E-Commerce Sales Channel Growth During The Pandemic
With the demise of retail all around the country product-based small businesses need to take a step back and take stock of their E-Commerce Sales Channel.
In the last 5 months retail giants like Neiman Marcus, J Crew, Papyrus, and Pier 1 have all filed for bankruptcy. It is not just the large chains either. Art Van, a Michigan based furniture chain, has also filed for Chapter 11. As of now we don’t really know how far down the retail chain this will go.
Many of the brick and mortar accounts you have worked with may not survive COVID-19 and the Stay at Home Orders. It goes back to the question of how can you shore up your sales so your business can overcome the exact same hurdles these retailers face.
The answer is E-Commerce Sales Channel.
The second quarter of 2020 has expedited the growth of internet sales by at least 5 years.
Over the last 5 years we have witnessed a steady increase in e-commerce sales. At the beginning of Q1 2014 e-commerce sales were $70,492M. By the end of Q4 2019 sales had topped $153,976M. The previous models had e-commerce sales hitting just under $600M by year 2024
Now, we are in the midst of a global pandemic. Retail stores all over the country are closed. This leaves online shopping as the only way to sell your products to your customers. In February and March 2020 alone 80% of retail sales was generated from e-commerce.
On May 5th Niraj Shah sent out an email to their supplies. In this email Shah states Wayfair sales are up over 100% year over year. Yes, you read that correctly. Sales are up over 100%! He continued to say that Wayfair is expecting this trend to continue into the summer months based on the data they are getting from all of their platforms, US, Canada, Germany, and the United Kingdom. Shah acknowledges that sales will slow down from these record numbers as the country slowly begins to reopen but, they are still planning for much higher order volume all the way through the fourth quarter.
At the end of April Amazon announced that it’s first quarter sales were up 26% from last year. This is just further proof that the increase in e-commerce sales is affecting all categories.
Now, is the time to review your e-commerce sales plan. The first question is do you have one. If not, you need to create the roadmap for what will potentially be your business's largest sales channel.
Here are 3 steps that you can do to expand your e-commerce sales base.
Account Alignment: Are you currently selling to all of the possible online retailers? If not, now is the perfect time to become a supplier.
Account Audit: Are all of your products listed with all of your e-commerce partners? Perform an account audit to determine which items are missing and add them.
Product Listings: Are all of your product listings optimized with Key Search Terms? Are you maximizing your your bullet points and description? If not, please go back and update your product listings. They are your sales person online.
If you have questions on how to set up or grow your e-commerce sales channel CLICK HERE to schedule a brief Exploratory Call with us. We can help make your E-Commerce Sales Channel your largest and most profitable sales channel.