What to Do When Your Boss Insists That You Use Pop-Up Banner Advertising?

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By Janet M. Six

Published: June 23, 2014

Send your questions to Ask UXmatters and get answers from some of the top professionals in UX.

In this edition of Ask UXmatters, our experts discuss what to do when your boss insists that you use pop-up banner advertising. If your boss insists that you add a bad element to your good design: Ack! What do you do? Try to convince your boss that there is a better solution? Show him data that proves this particular bad design element would cause your target audience to flee in droves? Quietly say, “Okay,” then remove this project from your portfolio of design work? As UX designers, not only must we deal with the complexity of creating a strong design for users, we must also make our design work for the business—in both financial and political terms. Let’s hear what our UXmatters experts have to say about this situation that many of us have faced or will face at some point in our careers.

In our monthly column Ask UXmatters, our experts provide answers to our readers’ questions about a broad range of user experience matters. To get answers to your own questions about UX strategy, design, user research, or any other topic of interest to UX professionals in an upcoming edition ofAsk UXmatters, please send your questions to:ask.uxmatters@uxmatters.com.

The following experts have contributed answers to this edition of Ask UXmatters:

• Steve Baty—Principal of Meld Studios; Past President of IxDA;UXmatters columnist
• Riley Graham—User Experience Designer at Fuzzy Math
• Jordan Julien—Independent Experience Strategy Consultant
• Cory Lebson—Principal UX Consultant at Lebsontech; President, User Experience Professionals’ Association (UXPA)

Q: How would you handle a situation in which a business leader insists on your using pop-up banner advertising even though you know it’s detrimental to a site’s design?—from a UXmatters reader

“The first thing you need to do is reconsider your definition of the site’s purpose and key audiences. … Look at the design from the perspective of the business leaders? What does success look like to them?”
—Steve Baty

“The first thing you need to do is reconsider your definition of the site’s purpose and key audiences,” replies Steve. “Look at the design from the perspective of the business leaders? What does success look like to them? (Hint: It’s not pop-up ads.) Are there ways to balance those two sets of needs? Is it possible to facilitate success for both? That’s the real design challenge and, frankly, one you have to resolve, because a site that isn’t paying its way—one way or another—won’t last, and that’s a lot more detrimental to its future than the ads.

“Another line of thought for you to pursue: Can you demonstrate that pop-up advertising will actively damage the site’s chances of delivering value to either customers or the business? Will it drive customers away—thereby rendering the ads themselves meaningless? That’s another way of meeting your design objectives.”

Do What Your Boss Wants, But Recommend Research

“Explain the value of the more usable design and address any objections that the stakeholder might have.”—Cory Lebson

“Taking this question more generally, as a consultant,” answers Cory, “I am sometimes in the position of making a recommendation that a stakeholder overrides—because of either his personal preference or other political or organizational considerations. In such a case, my approach is to explain the value of the more usable design and address any objections that the stakeholder might have. However, if the stakeholder insists, I do not raise additional objections, but suggest that after the design gets implemented, we do usability testing and try the design out on representative users. Admittedly, when I have done this, I’ve sometimes seen that the stakeholder recommendation, even though far from best practice, had less of a negative impact on the user experience than I had imagined it would.”

“More often than not research and analysis will direct design appropriately.”—Riley Graham

“I love these kinds of challenges!” exclaims Riley. “Don’t get me wrong. Having too many of these would make me reconsider the business leaders’ interest in our UX recommendations, but I always have a response to comments that are backed only by a gut feeling or emotion. I would ask the leader to justify his opinion. Assuming it is grounded just in a feeling, I would explain that we need more objective data to make a sound decision. Then, I would take him through an exercise, explaining who our users are, their painpoints, and their goals. I would discuss why the users’ goals are important to us, as UX designers, and how the results of user research should impact design.

If the results from research and analysis did not invalidate the use of the pop-up banner ad, my argument would be null and void, and the leader would move forward with the design, even though clearly backed only by emotion, without further resistance from me. However, more often than not research and analysis will direct design appropriately.”

