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New to E-commerce Marketing ?— here’s what NOT to do

With Covid 19 turning the world upside down literally - a lot of traditional trade folks are now having to suddenly pivot to the online selling model; and the same is happening with the traditional marketing folks as well — the whole concept of digital marketing or building a brand on e-commerce platforms can seem very challenging at the get go. As someone also relatively new to this, but with SOME subject matter expertise (6 months in), I can safely say, it’s not as complex as it looks. Your marketing levers just got a facelift, but it’s largely the same principles that still apply.

Imagine the e-commerce storefront to be like a traditional supermarket, but with a lot more distractions (and options)— your shelf coverage at eye level would translate to high search ranking, physical sampling would become e-sampling, your price alert pop ups would be an offer page banner or a spotlight/steal deal ad, a big brand signage would translate into a homepage banner etc.

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It’s eventually about how to best utilize the real estate you have in hand. Now of course there are tonnes of marketing opportunities available with e-commerce chains as well, what worked well in a physical store may not exactly work as well in an online store, and I can’t tell you what would definitely work for your product — no two things work the same way, especially because buying behaviour varies by product category/location etc.

However, here’s what I think you definitely shouldn’t do/expect:

1. Treat E-commerce marketing as a brand building platform: I cannot emphasize this enough — there is so much clutter on the platform itself, they really couldn’t care less about your brand messaging. Unlike people taking casual stores in physical stores and browsing through interesting new products placed on shelves etc.(I do that), people are a lot less in the mood to browse on E-commerce platforms (especially true right now). The final decision on what product is to be bought is made faster, simply because they want to other things with their phones — like use WhatsApp, YouTube, Netflix. This makes things like search marketing and solid product placement even more crucial.

1. Sell at MRP: Unless your company has a monopoly in selling the product that the customer wants, this isn’t going to work very well — especially for a new brand. People are willing to experiment a lot more with different brands in a category in an E-commerce store than they would offline. Also, prices are also more in your face on an e-commerce platform than they are in an offline store. I focus much lesser on the finding out the price of the product in an offline store simply because it’s hard to find — if I don’t buy the product in my hand, I’ll have to find an alternative and then compare price and grammage etc. which is all time consuming. It’s so much easier to do that online, that I’m definitely going to pay attention — if I can save money without compromising on convenience, why wouldn’t I?
2. Drive range vs select SKUs: I think it becomes extra critical to pick your battles on e-commerce platforms — listing price of SKUs is also high and not all of them will sell. Understand the type of audience on each platform — is it value focused (like Grofers) or loyalty driven (like Milkbasket), and drive only limited focus SKUs on each platform, except of course a few hero SKUs which could remain common across the board. It helps you avoid cannibalization and play to the strength of each player and your own assortment as well — remember, best use of limited real estate.
3. Blindly follow your gut (the inside out approach): I would normally never say this since I do follow my gut as well — but the one big advantage you get selling on an e-commerce platform is you get DATA — so remember to use it. If you can A/B Test your creative communication, do it (for example on Amazon Display you can), if you can understand the market basket composition of people buying your product (via Amazon Pi), use that to drive advertising decisions. Do not assume that this or that would work and turn a blind eye to evidence you can find against that instinct.

It’s very important to keep user experience in mind when you’re selling online and putting yourself in the consumer’s shoes — keep your assumptions aside and have an open mind — there is a lot to explore and a lot that can be done (and the platforms and constantly evolving), so if you tap the right button at the right time (if you get the analogy), you’ll be in everybody’s shopping cart in no time.

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