Since 2020, the eCommerce industry has been in a fever state of change, innovation, and thus the feeling of FOMO. If you’ve been feeling behind and looking for guidance on how to build a more effective executive strategy, you are not alone. Profitero’s 8th annual eCommerce Organizational Benchmark study found that half of the brands surveyed feel they are not keeping pace with the competition.
With input from more than 360 brand manufacturers from all over the world, our report also uncovered what leaders* are doing right to stay ahead of the curve.
*Note: Leaders were defined as brands with 26% growth in Omnichannel sales and share of their categories’ eComm sales.
Our report is chock full of takeaways and focused actions (11 to be exact!). To get your started, here are the three data-backed approaches illustrated with real world examples to get your organization moving in the right direction. Leaders* support their people, leverage the right partners, and have a set of practices that put data into action, fast.
Get a copy of the full report, and read on for some takeaways about these three critical business areas: people, partners, and practices.
People: Create accountability with clear eCommerce KPIs
Our survey looked at how leaders structured teams, communicated goals, established incentives and shared information. Leaders are 84% more likely to prioritize eComm in their growth plans.
Leadership that establishes clear eComm goals and continually communicates progress internally and externally succeeds. Every industry and organization has its unique challenges but common metrics like omnichannel market share can help leaders and practitioners stay aligned.
One global CPG brand set the ambitious goal of growing eCommerce market share globally. The focus was on key markets in North America, Asia-Pacific and Europe, and company leadership knew that empowering local markets with impactful digital shelf KPIs would aid the local decision-marking required to drive strategic growth. Working with Profitero, they built country-specific scorecards to serve as a single source of truth for global leadership, while enabling local teams to adapt on the SKU level. With help from Profitero scorecards, this brand doubled eCommerce growth across several markets within a year. Read the full case study.
Partnerships: Build an omnichannel tech stack that improves profitability
Partnerships are a way to get expert help and save your team time. From optimizing content and search to enlisting predictive analytics and AI technologies, our data reveals how leaders invest. One key differentiator was a focus on financial fundamentals. Leaders are 62% more likely to invest in revenue recovery and operations support solutions.
Enlisting automated solutions to address major gaps that cost your team money can have tremendous results. For example, a Profitero Autopilot audit revealed Moen had over $1 million in unclaimed, recoverable funds. The solution automates Amazon operations and catalog tasks and enabled the Moen team to successfully recoup six figures within two months - and prevent future revenue losses with a root cause analysis. Read the full case study. Or check out the video below:
Practices: Prioritize retail media and continuous optimization
Our survey uncovered how most organizations dedicate resources, what they measure, and how frequently they optimize. Retail Media is on the rise as brands are directing ad spend to where consumers are shopping. Brand investment in retail media grew 17 percentage points compared with last year. Leaders are twice as likely to include retail digital media in their total brand media planning and prioritize it.
To be more effective with their investments, leaders look at their retail search reporting and optimize more frequently than everyone else.
An investment in continuous optimization and strategic paid media management can drive more sales. Kraft Heinz adopted a strategy to proactively optimize its paid media strategy. With Profitero Shelf Intelligent Media and Pacvue, they were able to automatically increase budgets when competitors were out-of-stock. As a result, Kraft Heinz acquired 28% more New-to-Brand orders on Walmart for its Philadelphia products. They saw +5% increase in paid share of voice on the most frequently searched keywords. Read the full case study.
For more focused actions, check out our report. Or learn how your brand compares to the industry and top leaders by taking our omnichannel transformation assessment here. With these results, you can pinpoint next steps for omnichannel excellence in the coming year.