Advertising on Web Sites Is a Dying Model

“ I like to sit down with site owners and really talk about how they make money online.”—Jordan Julien

“I’m guessing,” responds Jordan, “that the revenue model of the Web site relies on advertising. Larger, more disruptive ad units often equate to an increased click-through rate (CTR). Generally, advertisers find larger, interactive, more disruptive ad units more appealing, so it may be difficult to argue for the design benefits of not having them. I like to sit down with site owners and really talk about how they make money online. I don’t make it too formal, and I don’t have this conversation during another meeting. Let me share a secret with you: no organization can rely on their audience’s visiting their Web site. Therefore, no organization should rely on on-site advertising as their sole revenue stream.

“It’s only a matter of time before people stop visiting Web sites altogether. Content is free and available, no matter how hard we try to copyright and protect it. In fact, many content models rely on content sharing to increase audience size. If you’re going to argue against disruptive ads, you’ll need to move your argument away from short-term revenue to long-term audience size. Eventually, all content-driven revenue will be based on impressions, attention, or recall. The dark patterns that are associated with obtaining short-term revenue by sacrificing Web site usability will eventually bite site owners on the ass.

“ If you’re going to argue against disruptive ads, you’ll need to move your argument away from short-term revenue to long-term audience size. Eventually, all content-driven revenue will be based on impressions, attention, or recall.”—Jordan Julien

“On the Web, your audience doesn’t have to visit your site to consume your content. Google’s knowledge graph is evolving in a direction where many ad-based sites—like movie theaters and travel Web sites—are simply losing visitors because people can consume their desired content directly on Google’s search results pages. Mobile and other applications allow users to subscribe to content, so they consume content only through Pluse, Feedly, Flipboard, Twitter, Facebook, Evernote, and similar apps.

“I’d recommend identifying key performance indicators that would translate into increased audience size—regardless of whether it translates into site visits. Think about why people would read, share, discuss, and comment on the content that is available on your site. Is it more pleasurable? Is it fun? Does the experience foster content discovery? Does the experience make the user feel listened to?

Develop theories that you can test. What would increase readership? What would increase revenue? Ideally, any long-term adoption of your theories should be based on testing. If you can get 10X more revenue by utilizing an advertising technique that would cost you 5% of your readership, would it be worth it? If so, I’d find a new job because the site will eventually lose its audience and its best content producers and, ultimately, its advertisers, too. Why waste time helping an organization to die when there are so many others that are on a winning path.”

Topic: Columns | Web Site Design

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3 Ways Showrooming Could Affect Ecommerce

jULY 30, 2013 · BY ARMANDO ROGGIO

 

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New survey data about “showrooming” may reveal weaknesses or trends that could have important implications for online or multi-channel retailers in at least three areas: product prices, product information, and customer service.

About 43 percent of Internet-using American adults have “showroomed,” examining or looking at merchandise in a traditional brick-and-mortar store only to buy an identical item at a lower price online, according to a Harris Interactive QuickQuery Poll conducted in June 2013. Showrooming has been an area of concern for many physical retailers, although others have seen the mobile smartphone-enabled trend as a form of shopping convergence.

The Harris Poll pointed out at least three interesting areas that Internet retailers — pure play or multichannel — may want to consider.

Showrooming Is Typically About Price

Nearly everyone (96 percent) surveyed in the Harris Poll indicated that price was at least somewhat important when making a choice to purchase from an online store. Some 82 percent of respondents said that price was either very important or extremely important when it comes to making an online purchase.

Here the implication is that online retailers may need to compete on price alone — or at least that is one reading of the data. While this might not necessarily be a weakness, competing solely on price can lead to relatively low margins and a higher barrier to entering the market.

The first possible implication — that competing on price leads to lower margins — may be obvious. If you have to sell products for less, but you still buy those products at the same cost, your margin shrinks.

Price competition may also make it more difficult for small retailers to begin selling a product at all. Manufacturers and distributors notoriously offer high-volume sellers lower prices. Some high-volume retailers may even sell products at cost or even at a loss, in order to own, if you will, a certain percentage of the market.

