Building an ecommerce brand audio
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[00:00:00] So instead of being a store that has a website and a store that has an Instagram, you become a brand that has an. The rules of retail are changing one by one. Corporate retailers are closing their doors, and some call it the death of retail, but those rules never apply to independent retailers like us.
We're riding our own rules. We're here to answer the questions about how to grow your business, stay competitive, and still have a life. I'm Joshua, and this is The Retail Initiative Podcast. Welcome back to the Retail Initiative Podcast. I've missed you. I've missed being here. You know, we are coming out of a hectic few months, and so when we were looking at things, we were like, okay, what can we set aside for a little bit?
We hit the end of a really good season. So we took a break, uh, and in that time we've rebranded. We have done so much here, uh, and streamlined retail is now capital commerce. I'm gonna do an episode all about that. But ultimately we shifted and evolved over time, just like a lot of you have, and our brand just didn't keep [00:01:00] up.
And so this is us doubling down on our commitment and the way that we help brick and mortar retailers increase online sales. Um, and the impact we're making has been unbelievable. And yeah, I'm really excited about it. Um, so what I w want to talk about today is building an e-commerce brand. What does that mean?
You know, when you think about when you started your storefront, you probably. Thought about it like a storefront and, and understandably, cause that's where sales happen, that's where you help people. But then we were like, okay, well let's get some new sales channels. And so you launch a website and you get an Instagram account and a Facebook page and maybe a Facebook group and you're doing events and everything still comes back to the store.
And so you become a store that has a website and a store that has social channels. And what we're seeing of successful brands of people that are doing this really, really well is instead of being a store, they really are shifting to be a brand and a brand [00:02:00] that is obsessed with their perfect customer.
And her brand has a lot of things, and I'm about to dive into that, but ultimately, it solves a problem for its perfect customer. And so instead of being a store that has a website and a store that has an Instagram, you become a brand that has an in-store experience and a brand that has an online experience and a social media experience.
And no matter where your customer engages you, No matter where they find you, you can solve their problem in that place. So if they walk in your store, you can, you know the right questions to ask and you know the way to help them. And if they visit your website, your website can do the same thing. So what goes into a brand?
What goes into a successful e-commerce brand? It's three things. The first one is the obvious one, and that's visuals. The visuals of your brain, having consistent logos and colors and fonts and in store those things being cohesive. And, and this is a great thing, uh, to have as a cohesive [00:03:00] look and feel across your in-store experience, your online experience, or your social media experience.
The problem is that a lot of us stop here. We stop at those things and we think that because we had a designer do our logo and our fonts and our colors, And get that vibe in place that we're good to go. But next we have another piece. And that's your brand voice. This is how you communicate. And in store, this part's really easy cuz you're literally talking with them and it's likely that your in-store experience is so great because of the way that you're able to communicate.
But online, how does that come through? And so the, the important thing to do here is to really look at if your brand was a person. How would they talk? What would their personality be like? What, what tone of voice would they have? Are they funny? Are they entertaining? Are they, it's more serious? Like what's the tone of that and what personalities there?
What values drive the person? If your brand's a person, what [00:04:00] values are behind that? And then you have experience. Think about when someone walks into your store. What do they love about it? Have you ever walked into a store and been like, oh my gosh, like someone created a store for people like me, like I didn't think this existed, and now I see that it does exist.
I can't believe it. I'm so excited. That's what we can offer. When we understand our experience, we can take our in-store experience and take all the things that make that magical and bring that online. And so that is the essential piece of building an E-commerce brand is having consistent visuals, your logos, your fonts, your colors, the vibe, having consistent voice, the personality and the tone, and then your experience, the way that you're serving your customer, having what I call your superpower, what you do best, come through super clear on the site.
And you know, a lot of times I see people do this. And they make some of the [00:05:00] same mistakes again and again and again. And I don't wanna see you make those mistakes. And so I wanna share the three biggest ones that I see all the time because I've talked, I talked to retailers literally every single day.
Uh, and I was talking with one and they were like, yeah, you know, we, we redid our site, but sales have just fallen flat. It, we had all these really big hopes for it, and we put all this money into redesigning it and sales just haven't been. Where we wanted it to be. And I went and I looked at the site and I was asking about their brand.
