By Molly Winter, Walmart Account Strategist, VENDO

In the past two years we have seen an incredible shift in retail business to online. Some brands saw an incredible boom in their online business, and some got left behind because they were not ready for the shift in consumer behavior. Let’s look at some things you can do right now to win online and make up for lost time!

Shipping

It is no secret that shipping can be one of the highest costs to brands online, but there are steps that brands can take to lessen this burden on their margins. To start, make sure that what you are shipping online is as lightweight as possible. Are there packaging components that you can remove to make the item lighter? One of our brand partners at VENDO changed their product from a bottled drink to a drink powder during the pandemic. This lowered their shipping costs astronomically and allowed them to give consumers a better cost ratio to product use online. Another way to lessen the burden of shipping is to offer larger pack sizes online. This increases your retail price and margin dollars giving you a little more room to ship the item and still maintain a profit.

Content

• Whether you are selling on your own website, Amazon, or Walmart, content is always going to be one of the most important things when selling online. This is how you speak to your customer and convey why they should buy your product over a competitor’s. Every site has their own content expectations, but in general you want to make sure you have 5-7 images, well written copy, and description and features of your products listed out in bullet point format. Having all of this will also help your product to be pushed to the top on sites’ SEO rankings and will help consumers find your product more accessibly.
• It has also been proven in recent years that customers respond well to videos on sites that can explain your product or show how a consumer would use it in everyday life!

Sustainability

Although sustainability is not something that is only important in online retail, it is something that companies can show more easily online than you would in a traditional brick and mortar store. If your company has sustainability practices, call them out online! Work it into your copy, make sure it’s in your key features, and create infographics or videos to educate customers on what you are doing. Sustainability is important to consumers, and they will remember it forever. Also, if you are selling on Walmart or Amazon, there are places where sustainable brands can be featured. If you can get your items approved for sustainability, your items will get free placement onsite and in stores where people are actively looking for sustainable brands to support.

Be Where Your Consumers Are

• Half the battle of winning online is just showing up! Are you on the sites that your customer is looking for you on? If you are not, I can guarantee that your competitors are. Having a direct-to-consumer website is not always enough. Consumers are using sites like Amazon as a search engine to find and learn about products. If your product is not on the platform, the sale goes to the competitor, and you lose the opportunity to educate consumers on your product and brand. Selling on Amazon and/or Walmart are fantastic ways to reach your customers, be easily accessible, and enables them to become lifetime users.
• There are many new marketplaces popping up online that appeal to a more niche audience. These sites will not get the traffic that Walmart or Amazon does, but they may give you more access to your target customer rather than just the mass market.

Omnichannel

• Many brands start online with the goal of moving into brick and mortar, but when doing this, they will put online on the back burner to prioritize the new store accounts. While this can often make sense, it is not always the best thing given the omnichannel trend that stores are trying to emulate. When going into stores like Walmart, brands need to have a plan of how they will sell these items online profitably. Walmart will be expecting it and it may even affect the decision of whether your items will go in stores or not. It is important to always keep the customer on your mind and be thinking about how they are going to want to purchase your product. Then, your offerings need to be available to them in the relevant channels that your consumer may use. This will become increasingly important in the future as consumers continue to expect a seamless experience.

Conclusion

Winning online is all about being there. Be present, be accessible, and maintain a synergistic customer experience throughout all channels.