Online retailers might want to evaluate their value propositions and seek options other than price to engage shoppers and make sales.

Showrooming Implies Online Customer Data Is Not Sufficient

Shoppers in physical stores and online are much more educated about products, generally, than they have been in the past.

“Today’s shoppers have become accustomed to doing their own research to get the maximum value out of every dollar they spend, and to feel secure about the purchases they’re making,” wrote Google Senior Vice President of Ads and Commerce Sirdhar Ramaswamy in a recent whitepaper.

Yet showrooming implies that somehow all of this online product information and the research the modern shopper is doing even before entering the store is not enough. If it were sufficient, there would be no reason to come into the store at all. But for some purchases, shoppers still feel compelled to go into a store, even if they ultimately buy on the Internet.

The Harris Poll showed that 69 percent of shoppers who check prices from mobile devices "showroom" electronics, including computers; 48 percent showroom clothing and shoes; and 32 percent showroom media like books, movies, or music. These most-showroomed products could be a clue to what’s lacking in online product descriptions.

As an example, imagine shopping for a large, flat-screen television. Any good online retailer is going to have a lot of text describing the television and its various specifications. But if you simply want to see how good the picture looks, that is not conveyed in most cases. Thus, while it might be less expensive to purchase a television online, and while it is a lot more convenient to have that television delivered directly to your door, you still might go into the store just to see it in action.

Similarly, think about shopping for shoes. A good website will have a description of the shoe and many great pictures of the shoe, but unless you have it on your foot, it is hard to know how well it will fit.

Online retailers may want to think about ways to help shoppers get an in-store experience without actually having to go in-store.

Showrooming and Customer Service

Interestingly, the Harris Poll found that 70 percent of respondents would buy from an online store if they had a previous positive shopping experience, even if they could get an item for less from another, perhaps, less familiar source.

These findings reinforce some generally held ideas about the value of providing good or even great shopper experience and customer service.

It is also worth remembering that shoppers may have a higher bar for good customer service than retailers imagine.

Consider again that 43 percent of the respondents to the Harris Poll showroom. It is, perhaps, safe to assume that while at least some of the shoppers were standing in a brick-and-mortar store, smartphone in hand, Googling prices and product information, the occasional sales representative would approach, ask a question or two, and provide some valuable insight about a product. But, seemingly, that level of customer service was not enough to dissuade the customer from looking at a product in-store and buying online.

In short, online retailers need to “wow” customers, in order to create a positive shopper experience and entice them to not shop at a physical store to begin with

via Practical eCommerce http://www.practicalecommerce.com/articles/4125-3-Ways-Showrooming-Could-Affect-Ecommerce

New Hotel Booking Site Stayful Has Us Hopeful (So Long As Our Bid Gets Accepted)

July 22, 2013 at 5:29 PM | by juliana | Comment (1)

UPDATE 7.23.11: The recommend bid of $190 for The Nolitan Hotel was denied. Back to square one we guess.

Being hotel nerds determined to get the best deal on our hotel rooms, we've been known to get a little obsessive with all the hotel booking sites out there. We once rounded up our 5 favoritebooking sites to use and we're not lying when we say we usually consult all of those sites before booking a hotel room. And now we'll be adding one more into the mix--Stayful.com.

Stayful.com was just announced last week as a new booking site for independent boutique hotels, and not for every random chain hotel brand under the sun as you often see on most booking sites. But Stayful is not as wide-open as other booking sites. For starters, the site is in beta right now and is invite-only. And it's also only offering hotels in San Francisco and New York. So if you were looking to book that Chicago getaway, you'll just have to sit tight.

But Stayful does have one cool feature that most other sites don't usually have--"Bid or Book It Now." As the name suggests, you can search hotel rooms and either bid a lower price than what's listed or book it now and get the best available rate. If you're unsure about what to bid (and perhaps to prevent people from bidding too low), Stayful gives guests "recommended bids" which are rates that their site's algorithm believes the hotel is most likely to accept. Aha, finally some guidance in the hotel room bidding realm. That said, you can enter your own bid but you can only enter one bid per hotel every 24 hours.

