Whether you are a brand new business, a business moving into ecommerce for the first time or a more established company looking to grow its ecommerce offering, it is all very exciting.

But it can also seem pretty daunting for a small business. How can your little company with its small product range compete with the might of Amazon or the big high street brands’ huge ecommerce sites?

The good news is, that you definitely can! Of course you will make mistakes along the way, but these ecommerce tips should help you to avoid making too many.

The key thing is to do you. Focus on what you are good at and watch your small ecommerce business grow.

A good first impression

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t takes no more than a few seconds for a visitor to decide whether or not they like your brand and your website. So it is essential to create a good first impression.

The first impression needs to include the look of your site and your branding, your products and the functionality of your website.

While it is tempting to get your website up and running before it is completely ready, this would be a big mistake. You can add more pages later, but you should never leave any blank pages or important details missing, as that will be your visitors’ first (and almost certainly last) impression of your business.

While your website will never appeal to everyone, the important thing is for it to appeal to potential customers who are looking for products in your niche.

Get it right and a good first impression can be the beginning of brand loyalty and a customer relationship that could last for years.

You will never get everything right first time, so it’s important to experiment and keep checking your data. To bring customers to your website, you will need to advertise. So experiment with your ads – change your images, experiment with different copy and advertise in different places, such as Google, Facebook or Instagram.

Experiment with your website too. How much information should you have on your home page? Which images do customers respond to? Where is the best place to put your call to action buttons? How much do customers want to read about your products?

It’s easy to make assumptions about what will work, but you will never be sure without testing different versions and checking your data.

Listening to customers is key for any business, but especially a small business. And both positive and negative feedback is helpful.

Combining good products with high levels of customer service is what really builds a brand and helps it to grow. Read customer reviews and respond – thank customers for their feedback and make changes if they are needed. This could be changes to your website or even improvements to your products.

Show that you respect and value your customers by responding to their feedback, whether via email or social media, within 24 hours. This helps to build a relationship and can even turn unhappy customers into happy ones. It will also help build brand awareness and loyalty, which is essential for a small business.

If you do something well, your customers will talk to people about it, post on social media or post positive reviews, all of which will help bring more potential customers to your site and help grow your brand.

(Don’t forget they will also post the negatives too, so always do your best to avoid creating problems or making them worse!)

In 2021, ecommerce is about so much more than just your website. To make your business a success, you need to embrace omnichannel selling. This means selling on the marketplaces, like Amazon, eBay or Etsy, and through social media, as well as through your own website.

It won’t be possible to sell across all channels from the start, so again it is important to know and understand your customers. Are they more likely to buy from Amazon or Etsy? Are they spending more time on Instagram or TikTok?

On the other hand, don’t make the mistake of focusing on only one social media platform. If a competitor sees you are only on Instagram, they can focus their efforts on Facebook, TikTok and Twitter and suddenly their business has the edge over yours.

Using a combination of platforms is slightly more work, but it gives you a competitive advantage. Being on three to four platforms is usually manageable and stops you from putting all of your eggs in one basket. Social media moves quickly and if your chosen platform falls out of favour with your customer base, you could see a sudden dip in sales.

Remember that social media is a two-way thing. Don’t just focus on the messages you put out, monitor the reactions you are getting back from customers and potential customers. These comments and likes will give you a very clear indication of who your customers are and what they are interested in, which can help you to make adjustments to your online offering to appeal to them more and grow your customer base.

As your business grows, you can gradually expand your omnichannel strategy to take in more channels.

Online advertising is essential for any ecommerce business to bring potential customers to their website. And you should embrace advertising from day one.

Many businesses find that Google Ads are the best place to start. After all, there are three billion Google searches a day worldwide. If you bid on the right keywords and target them at the right audience, Google Ads can be effective and give you a good return on your investment (ROI), as your ads are shown to people who are actively searching for what you have to sell.

Advertising on social media tends to be a bit cheaper and can work just as well, as long as you target your ads effectively. While Facebook Ads won’t show potential customers your products, they will help you find new customers who are interested in buying what you have to sell. Facebook Ads are very well targeted, as they collect lots of user data to ensure your ads reach the right audience.

It might take a few attempts to perfect your online ads, but once you’ve got them right, keep reinvesting in advertising and watch your business grow.

Focus on the competition

Successful ecommerce businesses always have an eye on the competition. It’s important to learn from what they do well and to look for the things they’re not doing so well and make sure you do them better!

Bigger, more established companies can feel like a threat. But you can also learn from them. Look to brands you admire – whether or not they are in your niche. What do they do well that you can replicate? Maybe their customer service is second to none, perhaps it is their branding or their environmental credentials? These are all valuable things you can learn from and replicate for your brand, without actually copying them.

If you think you will never be able to compete with the big companies in your niche, remember that you are introducing a new brand or new products and services because there is a gap in the market for them.

You have something that your competition doesn’t – that could be the products themselves, or the way in which they are made, the provenance of your ingredients or raw materials or the environmentally friendly packaging you use.

Focus your messaging on the things which make your business different from the competition and make sure this authentic message runs through your website, your advertising and your social media.

A business should never be set in stone. To be successful, it needs to be flexible and adapt.

Being flexible means you are a better listener to your customers, willing to adapt and change and always ready to embrace the next big thing, whether that is technology to help your business or new products.

Being flexible gives you competitive advantage and keeps you ahead of the game. It is easier for a small business than it is for a larger business, as you will have less products, less staff and no huge international supply chain to deal with.

Small businesses which fall behind will be the ones which aren’t flexible, don’t make changes and don’t embrace new technologies which can help them run more smoothly and effectively. Something that worked well five years ago may not work as well today, just as something which works well today probably won’t be as effective in five years’ time.

It is impossible for any business to be the best at everything, but even a small ecommerce business should strive to be the best at what they do. Being really good at one thing helps with the growth of your business.

As a business owner, you are no doubt passionate about what you do and that emotional connection and drive will keep it moving forward. But what about when everything involved in running a small business feels overwhelming and too much for one person or a small team?

It is easy for a small or new business to focus on everything at once and try to do too much. But try to forget briefly about all the minor niggles involved and focus on the bigger picture.

What is the purpose of your brand? What do you want it to achieve? Then ask yourself how to be the best at those things and prioritise your work to make it happen.

Once you have focused on the most important thing, you can then prioritise everything else and these obstacles should seem less overwhelming.

Starting or growing an ecommerce business as a small company isn’t easy. But business owners do it because they love it and see a gap in the market that they can fill.

By focusing on your passion, the things that you do well and listening to your customers, it is possible for even the smallest ecommerce business to grow and put a dent in the big companies’ market share.