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20 Ecommerce Experts
Share Advice to Help You
Grow Your Business in 2020

2.
New year = the opportunity to look back and learn

3.
_We asked 20 ecommerce experts_

4.
What’s the #1 thing an ecommerce
entrepreneur can do to grow their
business in 2020?

5.
Here’s what they had to say

6.
Focus on channels you own

7.
“Take advantage of your own social networks to help
grow the business. Don’t forget, your friends and family
could be your biggest cheerleaders and best sales staff”
– Jess Pryles (Hardcore Carnivore)
@JessPryles
1.

8.
“Focus on repeat business. Focus on the channels that
you own like email, push, Messenger and SMS and try to
grow your revenue from your existing customer base.
Not only will it be less expensive but it will be far more
profitable than going after cold customers.”
– Steve Chou (MyWifeQuitHerJob)
@mywifequit
2.

9.
“Add a compliant SMS opt in
to your checkout page”
– Alex Beller (Postscript.io)
@ringmybeller
3.

10.
P.S.
Did you know you could do this in Privy?
LEARN MORE AT PRIVY.COM/TEXT

11.
“Build up your subscriber lists on Facebook Messenger and
SMS now and collect key information via these channels,
such as product preferences. By the time Black Friday 2020
hits, you’ll have high-engagement, high-converting audiences
and unique data you can use to personalize the messages and
emails you send to them.”
– Ben Parr (Octain.ai)
@BenParr
4.

12.
Set appropriate goals,
make sure to track them

13.
“Set better goals. Most business owners struggle
with setting appropriate goals for their marketing;
often unintentionally choking their growth and
falling behind competitors.”
– Ryan Garrow (Logical Position)
/ryangarrow
5.

14.
“Data science exists for your ecommerce brand
and it doesn't have to be scary or overwhelming.
Having a data and strategy-driven approach to
your actual customers and their journey from 1st
purchase through to loyalty will be the keys to
your success.”
– Steve Hutt (Shopify Plus)
@stevenhutt
6.

15.
Connect with your audience

16.
“Re-purpose content! Create one piece of content and
tailor it to different platforms. One video can then be
turned into several 30–1 minute videos for social media,
blog post, newsletter, podcast topic etc.”
– Vivian Kaye (KinkyCurlyYaki)
@ItsVivianKaye
7.

17.
“The number one thing you can do is build your
audience. It doesn't have to be on-brand. Think
about building a meme page for your niche. Not
only can you increase your organic reach, you can
also do your own native amplification/whitelisting
to sell more products, and build your email lists
through giveaways and promoting content.”
– Lucas Walker (Gorgias)
@WalkerLucas
8.

18.
“Personalization lies at the heart of delivering a great
user experience. In 2020, ecommerce entrepreneurs
should focus more on delivering relevant content to
their audiences, and less on deep discounts to attract
new buyers, convert returning visitors, and drive
customer loyalty.”
– Lindsey Paolucci (True Citrus)
@truelemon
9.

19.
“Successful online stores talk to their customers and
use the learnings to improve ecommerce customer
experience, and the best time to start optimizing a site
for the 2020 holiday season is now.”
– Jon MacDonald (The Good)
@jonmacdonald
10.

20.
“Make yourself available. If you're not currently offering
chat support on your store, there are plenty of free
options in the Shopify App Store to get started.
Customers prefer live chat over email because they can
get an immediate response, and that real-time customer
support can make or break a sale.”
– Kelly Vaughn (The Taproom Agency)
@kvlly
11.

21.
“You're stronger together: partner with like-minded
brands. An often overlooked step is one brand not
examining the other's customer support team—how
they perform reflects on you.”
– Jeffrey Lang (Oru Kayak)
/jeffreyslang
12.

22.
“Obsess over customer experience. Every aspect, at
every single touch point. And that doesn’t only mean
customer service. Look at post-purchase, return policy,
shipping, social media, email and messaging. How can
your brand provide a better customer experience than
your competitors? Are you supporting your customers as
best as possible?”
– John Surdakowski (Avex Designs)
@john_avex
13.

23.
“Listen to your customers. As entrepreneurs, it's easy to
assume you are the customer. And maybe you were —
once. But as your company grows you have to connect
with your actual customers and learn everything there is
to know about them. You may be surprised that their
behaviors are actually very different from your own —
and regardless, they're changing faster than ever before.
Really listening to customers is the only way to grow.”
– Eliza Blank (The Sill)
@TheSill
14.

24.
Don’t forget the basics_

25.
“I still think most companies fail at the basics. I think
the number one thing that a lot of companies don't do a
great job of investing in product data and great product
pages. Ideally you would have great images, videos, lots
of text and specs, and third party data like reviews etc.”
– Isaiah Bollinger (Trellis)
@Isaiah Bollinger
15.

26.
“Don't overlook your conversion rate. Examining the
user experience and looking for gaps in your sales
funnel where you lose potential customers is a great
start. Once you plug the leaky holes in your sales
funnel, you can work on increasing traffic to the site
for maximum gains!”
– Matthew Demers (Diffuse Digital Marketing)
@DiffuseLB
16.

27.
“2020 is going to be the start of truly global ecommerce
growth. For many brands using paid social as a mechanism
for growth they will find way friendlier cost per mile in
emerging markets. If you can solve for the fulfillment
challenges your international business could rival your
domestic business in 2020. We go through this in detail
and 4 other 2020 growth tactics in this blog”
– Taylor Holiday (Common Thread Co)
@TaylorHoliday
17.

28.
“Use tools that will boost conversion, customer lifetime value, and
average order value while reducing abandon cart and customer
acquisition cost. You can't look at your return on advertising spend
without thinking about all the indicators above. As an agency who
gets paid based on performance, Ikonifi stopped taking on clients
who aren't willing to add tools that complement our strategy. Tools
like Privy (and a dozen others we recommend) allow our clients to
cost-effectively scale faster.”
– Ryan Treft (Ikonifi)
@_ikonifi_
18.

29.
“Don’t get caught up in the new and shiny. Email is and
will continue to be important to all eCommerce
businesses. Craft a personalized experience on your
website based on your collected data and continue to
build relationships with them through their inbox,
social media and SMS (if that’s their thing) to break
through the noise”
– Kristen Curtiss (Privy)
@Privy
19.

30.
P.S.
Did you know you get a customer success
manager with many of Privy’s plans?
LEARN MORE AT PRIVY.COM

31.
“Think about what you want your business to look like in five years
and the types of customers you need to get there. Build a suite of
products and a site experience for the long term and focus on
marketing complementary products to increasing average order
value and cart size. Recommendations on your product pages and
Privy pop-ups after consumers add a product to their cart help
customers know that you have so much more to offer!”
– Amanda Knappman (Urban Skin RX)
@UrbanSkin
20.

32.
To wrap up

33.
Focus on channels you own
Email, SMS, and Facebook Messenger are the
best channels for reaching high intent shoppers.

34.
Set appropriate goals,
make sure to track them
If you can’t see where you’re going, how will you get
there? Setting realistic goals with clear tracking is the
fastest path to success.

35.
Connect with your audience
Find your niche. The more you can understand
your audience, the easier you can sell to them.

36.
Don’t forget the basics_
Investing in product data and building great product
pages leads to high conversion rates and more sales.

37.
What advice will you be acting on
in the new year?
Tweet us your answer @privy

38.
“If you put your mind to it
you can accomplish
anything”
– Doc Emmet Brown

39.
We’re here to help.
Sign up for free trial and get complimentary call with a member of our
team who has helped over 400,000+ brands grow their business.
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