00:00.00
retailjosh
Welcome back to the retail initiative podcast I can't tell you how much I have missed being here as you might guess there have been. There's just been so much going on in the e-commerce space and to be frank we had to go heads down a little bit. Into streamline retail and the things that could 1 grow that business and and 2 really serve our customers well but I am excited to be back I love doing this so what I want to do is I want to share a little bit about what's ahead. We have some really cool episodes prepped and ready to go. Ah, but I wanted to intro at some so I'm going to cuuee the theme then we're going to hop right into it.
01:05.69
retailjosh
Well I don't know if you are anything like me. But you know every year and I think I've given this example on this podcast before but every year I decide that I'm gonna get in shape and I'm gonna lose weight and all those things and those are good things. But then I get to the gym and I'll I'll be there for like three weeks and at the end of the 3 weeks I'm looking at other people and I'm like why do I not look like that. Why am I not getting the results that I'm after and maybe have you ever been in this situation and maybe it's not with your health There's a good chance that maybe you feel like that with business. If. You're a brick and mortar retailer and you've been trying to succeed online. It might be possible that you felt really busy, but you're not focused on the things that are actually moving the needle. Sometimes it's because we don't want to and sometimes it's because we don't know what those are so how do we figure out. Okay, what. Are those things to focus on what are the areas that we need to look at so I want to talk about some things that I'd love for you to think through and as we get into these next few episodes that I think are going to really make a huge impact. On your business if you pay attention I have some interviews with some amazing retailers who are doing some cool things that I think we have a lot to learn from. Um, but I I would say that one of the biggest changes that I think retailers need to make and not just retailers really any business owner entrepreneur and on really people is. Getting away from obsessing over tactics obsessing over the things to do and instead looking at the bigger picture strategies that would normally guide our tactics I think what a lot of us do is we look at someone who's more successful than us or. Or further along and we just want to imitate everything that they do action for action. Be like me following someone around at the gym and just doing what they do. But if I'm not looking at their bigger lifestyle if I'm not looking at the strategy that they approach their health I'm not going to look like they are or feel like they do because. I'm only doing a part of it and I think when we look at other people more successful than than us and we just copy what they do. It gets exhausting like it's it's so draining to jump from thing to thing to thing and and honestly by the time we get good at doing whatever that thing we were imitating is. Something changes like some of us just figured out how to do igtv and now it doesn't even exist and now we have to learn how to do reels and it's going to be something else in six months and so that's just an example but where do we start to figure out where our.
03:51.71
retailjosh
Problem is if we aren't gaining traction or we aren't gaining as much traction as we wish how do we start to figure out what the problem is and what I love to do is really pull up a ton in our thinking away from little tactics of what am I not doing on my site. What am I not doing. On social media and go higher than that and say okay 1 am I am I assigning the problem to the right thing and so really I want to talk about um 4 buckets and I'll say five that I think some things could fall into one would would be just some foundational. Understanding. Do we understand who our perfect customer is do we understand how to approach ecommerce not as being a store with a website but instead being a brand that serves our customer in store a brand that serves our customer online a brand that serves our customer social media. Ah, these are just foundational things that if we don't understand it. It doesn't matter what else we do we we we're going about it the wrong way and so we want to get those foundations but then we get to 4 major areas and we need to understand when we aren't gaining traction. Which problem. Do we have so problem number 1 traffic are we getting enough of the right people into our store onto our site onto our social accounts. Ah and and then what is the experience that we're giving them and that's number 2 that's conversion ah that's the whole experience. What is it that makes someone buy now those 2 are huge when a lot of us have traffic issues and we know that because if we look at our Google analytics or we look at our stores they're empty and they don't have anyone but this is typically the one that I think most people run to. Run to how do I make my seo better. How do I run Facebook ads when we really aren't serving the customers or the visitors we already have that well and that's where conversion comes in and I typically say for most people we need to start at conversion. How do we up the experience that we're giving them and help. More people buy so again, do we have a foundational understanding of retail and really the new retail who are perfect customers and how we serve them everywhere. Do we understand? How do we find where our perfect customer is and bring them into our brand. Then conversion. Do we know what is it that gets them to buy and then we have retention the things that keep people coming back and buying again and again and again this is the key to profitable e-commerce. You see a lot of the um you know the people that were before covid they were.
06:39.50
retailjosh
All saying that you should just focus on your store and not go online and now half of their social media is about ecommerce. Ah those people before covid would tell you that ecommerce wasn't profitable and I think a lot of the reason for that was that we weren't factoring in retention. We weren't factoring in ways. Gets customers to come back and buy again and so because of that we're looking at okay it costs this amount in ad spend and then it costs this amount and your cost and then you have shipping and all this other stuff and that's just why it's not profitable, but as soon as you add in retention in that second third fourth fifth purchase start to see where e-commerce really can be 1 of the best ways to scale a retail business and then lastly we have operations the behind the scenes things that have to exist if that's going to grow. So my hope for you over the the next few months as we get into our third season. Of retail initiative is that you can start to figure out like when we're you know we're gonna be speaking with Becca Polla soon from hailhouse and fort worth and she is brilliant in the ways that she has understood her customer and learned to serve them really really well. Um, that we can start to say okay, how can I learn from her. And then how can that apply to ah this certain error to my traffic problem or to my conversion problem. We're gonna be talking to pet boss nation and you're gonna learn some of the things that are applying in the pet world and even if you're not a pet retailer. We can talk about um, what does this mean for your business and so. My hope is that you can kind of see these buckets see these areas and start to um, discover strategies that are going to help you grow in them and then identify tactics that's going to actually help you move the needle so that's it for today I really appreciate. You tuning in the one shameless plug I'll make is if you don't follow me on Instagram please do at retail Josh and send me a Dm. Let me know that you're listening to the show I love hearing from you and my last massive favor is if you could leave a review for the show if you've ever gone. Any value from this I can't tell you how helpful that is so. Thank you again for tuning in and I will see you very very soon.