I was asking about their store, and they were sharing with me all these amazing things about their storefront, uh, the things they do with customer service and the unique things, problems they can solve for their customer. And I looked at their site and that just didn't come through. And so why does that happen?
The why does that? Inconsistency happened when we're like, oh, I know what my brand is. That should be much easier to come across online. So the first mistake that you might be making is that the site is [00:06:00] all about the brand. Now that seems contradictory. I just told you that we want to have an e-commerce brand, and then I'm like, Hey, but make your site not all about the brand.
Here's the thing here, okay? Brands like ones that are just okay when a customer lands on their, on your site. They, they understand your brand. You know, we have our logo prominently. We might have our name in multiple places, but great brands, the ones that are crushing it online, that are gaining traction.
Like, like you probably want to, uh, don't make the customer understand your brand. They make the customer feel understood. They land there and they feel like, oh my gosh, this person gets me. So online, what does this look like? Like what's the difference? Um, a, a site that's all about the brand has the logo, probably massive.
And then I look at the hero image, let's say the brand's, Josh's boutique. So I have my Josh's boutique logo, huge at the top. And then on my hero image, it's [00:07:00] welcome to Josh's boutique. We sell this, this, this, and this. Um, and we're talking about ourselves. We're like the person that you meet at the bar and you start talking, and all they want to do is talk about themselves.
On the flip side, a brand that makes the customer feel understood has imagery that the customer's like, oh my gosh, like that's what I want. Like, that's who I want to be. I'm, I aspire to that. And copy that resonates with what they're thinking about. You know, whether it's an event or holiday or a season, it's not.
Welcome to our store. It really is. It's more like spring has sprung and then the dresses that we are featuring right now, like whatever that thing is. Uh, weirdly, people don't feel welcomed by saying Welcome. They feel welcomed by just copy that they resonate with, and so big mistake number one is a site that's all about the brand.
Instead, we want to make the site [00:08:00] about the customer. The second mistake that you could be making, um, is that we're not answering their most important question, and this kind of piggybacks off the first one. So what's that most important question? The most important question is if you think about when you walk into a storefront and someone walks in and you greet them or whatever, why are we doing that?
Uh, I think we would say we're doing that so they feel welcomed, but I think deeper than that, we're doing that so that way they feel like they're in the right place. We want them to know this is a store for people like you. That's the most important question that we answer. This is important for several reasons.
One, the back button is taking more sales than anything else, more than the boutique or store down the street. More than Amazon, more than sheen, more than your competitors. The back button is stealing your sales because people click on your site, they land there, and we don't immediately answer that question.
[00:09:00] Is this a site for people like me? So when we can make them feel understood, we're answering that question like, Hey, yes, this is for you. The next question is like, what do they do for me? What, what do they do for me? What can they help me with? And that comes across through, um, yes, our hero image and the imagery that's there, that comes across through what we're choosing to feature in our navigation.
That comes across, through the featured collections and the imagery that we have there. We're making it clear like, Hey, we're able to help you and we're able to solve your problem, which brings us to the third mistake. When our superpower isn't clear, think about what do you do best? What do you do better than anyone else?
And this doesn't have to be like something like really big and grand. This could be you're the best place to get dresses. And if someone texted a friend like, Hey, I'm looking for a cute dress, where should I go? And they say, your store. That's a superpower. Maybe it's [00:10:00] the way you curate items together and style things.
So that way your customer has outfits that they feel amazing with. Well, how clear does that come across on our homepage? If you're amazing at event centric outfits, whether it's vacation or Easter dresses, that should be featured. Another really easy example is like if you're amazing at dresses, you might have clothing in your navigation and a drop down there, but then you wanna pull out dresses and have that in your top bar navigation.
Also we're wanting to say like, Hey, this is what we're best at. And these all come to all interlink with each other, like your superpower. It helps address their most important questions. And that most important question is, am I in the right place? And that's where that first piece comes in, where we're not making a site that's all about our brand.
We're making a site that's about our customer. So all these things come together, and that's what builds an amazing brand experience. So I hope that this episode was helpful for you. I cannot wait to get into the rest of [00:11:00] the season. We have some amazing things planned, and if you want to check out, uh, our new site for our rebrand, it's made by capital.com.
Uh, so again, thanks for tuning in and I can't wait to see you next time.
