E-Commerce Trends and Inspiration for Online Sales

As a basis for e-commerce activities, experts recommend a cross-channel and tailor-made strategy. For some time now, a trend toward direct-to-consumer (D2C) has been observed, stimulated by new opportunities in digital commerce, for example via social media. The advantage: by selling directly to customers, shops can balance out their dependencies in sales.

For Bamix, Webrepublic developed a global strategy for a future-oriented approach to digital platforms. An important aspect of this approach is to standardize the Bamix brand across its sales countries. Depending on the dealer structure, we use different strategic measures to increase sales via digital channels.

Amazon and Co. are the winners of the global pandemic and continue to expand their dominance. Google and Facebook are increasingly moving toward the marketplace; since mid-May, retailers have also been able to sell their products on Facebook and Instagram. A curated product portfolio, optimized product information for the respective platform, and targeted advertising measures are crucial to online marketplace success.

For the young Zurich start-up RAMES, which produces high-quality leather accessories, Webrepublic has developed an Amazon strategy. The measures have had a positive impact on both visibility and the number of sales. This example shows that premium brands can also successfully use the international sales channel.

Knowing what customers are interested in is central to any SEO strategy. The regular analysis of search volume trends for online shops is particularly important. A solid SEO indexing strategy, as well as an efficient method for determining keyword targeting, allows you to react quickly to new customer needs.

At the end of March, a customer of Webrepublic was able to add certified hygiene masks – which at that time were scarce goods – to the product catalog and thus supply people who needed protection. An immediate keyword analysis, the subsequent adjustment of keyword targeting, and quickly and permanently indexing the product helped the company to climb organically into the top 10 since the beginning of April. They then flanked this strategy with the targeted use of the newsletter.

Omnichannel companies in particular have recently increased their budgets for performance marketing, in some cases massively, to compensate for the loss of income in the retail sector. A flexible, multichannel target definition helps companies grow efficiently and maximize sales. Instead of defining fixed monthly budgets, companies can use relative limits in terms of the cost-turnover ratio (CUR) or return on advertising spend (ROAS). 

You can achieve a lot even with small campaigns. While the Möbel Pfister stores were closed due to the lockdown, Webrepublic was already thinking about the reopening of the stores; users who had been looking for the opening hours of individual stores for a certain period of time were informed about the new opening hours by means of retargeting after the reopening. 

Spurred on by the lockdown, retail has shifted even faster and more strongly to the Internet. You can assume that this trend will also prevail in the long term. It is therefore worthwhile to compare online and offline data and to use existing information about customers for several channels.

Together with Mammut, Webrepublic implemented this at the beginning of the lockdown: Using the encrypted CRM data, it was possible to target the customers from the shop with online marketing activities, thus further boosting sales in the online shop. We recommend the use of encrypted CRM data for Google & Co. as part of a holistic omnichannel strategy.