Ecommerce strategist

[LED Lightworld]

Hi, I am looking for advice from a professional ecommerce strategist. We have a good company on board that have designed and developed our 2no. websites, one of which is an online lighting store. Between us, and them we have developed some good ideas, and have made some good progress. The problem is my partner and I are not experienced online sales experts, or offline sales for that matter. That means we have reached a stage now where to progress we are relying on the expertise of our web developers.
As much as I like/respect their input, I am thinking it would be smarter to bring onboard a 3rd party. They would act as a consultant and help form our online strategy, I would then instruct our developers to implement the changes needed.
We also have some unique products that we would like to start marketing on Amazon, but would like guidance from our 'consultant', someone that understand the pitfalls, and can guide us.
Anyone who has recommendations/ suggestions please contact me.

Thanks

Gareth

 

[ownage]

I agree with the idea of not trusting your developers to do the business strategy for you.

Why not do it yourself? If you are going into the E-COM business I'd suggest learning about it yourself, seeing what your competitors are doing and finding a way to do it better..

E-commerce is very simple: Get your store to the audience who is interested in the product (SEO, Ads, Viral etc), and sell them things they want to buy.

 

[j600com]

Hi Gareth,

Whats your website(s) address? Have you tried LinkedIn?

Tim

 

[fashionprintdesigner]

Suppose it depends what your budget is?

 

[LED Lightworld]

Hi Tim

www.ledlightworld.co.uk

I did look on linkedin, but most guys seemed to be working in an organisation, not freelancing.

Thanks

 

[AndyP]

Hi Gareth

Nice website. It looks like it could be going places. Well done to both you and your team. You're also almost a neighbour!

As another poster has mentioned your budget for a strategist will be key of course. I can recommend someone that we have worked with but its not a no-cost option. If you want their contact details pm me and I'll be happy to put you in touch.

Cheers

 

[Greg Black]

Hi Gareth

I've sent you a PM.

We are currently creating a huge number of resources for eCommerce site owners to help them with their marketing and strategy, though their release is still a little way off.

We could squeeze in 1 or 2 new clients who are looking for 1to1 help at affordable rates in return for case studies and feedback.

Let me know if the PM sounds interesting.

Cheers
Greg

 

[quikshop]

Try Steve at Web Updater, he's worked wonders with SERPS on one of our websites and can set up and manage paid advertising campaigns.

 

[LED Lightworld]

Thanks, Greg. Will come back to you.
Gareth

 

[fashionprintdesigner]

Hi

have you found anyone yet?

Mandii

 

[youngcow]

Hi Gareth,
You may need to look at all areas individually for absolute guidance.
Professionals in Amazon, Ebay and Internet Marketing Strategy in General.

The other one is then Conversion Rate Optimisation, once you have traffic how do you get more sales out of it.

I do consultancy for a number of companies on Internet Marketing strategy and would be happy to talk to you.

 

[AndyP]

Gareth

As a follow up to my previous post whoever you decide to go with make sure that you do some due diligence before you jump into bed with anyone. As you will quickly discover, everyone is an expert and so few actually are (No disrespect intended to anyone who has posted btw....it wasn't a directional comment, just a general observation based on how many experts call us for one thing or another on a daily basis).

 

[MartCactus]

Gareth

As a follow up to my previous post whoever you decide to go with make sure that you do some due diligence before you jump into bed with anyone. As you will quickly discover, everyone is an expert and so few actually are (No disrespect intended to anyone who has posted btw....it wasn't a directional comment, just a general observation based on how many experts call us for one thing or another on a daily basis).

Good advice - I too come across many marketing and seo "experts" but never anyone who is a merely competent, or learning. It seems they go straight from nothing to expert without any form of intermediate level of competency

 

[LED Lightworld]

Thankyou everybody who has taken the time give their input, and for the PM's. I seem to be inundated with web developers looking for development work, this was never what I wanted!! I dont need anyone to carry out any physical changes to my site or business. I want someone who has been where I am now. I want a business man, an entrepreneur, an ecommerce strategist!. I want someone with a proven track record who can help take my business to 1million plus a year.

Someone suggested I should learn more about ecommerce tactics, and do this role myself. I understand that, but I could take 5 years to learn enough through making mistakes to get my business to where I want it to be. I could learn to service my own car, or how to work with Sage accounts, but I dont, I pay experienced experts to do it for me-I see this as being the same.

Thanks again.

Gareth

 

[j600com]

Hi Gareth,

I actually think you need a team of people not an individual because really you need someone with experience across varied subjects and ideally experience within your sector; strategies that work for lighting retailers are completely different to those which work for clothing retailers.

Finding a freelancer with all the skills you need in the sector you are in will be virtually impossible. What you'll usually end up with is lots of web developers who actually don't know the first thing about retail (let alone lighting).

In my experience developers are rarely creative, they rarely have retail experience (even the basics) but believe they understand ecommerce because they've downloaded an open-source ecommerce package and applied a template to it. They often have sites which miss obvious things, don't convert well, many don't even do the basics such as cross-selling and up-selling (schoolboy stuff) let alone the deeper level things that will increase conversions and this is because retail simply isn't their speciality (web development is).

In my opinion/experience the person you are looking for will NOT be a web developer. They will be someone with a background of working at an agency, running their own ecommerce business or have been an ecommerce manager in a past life. But even then what you will find is they have limited understanding of each individual element as in order to achieve success they have over the years brought in teams of people (each with their own speciality) in order to get the job done. So often an ecommerce manager will work with an seo guy, an affiliate guy, a conversion guy, a designer and so on. Larger agencies usually employ teams of the above, so whilst you may pay a premium for the site - many of these smaller developers don't realise many clients pay a premium because of this support/consultancy/strategy behind the scenes.

I do know some good ecommerce consultants but none with a background in the sector you are in - happy to pm you their details if you wanted to have a chat with them though.

Alternatively if you want a free health check of the current site I'd be happy to get one of our consultants to give it the once over for you. But there's also a section on ukbf for site appraisals so that may be a good start (if it's on-site stuff you want to review first).

Hope this helps.

 

[j600com]

ps. please don't take offence to this, but just as I suspected your site is missing quite a few of the basics. If you pm me I'll send you a list of a few easy fixes/changes to implement which should increase your sales within a few weeks. You can thank me later

 

[Ali-v-8]

If you still need help with this PM me, I have nearly completed a similar project in the same field. Not same market but close enough to advise.

 

[LED Lightworld]

Tim @ j600com,

Tim, I was really impressed by both the time and effort you spent on the website, and by the detail that you then went into listing points to be addressed.
I will gladly use your services again in the future.

Thanks

 

[DavidBerryACMA]

It is clear that you have spent quite a bit of time and money developing a very clean and attractive site. Well done. The developers have done their job of creating a great looking site. However, as the business owner you want it to deliver profits - dosh, I understand

Having created a number of very successful ecommerce sites myself, I now help companies such as your to make quick profits from their sites.

I would start by looking closely at your analytics. We would then choose a specific one that is pivital to the success of your business and focus on improving it. The business model for a successful ecommerce site is simple - generate traffic and interest, convert interest into leads and leads into sales.

If you lack traffic, then we would look at things like SEO, PPC etc. Be wary though as PPC can be very expensive unless you have developed the conversion side of the business. Hence the pivital analytic is critical.

Once you have created a business blueprint, we then start duplicating it with such things as social media, niche/micro sites etc.

Everything must be measurable and tested. That is the brilliant thing about running a website, it is fairly easy to see what is going on and what to change. You can also change things instantly. PM me for more details.