According to Stayful folks, the independent boutique hotel industry loses $13.9 billion in revenue each year due to unsold hotel rooms. Cheryl Rosen, co-founder and CEO of Stayful, who previously worked at Expedia, Hotels.com called the Bid or Book It Now function of Stayful the "missing piece" in the online travel world

“There are thousands of independent boutique hotels around the world and they’ve struggled to find new customers for their unsold inventory. On the other side, travelers often don’t realize that they aren’t getting the best prices through existing sites. With Stayful, they’ll choose their own unique hotel experience and choose exactly the price they want to pay.”

So how do the rates and suggested bids stack up against the competition? We plugged in dates for August 1-3 on Stayful for New York and the following came up:

The site is true to its mission to feature independent boutique hotels, with the exception being the Trump Hotel at Central Park. But the "recommended bid" prices were about $50 less than the instant reservations prices. That's pretty good. We especially liked The Nolitan for a recommended bid of $190 versus the Book It Now price of $249 for a Neighborhood Queen Balcony.

So we clicked on the Recommended Bid button to see what would happen. Almost instantaneously, we received an email from Stayful telling us that the bid was sent to the hotel for review. After 24 hours, we would receive a note telling us whether the hotel accepts it. From then, we have three hours to make the decision if we want to book the hotel or not. Here's the email wording:

Please allow at least 24 hours for a response directly from Stayful. Our partner hotels typically respond very quickly because we're helping them sell rooms that may have gone unoccupied, which is why our members are able to get excellent rates.

Meanwhile, over at Expedia, The Nolitan was going for $245 a night for the same room type. The Nolitan's own website was offering $292 for a fully pre-paid rate for the same room type. If our Stayful bid gets accepted, then we will have saved nearly $100 off the hotel's room rate. Score!

If you're in a hurry and need a room fast, clearly, this site is not for you. But if you like the idea of bidding or negotiating for your room and can't stand the opaque-ness of other sites (like Priceline and Hotwire), not to mention the hassle (raise your hand if you're bid has been denied a few times on Priceline) then Stayful is going to make you gleeful. And hopefully, lead to a gleeful hotel stay as well.

via HotelChatter - http://www.hotelchatter.com/story/2013/7/22/165353/258

Where to Find Help with UX Strategy

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By Paul Bryan

Published: March 18, 2013

“Finding information resources regarding a strategic approach to UX design is a challenge because most UX publications and presentations focus on tactical solutions to common design challenges.”

Companies around the globe are realizing that they need to take a more strategic approach to user experience design. UX teams are feeling the pressure to be both better and faster, as agile development squeezes UX processes into short sprints; while analytics provide an instant read on how designs are performing in the marketplace. UX leaders are trying to keep up with changing technology and an explosion of devices, while at the same time trying to be smarter about how they make decisions for their UX roadmap.

Finding information resources regarding a strategic approach to UX design is a challenge because most UX publications and presentations focus on tactical solutions to common design challenges. In this column, I’ll discuss some ways to get help with formulating a UX strategy and communicating your strategy to an organization.

Graduating from Usability to UX Strategy

“Once you’ve solved the basic usability issues for a particular digital experience, your UX team can shift its focus to more strategic considerations.”

Usability is typically a key consideration when creating a Web site, application, or other digital product or service. Customers are quick to abandon an unusable product and move on to a solution that is easier to use. Poor design can cause users to make mistakes that are costly for them, and for you, to fix. When users are having a really difficult time, some will call customer service, adding to your cost of doing business. However, once you’ve solved the basic usability issues for a particular digital experience, your UX team can shift its focus to more strategic considerations.

While the goal of usability testing is primarily to remove obstacles and fix clunky interactions, UX strategy is about building a rationale to guide your UX design efforts for the foreseeable future. Changing your focus from usability to UX strategy is analogous to a person’s progressing from going to a doctor to cure an illness to meeting with a personal trainer to get in peak physical condition.

