Pandemic Accelerates the Erosion of Brick-and-Mortar Providing New Opportunities this Holiday Season for eCommerce

Morrison Consulting, LLC, a Scottsdale-based e-consultancy firm and Mode Effect, LLC, a Phoenix-based WordPress and WooCommerce development firm, both established Arizona companies recently merged to create a full-service ecommerce consulting, development and management agency.

“Something we’ve been talking about a lot since merger of our teams and talent is how the pandemic has affected our eCommerce clients – and, especially, how the pandemic will impact the holiday shopping season,” said John Morrison, CEO.

According to Adobe analytics, U.S. online sales increased 43 percent year over year in September, reaching $60.4 billion. Adobe’s data is compiled from more than one trillion anonymous visits to retail sites and more than 100 million SKUs across 18 product categories from 80 of the top 100 retailers in the Digital Commerce 360 Top 1000.

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According to Digital Commerce 360’s annual retail holiday survey release in September, 33 percent of retails are projecting that web sales will increase by as much as 24 percent this holiday season – notably due to the pandemic and the continued shift to online shopping.

So, what does this mean for both established and emerging eCommerce businesses?

“It means there is an opportunity, especially with Black Friday and CyberMonday fast approaching,” stated Morrison. “There has never been a better time to step up your strategy game as an eCommerce business.”

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Some of the critical areas for eCommerce businesses to focus on to take advantage of the continued rise of online shopping include:

• Search Engine Optimization (SEO): While gaining organic search ranking for the product and services a business offers can take time and the right SEO strategy, in the long run it’s well worth it and will pay off in Internet users organically finding your company through Google and other search engine queries.
• Pay-Per-Click (PPC) Ad Campaigns: PPC campaigns can help to boost traffic to your website and attract new visitors. If you have not yet reached your SEO goals for site traffic, PPC can be a great way to fill the gap and get fresh traffic to your online store. Notably, remarketing campaigns will bring back visitors to your website that have stopped by before but did not make a purchase.
• Marketing Automation: Automating your email marketing program and customer campaigns – notably your upcoming Black Friday and CyberMonday campaigns – is essential for nurturing your current and prospective customers. Tools like Active Campaign can make the process easier and also integrate your marketing automation platform seamlessly with your eCommerce storefront.

Additionally, as an eCommerce website gains more traffic, many companies run into new challenges related to increased traffic slowing down the website and sometimes even crashing it completely.

“This is where we have a lot of experience supporting our clients,” said Cody Landefeld, President and Director of Operations and Marketing. “We’ve helped many companies navigate the jump from being an eCommerce store with minimal traffic to making the jump to more volume. We can help them find the right solution to scale economically and have a high-performance site with our combined WordPress and WooCommerce development and hosting expertise.”

“The pandemic has accelerated the erosion of brick-and-mortar stores in favor of online retail,” concluded Morrison. “Now is the time to be thinking about how to amp up the infrastructure and systems of your eCommerce store and be ready for the ever-evolving changes and behaviors of online shoppers.”

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