E-Commerce Consulting

With the dramatic growth of e-commerce, businesses need competitive advantages to differentiate their online stores and to increase conversions.

Upspring consultants have architected e-commerce solutions for a wide array of clients — from robust systems for mature businesses to start-up ventures and first-time online retailers.

Upspring can help with the following:

Businesses with existing e-commerce platforms:

Develop new e-commerce growth strategies
Optimize workflows and fulfillment processes
Increase conversions and profits
Analyze current e-commerce architecture
Clarify key performance indicators and other data points
Integrate existing POS systems
Market product and services

Businesses starting a new e-commerce platform:

Consult on getting set up/started
Assist with platform selection and assessment
Integrate existing POS systems
Provide hosting and compliance consultation

Define e-commerce Metrics and KPI's

Know your
conversion rates

Every e-commerce business should track, monitor and understand conversion rates for its website. Upspring can help define conversion rate benchmarks across various digital marketing channels, customer demographic sectors, device usage and product categories.

Once appropriate conversion metrics are defined, Upspring can develop a strategy to prioritize which areas to focus on to maximize profits.

For example:

Initial analysis might reveal higher conversion rates for email marketing and organic search. Rather than pouring more marketing dollars in social media, paid search and affiliate marketing, allocating more resources towards SEO and email subscriber growth might be better uses of the advertising budget.

If the main conversion goal is for a customer to purchase an item, there are smaller actions/steps that a user takes to purchase that item. These micro conversions can be anything from joining an e-mail list, creating a user account or requesting a free sample.

Micro conversions are part of the overall customer journey, and Upspring consultants can help you to understand and leverage these metrics to grow your e-commerce business.

Questions to consider:

Do you know the value of each visitor to your site? Can you justify the ROI from marketing investments?

Do you know your abandoned cart rate and how to convert these visitors into customers?

Do you know your average order value? Can you identify strategies to increase it?

Do you know your micro conversion rates and how it correlates with your overall traffic volume?

Optimizing workflows & fulfillment processes

A big part of a successful e-commerce business is its fulfillment process.

Upspring consultants can help assess the fulfillment process from when an order is received and processed, to how inventory is prepped and managed, and finally, how orders are shipped. We are able to provide product and order fulfillment strategies and create recommended fulfillment workflows based on existing processes and resources.

Fulfillment questions to consider:

Do you have enough resources to self-fulfill all orders?

Would a third-party fulfillment company be a better route to go?

Who has better shipping rates?

How much control over the packing and delivery experience do you require?

Do you have appropriate customer support resources to handle questions, returns, etc.?

Platform

Selecting your
platform

There are many e-commerce platforms, and selecting the right foundation and supporting infrastructure is critical to achieving long-term success. Selecting the wrong platform will lead to inefficient workflows, manual processing and mounting costs...

Upspring can help select the right e-commerce platform for your business. Or in some cases, it might be best to build a customized platform rather than trying to use an off-the-shelf product.

How we select your platform:

We assess current workflows and systems, interviewing key stakeholders, analyzing data/analytics and understanding e-commerce goals.

We define functionality needed to create a quick, easy and enjoyable customer-ordering experience. For example: A pizza e-commerce system will need an online pizza builder, a custom rewards program, multiple specials and promotional combos, etc.

We evaluate off-the-shelf e-commerce platforms to determine the best fit. If none of the existing platforms are a good fit, we will determine what level of customization is needed and which platform can best accommodate changes.

We understand existing workflows and if the need arises, assess the best way to integrate the e-commerce platform with existing point-of-sale systems.

Integrate Point of Sale systems

Our consultants and developers have extensive experience integrating e-commerce platforms with various POS systems, whether it's utilizing existing tools or creating a customized integration through APIs

Integrating your e-commerce and POS systems allow you to easily and more accurately manage inventory levels, sync your in-store and online catalogs and merge customer data.

