The eCommerce industry is much different today than it was a few years ago.
The global lockdown restrictions led by COVID-19 Pandemic have completely transformed the way people shop these days.
Before the Coronavirus Pandemic, the worldwide eCommerce market was valued at $3.3 trillion in 2019. The same amount has nearly doubled in 2022 and is forecasted to reach $7.3 trillion in the next three years.
So what does this mean for retail businesses? Endless opportunities!
As the number of online shoppers are increasing by leaps and bounds year on year, so is the number of retailers taking their businesses online.
Unfortunately, just setting up an online store is not enough in today’s fiercely competitive eCommerce world. There are tons of aspects an eCommerce business owner needs to take care of to survive in the industry.
And this is where an eCommerce consultant comes to the rescue.
In this article, we’ll discuss the subject in detail, and talk about five tips you can follow to grow your career as an eCommerce consultant.
Who is an eCommerce Consultant?
An eCommerce consultant is someone who has an ample amount of knowledge about every aspect of running an eCommerce business.
And since eCommerce consultants are experts on the subject, they’re primarily responsible to provide an eCommerce business everything, from marketing strategy and user experience to conversion optimization.
Put it bluntly, the role of eCommerce consultant is not an easy feat. It involves taking charge of many aspects of an eCommerce business including:
- eCommerce website management
- eCommerce marketing campaigns
- Increase rankings & traffic through eCommerce SEO
- Discover new business opportunities for clients
- Optimizing product pages for high conversion rates
- Creating and executing up-sell & cross-sell campaigns
- Running paid ads on multiple channels
- Dealing with email marketing
…and much more.
As you can see, there is more than what meets the eye when it comes to becoming an eCommerce consultant.
However, the good news is that you can most certainly become a successful eCommerce consultant even if you’ve no clue where to begin from!
Below, we’ve shared our top five tips on how to grow your career as a successful eCommerce consultant in 2022.
Tips for Growing your Career as an eCommerce Consultant
If you’re trying to start and grow your career as an eCommerce Consultant, you have most certainly made the right choice.
With an increasing number of online shoppers and retail businesses moving to digital space to cater to those online shoppers, there is an abundance of opportunities for you to become an eCommerce consultant (and succeed at it!).
Here are the top five tips to keep in mind for starting and growing your career as an eCommerce consultant.
Get the Business Basics Right
When you’re embarking on your journey of becoming an eCommerce consultant for the first time, it’s easy to overlook the most important aspects of building a consultancy business.
However, it’s absolutely critical to learn the business basics at the beginning of your journey. For starters, you should begin with drawing up a legal and business framework for your consultancy business.
Concurrently, you should also decide whether you’ll run things as a sole proprietor or go into partnership? Will you hire employees as your business grows or will you start with a team from day one?
Answering these and many other important questions is crucial at the beginning. Apart from that, you’ll need to have a lawyer draft your consulting agreement and decide which software to use for handling invoices and payments among other stuff.
Define Clear Business Objectives
When you’re starting your career as an eCommerce consultant, it is critical to define appropriate business objectives.
Preparing this foundation at the start of your eCommerce consultancy business can help you during interactions with your potential clients, peers, and partners.
Furthermore, clearly-defined business objectives not only help to negotiate deals more effectively, they even help to identify and turn down deals that do not align with your long-term vision or goals.
Be a Jack of All Trades and Master of One
As we said earlier, as an eCommerce consultant, you’ll find yourself taking care of a broad range of tasks, especially in your early days.
For instance, you’ll be performing SEO to achieve your marketing goals, deciding whether to offer overnight deliveries through express air freight service, identifying profitable products, and negotiating with suppliers.
But keep one important thing always in mind — as a consultant, your primary job is to deliver expertise!
Therefore, you must obtain expert-level knowledge to be able to offer specialized knowledge and value to your clients in the long run. You can decide to acquire specialization in about two or three aspects of eCommerce and let your peers take care of the remaining responsibilities.
Build a Professional Network of Contacts
Becoming an eCommerce consultant means you’ll need a steady stream of recommendations. At the beginning, these referrals often come from friends and family who want to help you succeed.
But later on, you’ll need to cultivate referrals by building a network of professional connections in your industry. New referrals could either come from former & current clients or they could come from other consultancies pointing your way when they do not have necessary skills or resources to get the job done.
In fact, a study has even revealed that business referrals create up to 65% of new business opportunities.
The key takeaway is that new referral business can come from many sources, which is why it is essential to build and nurture professional connections within your industry.
Prioritize Your Clients’ Needs
Being an eCommerce consultant, your primary responsibility is to help struggling eCommerce businesses navigate a specific niche in the marketplace. Therefore, you must adopt an empathetic approach towards all your clients.
Ideally, you should begin by asking your clients to state their challenges and their short-term & long-term business goals. Afterwards, come up with appropriate solutions to overcome those challenges and give the best value for their money.
Conclusion
eCommerce consulting is undoubtedly one of the lucrative and rewarding career choices in 2022. However, individuals must learn all the ins and outs of eCommerce and become an expert to become a successful eCommerce consultant.
Hopefully, these tips will help you to navigate and grow your career as an eCommerce consultant while minimizing the majority hardships involved in it.
