For some businesses, it may make sense to keep all staff internal, but for many, the benefits of outsourced resource can really surpass the negatives.
If you often find yourself dabbling in various ecommerce and online marketing tactics, but ultimately don’t have the time to dedicate to learning and implementing these strategies, then outsourcing is for you.
There may be various turning points that are key in deciding when is the right time for your business to turn to ecommerce outsourcing, we’ve pulled out some key things to think about when considering outsourcing your ecommerce efforts.
Ecommerce is not your area of focus or expertise
Ecommerce is a specialist skill set and for businesses looking for growth in digital, this presents a huge challenge. How do you grow your sales quickly in ecommerce, when you have the desire but not the capability to do so?
Similarly, even when you do have the expertise, do you struggle with focus?
Ecommerce is often perceived as low hanging growth for businesses early in their ecommerce journey and its success is often limited by a lack of real focus on this area. It’s the same in many businesses, you start out each day with a plan, but day to day life has its surprises and things always seem to pop up. The bigger things get pushed aside to get the small fixes out of the way, and over time, some strategic plans aren’t followed through.
Your business is growing faster than anticipated
Maybe you’ve given ecommerce the focus it needs, and your business is growing well. How do you keep up with the ever-increasing opportunity you’re being presented with and maximise all the chances you have to grow your business?
While growing too quickly may be a nice problem to have, leaving opportunity on the table leaves you open to threats from the competition.
One example of this could be that you’re doing a great job of growing through customer acquisition, but missing out on huge opportunities around customer retention.
Typically, acquiring a new customer is 5 times more expensive than retaining an existing customer, and increasing customer retention rates by just 5% can increase profits by 25-95%.
You may be seeing great growth in enticing a customer enough to get them to purchase for the first time, but your post-sale strategy should nurture them to come back and make them feel like part of the brand and community around it. If a customer feels valued, they are more likely to return; think targeted, segmented email campaigns, social media retargeting, birthday emails, etc.
Not having all of our bases covered is not only a lost opportunity but an open door for your competitors, who are also focussed on new customer acquisition, to step in.
Thinking through and setting up the strategy takes time, and needs monitoring and adapting, hence why many businesses miss this by not investing the time required, and therefore those customers they may have gained have been turned off forever.
Outsourcing and partnering on key areas of your ecommerce business can help you grow quicker, cover all of your bases and help you retain customers for your long term growth.
You’re ready to grow bigger, but have no space for staff
Many businesses flourishing in the early days are run by very small highly efficient teams, often with only one or two members of staff. When things are going well, but the online side of things is becoming too much, sometimes hiring more staff is just not an option. Plus, how do you recruit when you have the budget for 1 or 2 roles, but in reality need 3 or 4 different skill sets to round off your team.
Outsourcing elements of your ecommerce team allows you to grow your skill set and capability in many areas, without needing to recruit and seat the same number of headcount.
You may find that you need some PPC, some paid social, email automation, some social media marketing and a little bit of strategic input, or maybe you want to make the move to selling on Amazon but you don’t really get it.
It doesn’t seem worth it to hire five or six members of staff to carry out these tasks when you’re just getting started, having to train them up on the intricacies of your business.
Outsourcing makes this easier, and you’ll be granted an army of online experts to do the work for you.
Sound familiar?
Outsourcing allows real focus to be brought to your ecommerce efforts, implementing and analysing tactics to fully optimise sales. With an outsourced ecommerce team, their job is to focus on your ecommerce business, without the distractions of dipping in and out of every other part of it.
Having an outsourced ecommerce team brings the benefits of experience, with the know-how to take your organisation to the next level, saving time and letting you focus on other things. They know the trends and have more exposure to the latest technologies, so you can have access to tech opportunities that may not be possible with a limited in-house team.
45% of B2C customers repurchase after an impressive customer experience, and the B2B percentage is even higher at 62%. Introducing the right outsourced ecommerce team means you can be safe in the knowledge that your ecommerce efforts are in good hands, and your customers can reap the benefits with a positive online experience. Meaning that your brand values can stay true while you accelerate your business growth in other areas.
At Venture Forge, we’re a team of retail, digital and ecommerce experts. We blend the agility, energy and entrepreneurial flair needed to drive a growing business, with a healthy dose of the rigour and maturity from our experience with some of the big players in retail.
We’re a growth focused, results-driven partner for your ecommerce business, bringing our experiential knowledge to your business through a truly agile approach driven by dynamic progress. If you are thinking of outsourcing your ecommerce team, then give us a call to chat through what we can do to help your business.
