In these bad economic times e-retailers are now forced to make a choice. Either go back to basics and optimize what you already have, or investing and grow and take market shares in this recession.

What will you choose?

Depending on the financial situation of your company and what market you operate in, there are different strategies to select:

Strong economy / high growth

If you have this starting position, you have great opportunities to go out of this recession as a winner. Now is the time to invest in your e-commerce in several ways to take market share. Think broadly and consider how you can develop new channels such as mobile, social networks, Kiosk solutions and create an effective multi-channel strategy. Expand to new markets, extend your range of offers, set up micro sites for specific brands, audiences, products or for individual campaigns.

Strong economy / mature category

For companies that have a good economy, but operates in a mature market should focus on enhancing your customer experience on you r e-commerce site. This can be done by creating a more efficient customer service with intelligent chat functionality or with a user experience management system from Tealeaf. Consider how you can integrate and work with your existing customer base. Invest in a feedback platform like uservoice to create a dialogue with your customers and collect valuable insights on how you should develop and expand your business and e-commerce site.

Weaker economy / high growth

Companies that are not financially strong but seem to have a positive market should focus on activities that rapidly increase profitability and take market share. Bet on a personalization strategy by using automated systems from e.g.  Avail. Take advantage of all the benefits of a personalization, both on the site to create a high relevance for the visitors but also in your e-mail marketing to increase profitability.

Weaker economy / mature market

If you are in the unfortunate situation where you are not financially strong and you work in a mature market you should rethink and evaluate new opportunities. Is it to reach out to your customers through other channels?  If you are not already blogging, or in any way making your messages and communication with your customers more personal, this is something you should start doing as soon as possible.

There is a final strategy that all companies should invest both time and money in, regardless how the financial situation is or on what market you are operating in. This is to create a process, knowledge and tools to measure, analyze and test. To create a process to constantly increase the traffic, order value and the conversion rate is something that all companies who want to succeed in with an e-commerce sale have to have a process for.