce website management, as they directly impact your overall profitability and customer satisfaction. Effective ecommerce business management requires an in-depth understanding of both these elements.

Product selection, for example, isn’t just about pulling names from a hat to decide which products you’re going to sell or focus on. It’s a more strategic process that involves:

• Research: Thorough market research is the foundation of successful ecommerce store management. Ecommerce managers need to identify profitable niches in the market with high demand and relatively low competition—a painstaking process that requires a pinpoint focus on specific customer demographics and underserved markets.
  
• Sourcing: You can’t have a reliable product without a reliable supplier. The right supplier will be able to provide high-quality products at competitive prices, ensuring consistent availability.
  

• Demand Forecasting: Ecommerce website management involves accurately analyzing and predicting customer demand to optimize inventory levels. For managers, this means painstakingly analyzing historical sales data, seasonal trends, competitor behavior, and data-driven market forecasting.

Website Content and Performance

An ecommerce website’s content and performance need to be optimized to retain customers. Optimizing web content is a key part of ecommerce website management, ensuring visitors are engaged with relevant and targeted copy. Performance, on the other hand, ensures potential buyers can move through the various stages of the customer journey as smoothly as possible.

Creating effective content involves carefully crafting:

• Product descriptions that go beyond offering basic information. Descriptions should help create engaging narratives highlighting a product’s unique selling points. Proper ecommerce business management ensures that various elements like high-quality photos, videography, and copy are all synergized to convert visitors.
   
• Blog posts that create genuine value for visitors and position your brand as an authoritative voice in the space. In terms of ecommerce store management, this could involve developing a detailed content calendar with a mix of informative and engaging content targeted to a specific audience.
  
  SEO also plays a role in ecommerce website management. Blog posts should be optimized for specific, relevant keywords. For example, a common strategy followed by smaller businesses is to target less competitive, long-tail keywords.

Successfully managing an ecommerce website while also optimizing it for search engines is a precarious balancing act. For instance, finding the right keywords for a blog post requires meticulous market, competitor, and keyword analysis. We recommend reaching out to a top-rated ecommerce SEO agency for a consultation if you’re inexperienced with SEO strategies.

Optimizing your website’s performance is a more technical process that involves multiple tools. This could include:

• Using Google PageSpeed to analyze your website and identify areas for improvement.
• Optimizing/compressing product images without sacrificing quality using WordPress plugins.
• Using a reliable content delivery network to properly distribute content like high-resolution images, reducing latency, and boosting performance.

Remember, ecommerce website management also involves mobile optimization. Considering a majority of ecommerce traffic now comes from mobile devices, it’s worth working with a trusted web design agency like Coalition Technologies to ensure your store’s up to the task.

Pricing

Pricing is another central element of ecommerce business management. The pricing model you follow, whether cost-plus, competitive, or value-based, directly impacts profitability and sales. Your model should ideally align with your overall business goals and target market. 

Pricing, when it comes to ecommerce management, is all about being dynamic. Ecommerce managers often use dynamic strategies like promotional pricing and discounts during key periods to target customers. These dynamic strategies, where prices are adjusted based on inventory levels and real-time demand, are key to optimizing revenue through ecommerce website management.

Marketing Strategies

Effective marketing is essential for the success of any ecommerce business today. Marketing strategies are about more than just advertising. These comprehensive strategies encompass multiple channels (Facebook, Instagram, Google, etc.), target a set audience, and consistently drive engagement and conversions. A typical marketing strategy for ecommerce store management might cover: 

• Search Engine Optimization (SEO): These include both on-page and off-page SEO strategies devised to improve your store’s search engine rankings and drive high-value traffic to your website. SEO strategies involve optimized copy, keyword research, link building, technical optimization, and more.
  
• Pay-Per-Click (PPC): Small-mid-sized businesses spend up to seven times more on PPC than SEO because it drives valuable leads and generates immediate sales. In terms of ecommerce website management, a typical PPC campaign might involve platforms like Google Ads. 

• Social Media Marketing: Developing an engaging social media campaign doesn’t just funnel traffic to your ecommerce store. It helps build brand awareness, fosters a loyal community, and establishes your brand as a trusted voice. 

The Importance of Ecommerce Management

Effective management matters because it directly translates to improved customer experiences and conversions. A poorly managed ecommerce store, on the other hand, can lose up to 20% of conversions for every second delay in page load times.