Additional ways Upspring can assist with e-commerce:

e-Commerce Auditing
e-Commerce Marketing
Email Marketing

Already have an e-commerce platform? Looking to increase your conversions? Our consultants can do an initial audit of your current setup and provide recommendations on site optimization (page, speed etc.), usability, marketing, functionality etc.

They are also able to review existing site and customer analytics, providing data-driven recommendations and strategy for site improvement and marketing/outreach.

Our consultants can recommend and implement digital marketing strategies to drive traffic, build awareness and improve the online shopping experience to ultimately increase conversions and sales.

We can configure, implement and manage the following e-commerce marketing tactics:

Search marketing via Google Adwords (optimal setup, management)
Search engine optimization (SEO, organic strategy and management)
Display advertising
Native advertising (content creation, advertorials, sponsored blog posts etc.)
Email marketing (monthly newsletters, promotions, etc.)

If utilized properly, email autoresponders can help to convert leads and keep existing customers engaged.

Upspring consultants can program and configure email management systems to automatically send personalized customer emails –

if they left the site with items in their cart without completing the purchase
on their birthday, anniversary
when a particular product goes on sale at a location nearby
if you want to cross-promote a complimentary product to one they purchased
based on timing i.e. if it’s time for their next purchase (i.e. diapers, haircuts, food etc.)
to remind them they haven’t purchased anything in a while
when they sign up on the site

If utilized properly, email autoresponders can help to convert leads and keep existing customers engaged.

Upspring consultants can program and configure email management systems to automatically send personalized customer emails —

if they left the site with items in their cart without completing the purchase
on their birthday, anniversary
when a particular product goes on sale at a location nearby
if you want to cross-promote a complimentary product to one they purchased
based on timing i.e. if it’s time for their next purchase (i.e. diapers, haircuts, food etc.)
to remind them they haven’t purchased anything in a while
when they sign up on the site

It’s becoming increasingly difficult not just to attract new Facebook or Instagram followers, but to create engaging posts that draw likes, comments and shares. Most businesses now have social media accounts, but users are bombarded with content, and Facebook constantly changes its algorithm, making it hard for any business to establish strategy that will stick.

We help clients with:

Developing their social strategy
Figuring out what type of content to post
Whether to boost posts
How much to spend on boosting
How to attract new followers and encourage existing ones to engage with content.

Along with reviewing current content, we also help clients with:

Analyzing available social media data
Viewing competitors’ pages
Staying up to date with Facebook’s developments
Working with marketing teams on rolling out improved content in a strategic way to reap better results.

One of the biggest benefits of utilizing digital marketing is the rich data that’s available in the aftermath. Robust analytics can be retrieved for websites, social media, e-blasts, Google AdWords, display advertising and more. But this data is only useful if it’s analyzed, compared to previous data, weighed against industry standards, then considered when making strategic recommendations.

We provide complete data analysis for all digital marketing, which includes making monthly strategic recommendations based on the findings. If you’re interested in ROI, accurately analyzing data is essential.

Developing creative content, whether it involves producing social media videos or writing effective and engaging marketing copy is our strength.

Our marketing team are creatives at heart and have extensive experience in writing, editing and video production.

We help conceptualize ideas, then either create the content ourselves or work with our clients’ marketing teams to produce work that resonates with audiences and customers.

When writing for websites, we make sure our copy includes keywords for optimal Search Engine Optimization and drawing traffic from search engines such as Google and Yahoo.

Obtaining website clicks from organic searches doesn’t happen automatically. Search Engine Optimization is vitally important for most companies, especially with Google continuously changing its algorithm.

We have tools to assess a company’s SEO on a monthly basis, then provide recommendations on what can be done both technically and content-wise to improve chances of Google leading people their way.

Instead of just responding to declining SEO, we work proactively, establishing the ideal website structure and content to increase our clients’ chances of being favorably ranked by Google and other search engines.

Upspring can help with the following:

Businesses with existing e-commerce platforms:

Businesses starting a new e-commerce platform:

Know your
conversion rates

Questions to consider:

Need our help?