Usability testing answers the basic question: What parts of our design are difficult to use? UX strategy asks more complex questions such as the following:

• How can our design do a better job of engaging customers?
• What can our product offer that will differentiate it from our competition?
• What data should we be collecting to inform our efforts to deliver better user experiences?
• How can we meet our customers’ needs more comprehensively, providing a holistic solution across all touchpoints?

For complex businesses and designs, UX leaders and teams may find that they need help formulating a comprehensive UX strategy and communicating their strategy in an effective way to the rest of an organization. Here are some resources you can use to obtain the help you need.

The Internal UX Strategist

“Contact a UX Strategist at your project’s inception, as soon as resources are being allocated. … A UX strategy guides the overall design concept for a product, not just its feature set.”

Over the past couple of years, some larger companies have created a new job: UX Strategist. In a previous column on UXmatters, I interviewed three people working as UX Strategists. If a UX Strategist role exists in your company, obtaining help may be as simple as engaging part of a UX Strategist’s time to work on your project. If possible, contact a UX Strategist at your project’s inception, as soon as resources are being allocated. Once your design has started taking shape, it’s probably too late for a UX Strategist to have an impact. A UX strategy guides the overall design concept for a product, not just its feature set.

If the UX Strategist role has existed in your company for a while, it’s likely that many departments and product teams within the company will have realized how critical UX strategy is to a successful design—especially in terms of aligning the user experience with the rest of the business. In this case, you may have difficulty getting a UX Strategist allocated to your product or program. On the other hand, if your company has only recently created the role, it’s likely that there aren’t yet many people who understand the value a UX Strategist brings to the table. To take advantage of this early-stage availability, explain your goals for your program or product and request the participation of a UX Strategist as early in the process as possible.

The External UX Strategist

“The first thing you should look for in an external UX Strategist is experience with large-scale programs and products. UX strategy is based on a wide variety of complex data sources….”

Today, in the vast majority of companies, either there are no UX Strategists, or there are too few to go around. So you may want to bring an external UX Strategist on board to help you formulate a UX strategy or communicate your UX strategy to the rest of the organization. (Disclosure: This is how I make a living, so keep this in mind as you read this section.)

The first thing you should look for in an external UX Strategist is experience with large-scale programs and products. UX strategy is based on a wide variety of complex data sources, business strategy analysis, deep understanding of evolving customer needs and behaviors, awareness of the competitive landscape, detailed interaction modeling, and more. If a UX Strategist can’t demonstrate that he understands these strategic facets of UX design and has created a comprehensive UX strategy in the past, he is unlikely to be the right partner for this kind of engagement.

As with the internal UX Strategist, you need to bring the external UX Strategist into your program early, so he can help get things moving in the right direction from the start. While you can devise and apply a marketing strategy once a product is in its design phase, you can’t wait to devise or apply a UX strategy until that point. A UX strategy helps you to determine what you’re designing, what a product’s feature set should be, how it can meet customers’ needs and expectations, and how it can achieve strategic business goals. Trying to retrofit a UX strategy on a product that already exists just doesn’t make any sense.

The Design Agency

“Before assuming that your agency can help you formulate a UX strategy, take some time to identify what specific people would be taking on this role and determine whether they can meet your needs.”

Larger companies typically have an ongoing relationship with one or more UX design agencies. Even smaller companies often depend on agencies for all or part of their UX design needs. Depending on your organization’s internal UX capabilities and its relationship with a UX design agency, you may expect the agency to handle the UX-strategy aspects of your program. This would, of course, be very convenient for you because you wouldn’t have to hire someone specifically to fill the UX Strategist role. Since you already have a business relationship with the agency, having them play this role would be just a matter of resource allocation and a little paperwork.

However, before assuming that your agency can help you formulate a UX strategy, take some time to identify what specific people would be taking on this role and determine whether they can meet your needs. Because of the importance of this role to your program’s future success, you should go through the same vetting process you would with an external UX Strategist, as I described earlier. Don’t assume that someone with the title UX Director or UX Lead necessarily has the experience they’d need to assimilate all of the relevant customer and business data and existing strategy documentation and produce a comprehensive UX strategy. If the agency doesn’t specifically offer UX strategy services and produce deliverables detailing their UX strategy, it’s likely that their approach would be more tactical, so you may need to look elsewhere for help formulating your UX strategy.

