Leading Brands in E-Commerce

Leading brands in e-com and what they’re doing right

Succeeding in the e-commerce space can be a difficult challenge to take on. It’s not exactly brand-new territory anymore, but different strategies and niches are still being carved out each and every day. With small brands finding mainstream success seemingly overnight and multinational giants like Amazon and Google dominating the terrain in different ways, it can be tough to know who to look to and what to take away from success stories.

Luckily, we’ve done that hard work for you! There are loads of examples to look through and hundreds more lessons to be learned, but we’ve picked out three useful bits of knowledge to help you better navigate the journey of e-commerce success.

Let’s take a look at these e-commerce brands and what they’re doing right.

Amazon and website optimization

It’s tough to measure up to giants like Amazon, but even if the scale isn’t replicable, that doesn’t mean there aren’t important lessons to be learned. Being the largest e-commerce platform in the world, Amazon’s success can’t really be questioned.

While there’s a rich network of infrastructure behind this success, one key factor easily stands out: the website.

Amazon’s website is more than just a platform for a huge e-commerce landscape, it’s also an incredible feat of website design and optimization. Everything from the technical speed and search engine optimization to the more visible aesthetic choices is playing a role.

For one, the website is easy to look at and even easier to navigate, with a friendly and forgiving user experience. You can browse through categories and products with ease as well as add and remove items from your cart with a single click without ever interrupting your browsing experience, or ever feeling committed to spending money until checkout.

Not only is the website easy to navigate, but Amazon shows you everything you want and need to see in order to convert your comfort and interest into sales.

Images are clearly displayed and User Generated Content (UGC) is readily available in the reviews and questions. Being able to see these opinions from customers displayed openly right next to the product is an important tool in making the user feel comfortable with making the purchase. All of these elements put together makes Amazon’s website an example to look up to.

Apple and brand loyalty

Controversial to say the least, Apple is immediately one of the best and most important examples when it comes to building a strong and loyal consumer base. Even as critics joke about new iPhones just being the same but more expensive every year, Apple fans and users keep on coming back, making Apple not only a huge online brand, but one of the biggest tech brands in the world.

Creating this level of brand loyalty is certainly easier said than done, and while a lot of people are quick to sum the Apple loyalty up to status, we want to focus on a different angle: incentive.

There are a lot of things that Apple does really well to maintain its status and popularity throughout the world, and one of those is being really good at getting customers to fully commit to the brand. This is what makes the Apple ecosystem so useful when it comes to its consumer base.

Within the Apple ecosystem, users enjoy seamless integration throughout their devices, from phones to tablets to computers to headphones and speakers. Other tech companies have made similar attempts at this level of compatibility, but none truly come close.

This means that if you buy one Apple product, the next time you buy any sort of tech product, you have a compatibility incentive to buy from Apple again. This small but clever detail explains how trying out the new iPhone can quickly turn into an Apple-themed office or even home in a way that branding alone wouldn’t be able to achieve.

The takeaway here is that incentive is powerful. Every brand and every market will have different ways of creating this need, think of Starbucks’ loyalty program.

Don’t ignore Instagram

When it comes to online marketing, it’s clear that ignoring Instagram is a big mistake. Especially as the platform continues to make strides towards becoming one of the world’s largest marketplaces, it’d be difficult to find any leading or popular e-commerce brand without dedicated Instagram campaigns or efforts.

Part of the huge success of using Instagram for marketing is really a combination of the previous two points: user experience and loyalty.

As far as the website goes, it’s incredibly easy to navigate and incredibly visible — by design. With the recent integration of shopping technology, the ability to purchase and visit shops is built right into the rest of the content. This means that marketing campaigns are far less disruptive and unsettling than they would be on other platforms.

If Amazon’s One-Click purchase is convenient, imagine not even having to leave your social media scrolling to shop.

Another key component is the proximity to loyalty, or put another way, the power of influencers.

Whether it be celebrities or personalities who take on the mantle literally, influencers are individuals with huge active follower bases that can help directly promote products and services to a crowd that’s ready to listen. Rather than building loyalty to a brand, collaborating with influencers is a great way to piggyback off the loyalty a personality has built for themselves.

For these and many more reasons, it’s no wonder that Instagram has become more and more influential in recent e-commerce campaigns.

Building a successful e-commerce brand can be a difficult process, but it can be less difficult if you’re familiar with the tools and practices that can set you ahead of the competition. Check out the Amber Engine blog to learn more about e-commerce, marketing, and building a successful online presence for any business.