So your online business is starting to grow. Sales are increasing, and you feel it's time to take things from the backroom to the big league.

Sound like you? There are many small-to-medium brands in your position, and it's not always obvious how to scale things in the right direction.

Make sure customers come back for more

Once you've bagged yourself a customer, the best thing you can do is find a way to make them come back for seconds.

One trusty way of making this happen is to up your email marketing game. Having acquired a customer's email at checkout, or via a signup form on your website, you now have the opportunity to build a relationship with them. 

That said, we all have junk folders full of emails from companies we bought from once and have no intention of visiting again. This is often because they don't appear to offer us anything of value – nothing, that is, which makes us want to go back for more.

A way of sidestepping this is by adding value to your email communications. Perhaps you could include a "how-to" tutorial related to your product, or a recommendation that ties directly to the purchase ("now you have the eggcup, why not buy the matching egg spoon?").

This simple step has the huge benefit of turning one-time purchasers into loyal return customers. They stop seeing you as the vendor for the contents of one particular shopping basket and start to invest in you as a brand.

Long-term commitment can also be fostered by encouraging your customers to create personal accounts, rather than checking out as guests. This makes it easier for them to repurchase, allows them to see their past orders and track current order status, and allows you to personalise recommendations.

So when a new customer buys something from you, approach them after the transaction by email and invite them to create an account. You could offer an incentive such as loyalty points, which then increases the chances of them signing up for a loyalty programme. This in turn can be a spoke in your customer retention strategy.

Boost traffic to your site with Google Ads

Customer retention is key to scaling your brand, but none of the above recommendations are possible without inbound traffic to your site.

If you're running a small-to-medium eCommerce brand, you'll probably have set up business accounts on social media. These are valuable in driving traffic to your store, but what about people searching on Google for the service you provide?

Google Ads is a simple online tool that advertises your business to people searching for your product or service. This increases the likelihood of your business being seen by searchers and helps drive people to your website.

How does it work? In simple terms, you write a blurb for your site and set a budget and duration for your campaign. You also have the chance to tailor your campaign to specific locations.

Embrace search engine optimisation (SEO)

At the time of writing, searching for "egg spoon" on Google gives you around 146,000,000 results. If you are a startup creating beautiful egg spoons, how can you ensure they shine in a sea of competition?

SEO – or search engine optimisation – is a way of nudging your site up the results by signalling to search engines that your site is relevant and worth visiting.

Just as Rome wasn't built in a day, SEO doesn't reap its rewards overnight. There's a lot to learn for newcomers, and the process takes a lot of time and planning.

That said, if you are keen to scale your brand, SEO is one way to enhance your online presence.

Outsource fulfilment

Full disclosure: this is where we can help.

Small-scale operations tend to get off the ground by covering all bases themselves. Let's say you are screen-printing T-shirts. In the early days of your business you'll not only be sourcing materials and making your products, but most likely will also be running the online store and social media accounts, keeping on top of emails, packing up sales, printing address labels, hauling them down to the post office…

It's a lot. And that's why, when you are ready to scale your business, you'll want to transform it into a lean, mean selling machine.

You're selling more, which means that the time you could be spending on product development and marketing is being spent instead on fulfilling orders.

It also probably means that you're running out of space. Many eCommerce brands start life in a garage or spare room, but as sales increase, so too will the floor space needed to store your stock.

On top of all that, you're racking up costs – there are shipping costs, of course, but also the money you're spending on fuel, driving to and from the post office whenever you need to fulfil a sale.

If you find yourself in this pickle, you could, of course, rent or purchase warehouse space, hire staff, and keep fulfilment in-house.

But a far cheaper and far less stressful way of solving this problem is to strike a deal with a firm like Stowsafe – what is known as a third-party logistics (3PL) company.

A 3PL partner will store your stock, pick your product, pack your orders, and ship them for you – all at a lower cost than expanding your premises and workforce.

As your business grows, some things are best left to third-party experts, and fulfilment is one of them. 

If your startup is going from strength to strength and you feel the time is ripe to outsource fulfilment, please get in touch – we'd be delighted to discuss ways we can help.

Want more info? Start by checking out our bespoke online fulfilment services.