Effective ecommerce management directly leads to fast load times, more intuitive navigation systems, and more secure checkout processes. All of these elements come together to foster trust and encourage customer loyalty over time. You’re not just making it easier for your customers to buy your products; you’re also giving them a meaningful reason to come back through good service.

The Challenges With Ecommerce Business Management 

Let’s take a closer look at a few common challenges you might encounter in ecommerce store management, along with plugin recommendations to help you tackle them.

• Ecommerce Platform Management: Choosing the right ecommerce platform for your business is just the first step. Getting the most out of your platform, whether it’s Shopify, BigCommerce, or WordPress, requires constant updates, plugin management, and security patches. 
• Integration: Achieving seamless integration between your ecommerce platform, inventory management software, payment gateway, and other tools is vital but difficult. 
• Inventory Management: Inventory management gets more challenging as you tackle larger regions and markets. Effective ecommerce website management in these scenarios demands proactive action, and small mistakes can lead to lost sales and increased logistical costs.

Expert Tips

Hire an Agency

You can choose to tackle a comprehensive marketing strategy in-house, but the results can often be disappointing (and expensive!) if your team lacks expertise. 

Working with an established digital marketing and web development agency like Coalition Technologies gives you access to award-winning marketing specialists in a variety of areas when you need them. When it comes to the hyper-competitive world of ecommerce, the last thing you want to do is leave your store at the mercy of generalists.

Go Omnichannel

Ecommerce website management isn’t just about succeeding on one sales channel, like your store. Today’s fastest-growing ecommerce businesses are all-in on omnichannel, and you should be too. Effective ecommerce business management should deliver a consistent and integrated shopping experience wherever your buyers are, whether that’s social media, email, or in-store.

Coalition works with leading SEO, social media, and email marketing experts to help businesses deliver truly omnichannel experiences. We work closely with our clients to understand their requirements, creating custom solutions to engage and convert buyers across multiple channels.

Customize, Automate, and Integrate

Solving complex ecommerce management challenges, such as tricky third-party integrations and inventory management, often require bespoke solutions. No two ecommerce businesses are the same, so you can’t always expect to find the perfect fix by looking up a listicle.

Top-rated custom web development agencies like Coalition Technologies can help you solve those complex ecommerce website management challenges with the following:

• Bespoke integrations built around your needs, designed to simplify inventory management.
• Conversion-oriented design to help you convert new visitors with ease.
• Setting up automation tools to help you free up time, so you can focus on scaling your brand.

Resources and Plugins To Help

As complex as ecommerce management might sound, there are a couple of powerful tools you can use to start off on the right foot.

• MemberPress: MemberPress makes it easier for stores to add a membership structure to their stores. You can easily set up automatic billing for members, customize checkout processes, and even establish paywalls for your high-quality content. If you’re looking for a way to sell content digitally, this plugin is a good place to start.
  
• Yoast SEO: Yoast SEO is a comprehensive plugin that helps you automate certain parts of your SEO strategy, offering guidance on keyword usage, meta descriptions, and more. It won’t replace a handcrafted SEO strategy, but it does offer an acceptable starting point for those new to ecommerce website management.
  
• Mailchimp: Mailchimp is another great marketing plugin for ecommerce business management. This plugin helps managers automate email marketing campaigns based on customer actions, such as cart abandonment or newsletter sign-ups.

Set Up Your Ecommerce Store For Success

When it comes to ecommerce store management, no plugin can replace the impact an expert can have. Coalition Technologies has helped hundreds of businesses drive millions in profit with ecommerce management. Contact us today for a free consultation and find out how we can help you improve your ecommerce store. 

Frequently Asked Questions

What is the difference between ecommerce website development and management?

Ecommerce development refers to the initial process of building your store with an online platform, such as Shopify or BigCommerce. This includes setting up payment gateways and third-party integrations. Ecommerce management, on the other hand, is about the ongoing process of running a successful ecommerce store.

Is ecommerce management expensive?

Not necessarily. Many top-rated agencies, such as Coalition Technologies, offer ecommerce management services at reasonable rates. Pricing ultimately depends on the scale of your website and the services you require. You can use our pricing tool to get a rough estimate! 

How do I know if I need ecommerce management services?

Ecommerce services can help you out if you feel like you’re spending too much time on tasks like inventory management, order fulfillment, or customer service. If your sales are stagnant and your marketing strategies haven’t been very effective, ecommerce website management services can help you identify the problem and move forward.