2 min read
How to Adapt Your eCommerce Strategy During the COVID-19 Crisis
iCrossing Experience Transformation Strategy Team Mar 31, 2020 8:03:00 AM
![How to Adapt Your eCommerce Strategy During the COVID-19 Crisis](jpg/rupixen-com-q59hmzk38eq-unsplash.jpg)
While the visuals of empty supermarket shelves dominate the news cycles, digital storefronts have also seen explosive demand resulting from worried consumers who have been urged to stay home during this worldwide pandemic. What consumers might not realize is that groceries and household products delivered through online services are often stored on the shelves of brick and mortar grocery stores.
Outside of these grocers, eComm giants are delivering. However, many categories of items are facing massive shipping delays as companies like Amazon have restricted replenishment;of their warehouses to essential household goods only.
With this increasing eCommerce demand, advertisers may be tempted to ramp up existing campaigns to reach entire populations that are spending the majority of their time online. However, that may not be the best approach. A marketer’s goals within this dynamic must be to make the greatest impact on their business with the budget available and deliver the best experience for consumers.
To achieve this, now more than ever, marketers need to be tapped into:
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Available inventory
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Supply chain logistics
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Sell through rates
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Platform limitations.
A key scenario to watch out for:
Your product may be in stock and the customer gets past the Product Detail Page (PDP) and into checkout. They discover at this stage in the buying process that they can’t get a suitable delivery or pickup date/time due to a strain on the eCommerce provider’s supply chain. At this point they abandon their cart and walk away dissatisfied and move on to search for another, better option.
If your marketing budget is pushing consumers towards an experience like this, that results in frustration and in turn customer loyalty and brand perception could very likely suffer. This is happening right now across Prime Now, Amazon Fresh, Albertson’s and, to a lesser degree Instacart, among some others.
We must find ways to address these new challenges.
Monitor ROAS
In the scenario above, an advertiser is wasting money on a click or impressions for a transaction that is abandoned. This not only damages the relationship with the consumer, it negatively impacts conversion rates and overall campaign efficiency. It’s incredibly important to continually monitor ROAS to keep a read on transactions that fall into this category. The fact that people are searching for your brand or product and has been all along doesn’t necessarily mean profitability is possible with the campaigns as market dynamics and consumer behavior shift.
Closely Manage Available Inventory
Keep tabs on your distributors’ supply chains to get ahead of breakdowns and closely monitor sell through rates to ensure your campaigns are not accelerating an out-of-stock situation. If you have four weeks of inventory in the warehouse and replenishment isn’t possible for six weeks, a high level of investment may put you out of stock unnecessarily. It would actually create a better business impact to spread those dollars across a longer timeline and let organic content and SEO fill some of the demand.
These are uncharted waters for eCommerce providers, particularly online grocery. It is important that marketers do not over-react to a larger audience creating a negative brand experience situation but rather align their priorities and campaigns to the significant, complex business implications of this period. There is no one size fits all solution for businesses right now.
If you want to adapt your eCommerce strategy to maximize efficiency and business impact while maintaining the best possible service for your customers, contact us.
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