As an online store grows, its needs change.
More storage capacity, more product lines, SEO updates, or additional website sections — the list can be extensive.
As an agency, when it comes to wowing the retailers you work with, you need to be aware of all the opportunities available to them as they grow.
This all starts with the first stage of the process – the ecommerce platform.
The platform
We’ve talked about helping retailers choose the right platform earlier in this series.
Getting it right pays off most noticeably when it’s time to make improvements: with some platforms the process is fast and painless, while with others it’s slow, difficult and expensive.
Your opportunities to improve ecommerce websites are usually driven by one of two main factors:
Decreasing costs – this can be achieved in several ways, like cutting out third-party services that become redundant, or add little to no value, to finding better hosting services for their infrastructure needs.
Increasing revenue – driving up traffic through improved SEO functionality, increasing site speed, and improving search are just some of the ways retailers can generate more income from their site.
By fine-tuning the platform to improve in both of these areas, you can demonstrate the ongoing value of your agency to the retailer.
Advising the retailer
So how do you help retailers understand when it’s time to make a change, and how to navigate their options?
Ongoing reviews:
Whether this is monthly, quarterly, or annually, you’ll need to review the client’s website to understand their changing needs.
To really add value, you’ll need the client’s input to provide context and flesh out the information you’re getting from analytics and technical reviews. These flag up things like broken links, false redirects, missing metadata, or missing content, but don’t provide a full picture.
Staying informed:
It’s important that you stay abreast of all the latest options and developments provided by the chosen ecommerce platform. This will allow you to identify any new tools or functionalities that could reduce costs or increase revenue for your retailer clients.
Be challenging:
You’re the expert here. The client may have existing ideas, or suggestions made by others about what they want for their online store. But they’re paying you for your expertise, so you should challenge their beliefs if you think there is a better solution.
Educate retailers:
Amplify the reach of your advice.
Don’t just give one-to-one advice to specific retailers; share it with past clients, prospects, peers and your wider network online and via email so they can self-identify where they might need help. They’ll thank you for it.
Implementing suggested improvements
Retailers are far more likely to go ahead with improvements to their online store if they know disruptions and costs will be minimal. So provide options which minimise risk in these areas and you're more likely to get signoff.
Make sure you know how to minimise and mitigate downtime too. You can find out more about that in this blog post.
Once the implementations have been completed, leave time for them to take effect.
Check back in one, three, or six months (depending on what the change was) to see how the improvement has helped the website and where further changes can be made, or whether it needs more work.
The Aero platform
So where does Aero come in?
Implementing changes is straightforward because the platform was built to be extensible. It has a modular design allowing for additional functionality to be added with minimum disruption.
It also contains everything most retailers need out-of-the-box without being bloated by unnecessary features.
The Aero way
Aero provides agencies with assistance from the get-go to help you help retailers.
We keep agencies updated on any platform developments via monthly catch-up calls to discuss ‘what’s new’. This means that working with a platform like Aero will ensure you’re constantly aware of changes that could help your retailers.
This is on top of support like:
Tech day to give developers a clear understanding of how to get started with the platform.
Extensive documentation to help developers build and extend the platform.
Ongoing tech support via a dedicated, private Slack channel.
Ongoing commercial support via a dedicated agency point of contact, monthly check-in, agency asset packs with marketing and commercial material to make communicating Aero easy for agencies — plus help with positioning against other platforms.
To find out how your agency and Aero can work together, contact us today.
