A Great Time to Review your Business Strategy

January 26, 2011 · by Shirley Tan

It’s January again, but you already know that. The year 2010 was a wild ride for most entrepreneurs and the feedback that I’m getting from ecommerce business owners is that they did significantly better than in 2009. Most experienced between 8-14% growth and a few stores saw as much as 30% increase in revenue.

Online sales grew 36.2% in 2010 and over 17.3% in 2009. Retailers experienced significant growth in the last quarter, reflecting customers’ increased spending and feeling more confident about the economy.

One of the fastest growing sectors is mobile commerce. If you’re still on the fence on whether your company should be in mcommerce, the decision has pretty much been made for you, your current ecommerce store has to be mcommerce friendly or you’re simply just not in the game.

But before you run out and start your mcommerce site, let’s stop and take review your business strategy for 2011

What was your business strategy for 2010? How did it work? Which areas were successful and which ones failed? Are you going to continue with this strategy for 2011 or have some things changed? What changes have affect how you can execute on this strategy? These are just some of the questions I would encourage you to think about before formulating your business strategy for 2011. If you didn’t have one for 2010, answer the questions in terms of what your goals were and which goals were achieved and which didn’t get executed, or got executed but failed.

Next, review your business development/marketing plans for generating revenue online. Did you generate sales through PPC, Retargeting, Email, SEO, Social Media or other marketing strategies? How much did you spend for each, what was the revenue per channel and how effective was each method? You’ll need to know these numbers to determine where to direct more resources for 2011 and where to pull back.

Review your business operations: Which department killed it and which ones had you constantly battling to put out fires? Now’s the time now to correct these departments’ shortfalls and start reviewing your processes. By taking the time now and over the next several months to fine-tune your operation, you will have a better sense of control over what’s going on in your business instead of the problems controlling you.

A word of caution, while you evaluate your options for 2011, its crucial to be very strategic about your tactical goals, if you take on too much, you're likely to set yourself up for failure and end up being very frustrated or worst broke.

I once complained to a friend that there is so much to do and so little time and he replied, “Perhaps you’re trying to do too many things.” I took his words to heart and realized that there are too many things that you can do, but it doesn’t mean that you should do them all, much less do them all at the same time. Remember to prioritize and figure out how to put your efforts into the tasks that will reap you the rewards that you want and not the task that keeps you busy.

To get more ecommerce tips on running your business, please visit my blog at www.ecommercefaststart.com

Category: By Merchants, For Merchants | Tags: Business Development, Marketing