On the other hand, some agencies are well known for their strategic competence. If you are fortunate enough to have one of these agencies as your partner, you won’t have to worry about people working out of their depth. Such agencies tend to charge significantly more for their work than tactically focused agencies, but they will guide your program or product onto the right path. This is a very valuable service and worth the expense.

Do It Yourself

“If you want to play the role of UX Strategist yourself, you’ll need to gather the necessary ingredients for a UX strategy from disparate areas within your company.”

If you want to play the role of UX Strategist yourself, you’ll need to gather the necessary ingredients for a UX strategy from disparate areas within your company. The size and complexity of your company will have a substantial impact on how you go about doing this. In small companies, people wear many hats, so obtaining the information necessary to formulate a UX strategy can be relatively straightforward. In large companies, it may be difficult to track down some or all of information you need, because it lives in different pockets within the company; and people in other parts of the company may feel that, by not sharing the information with you, they can enhance their job security.

If you happen to be a product owner and have the necessary interest and experience in UX strategy, you may be in a good position to take on the role of UX Strategist. But if you are not the product owner, you should establish a relationship with this person as soon as possible, explaining your intention to develop a UX strategy. The product owner may see himself as having this role by default, so it’s best to clarify your intent before progressing too far into a project.

In addition to the product owner, you should establish contact with the people who have the following areas of responsibility or have access to the information that you need to formulate a UX strategy:

• business strategy
• customer experience
• customer research
• analytics
• competitor analysis
• product marketing
• merchandising (ecommerce only)
• content strategy
• social media
• scrum master or front-end development
• platform architecture

Each of these departments, roles, or specialties informs important aspects of a UX strategy. So, even if you’re hiring out the UX Strategist role, you’ll need these people and information sources to provide key inputs. Opening the lines of communications with them early on is a good idea.

Information Resources

“Only recently have UX professionals and businesses begun to recognize that UX strategy is essential to the success of digital products….”

Only recently have UX professionals and businesses begun to recognize that UX strategy is essential to the success of digital products. Therefore, good information resources on UX strategy are still fairly limited. However, here are a few of the available resources:

• UXmatters—My UX Strategy column on UXmatters—including this edition—has been focusing on the topic of UX strategy since 2011. Other authors contribute articles on UX strategy to UXmatters as well.
• UX Strategy and Planning Group on LinkedIn—This LinkedIn groupdiscusses the topic of UX Strategy and has over 5,000 members from around the world.
• UX Strategy Conference—Leaders in the field of UX strategy will be sharing their knowledge at UX STRAT 2013, September 9–11, 2013. See the conference Web site for more details about the conference, as they become available.
• Experience Strategy: A Practical Approach for User Experience Leaders—I am coauthoring this forthcoming book with Stephanie Sansoucie of Kohls.com. Morgan Kaufmann will publish our book in late 2013. The book describes the various inputs, steps, roles, and deliverables that formulating a UX strategy involves, as well as how to communicate UX strategy to your organization.

Conclusion

“UX strategy is a rapidly growing field—and one that will bring a huge return on investment….”

If you want to bring the benefits of a comprehensive UX strategy to your program or product, but need some assistance in doing so, there is a growing number of resources to help you. UX strategy is a rapidly growing field—and one that will bring a huge return on investment to the companies who are savvy enough to dedicate resources to UX strategy early in the digital product lifecycle.

Ecommerce Priorities Depend on Lifecycle

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APRIL 05, 2013 · BY DALE TRAXLER

 

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Knowing your business's lifecycle is important. Before you invest in a new ecommerce platform, or make decisions based on the latest ecommerce trends, be sure you know where you are in the lifecycle of your business.

Why is the business lifecycle important? There are many reasons.

• Objectives change. Your business objectives will be different when you are starting out versus 10 years into the business.
• Resources change. Your internal resources will improve over time, allowing you to implement more sophisticated technology and marketing strategies.
• Platform needs change. Your ecommerce platform and supporting systems will be different throughout your various levels of maturity.
• Budgets grow larger. Assuming your business is successful, you'll be able to invest in more sophisticated strategies.

Let’s assume there are four levels of ecommerce maturity: "Beginner," "Novice," "Intermediate," and "Expert." Further, let's assume you operate one or more online stores in the business-to-consumer markets.

What follows are examples of the types of priorities and investments you might have in different levels of your business lifecycle.

Beginner

In the beginning, you will likely be focused on the following types of objectives and investments.

• Products, suppliers. Finding suppliers and choosing products that someone will buy.
• Hiring a team. Hire staff to design and operate your business.
• Platform, systems. Choosing the right ecommerce platform and systems to support your business.
• Launch. Branding and planning the launch of your business.
• Visibility. Designing a way to gain visibility for your new store, such as search engine optimization and promotion.
• Populating products. Getting all your products into your new online store with content, images, pricing, and other data.
• Metrics. Monitoring key metrics that involve traffic, visits, unique visitors, bounces, and referrals.
• Fulfillment. Piecing together a fulfillment system, learning as you go.
• Physical space. Renting an office you can afford.

That’s a lot of work, and potentially a significant investment. Once you have everything built out, you will be focused on successfully fulfilling your orders and then learning about what sells and what does not.

Novice: 1 to 2 Years in Operation

As a novice, you likely have a fledgling business. You’ll have customers, search engine visibility, and a revenue stream. Your objectives and investments will likely move to increasing revenue. You may also start to tackle operating inefficiencies.

Here are some priorities you will likely have.

• More customers. Expanding your customer base to expand revenue.
• Adding more products to increase revenue.
• SEO. Gaining visibility in search engines.
• Monitor key metrics. Paying attention to key metrics related to conversation rates, cart and checkout abandonment, new customers, average order value, and acquisition cost.
• Customer service. Dealing with more customer service issues and improving your turnaround time. You may need to automate your processes with a customer management system.
• Supply chain. Broadening your supply chain and working to optimize your inventory levels and reorder points.
• Hiring experts. Hiring more in-house expertise for your platforms, systems, and marketing
• System efficiencies. Integrating or upgrading your shopping cart, order management, and financial systems.
• Marketing. Email, social media, Pay-per-click advertising, and remarketing.

Intermediate: 3 to 7 Years in Operation

At the intermediate level, your business could experience growing pains, but you likely have a reasonably successful company. This is when companies frequently need to upgrade or change their shopping carts. You’ll also start to focus more on profitability and seek new markets for products rather than keep going with a single online strategy. Here are some other key priorities and investment activities.

• New sales channels. Seeking new markets with niche stores, selling in marketplaces, or expanding to completely new markets, such as business-to-business or global.
• Continued product expansion. This could include private label goods to enhance your margins and competitive advantage.
• Focus on profit. Key performance indicators will focus on profit.
• Improved analytics. You will use improved analytics and business intelligence tools to drive decision making
• Staffing. You will likely hire professional managers to build and train your growing staff.
• Financing. You will need to secure larger lines of credit to support your inventory needs.
• Physical space. Do not invest in your own building.
• Platforms. Ecommerce platforms will be upgraded for scalability and new features and to become competitive with larger retailers. This could include integration with a customer management system.
• Marketing. Digital marketing will be ultracompetitive. You’ll manage it carefully, making sure you reach target consumers.

Expert: More than 7 Years in Operation

Now, you are head-to-head with the top 500 etailers. You likely have an experienced management team, with consistent recruiting of new talent. Your margins may be smaller than ever as your overhead has increased to support your growing operations. Your investments will be based on profitability.

• Consistent customer service. Ensuring your customer experience is consistent across all touch points: mobile devices to social media interactions.
• Global. Possibly launch global stores to further expand your markets.
• Personalization. You could use data mining to personalize marketing programs.
• Supply chain automation. Automating your supply chain, if you have not already done so.
• Sophisticated platforms. Your ecommerce platforms will be highly scalable and integrated with all other systems.
• More channels. Depending on your products, you may further expand into additional channels.

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