Welcome to our new blog series, where we interview experts in the e-commerce field. We will pick their brains to uncover the best-kept secrets and tips about how to work within this industry.

At Clerk, we are always inspired by e-commerce experts and know there is a vast amount of untapped knowledge that deserves to be shared with a larger audience.

In the first of its kind, we’ve decided to start close to the heart with our very own CEO, Mikkel Novod.

Let’s get into it.

Mikkel’s top 3 e-commerce tips

‍Tip 1: Always understand your product inventory and its turnover.

Mikkel’s first tip is always to have a complete understanding and overview of your inventory and its turnover.

It’s vital to understand which products must be consistently kept in stock and which can be drop shipped.

To figure out the quantities required, carefully take stock of your inventory and analyze the frequency of your purchases. 

You must have a clear understanding of your customers’ purchasing behaviors to then optimize your inventory and cash position. A mismatch of inventory compared to what is actually desired by the market can be costly.

Once you know this, you can then meet the market’s demands, while balancing other costs, including storage and warehouses.

Tip 2: Understand your product mix.

Mikkel’s second tip relates to your products themselves: you need to understand your product mix.

What does this mean?

Every webstore has its revenue drivers and profit drivers. 

Think of an electronics store. A television would be a revenue driver. This item could bring in many customers, but the profit from this item is marginal at best. This profit sometimes doesn’t even cover the cost of freight or warehouse storage, let alone the other prices associated. 

This is where profit drivers come in. 

These are products related to the revenue drivers but have a much larger profit margin, such as a TV cable or remote control. It’s vital that these products be sold with the revenue drivers to up your sales. Thus, if a customer has placed a revenue driver in their basket, show profit driver items alongside it! 

Ensure your website is structured so that customers can see profit drivers every time they see a revenue-driving product. Using a tool like Clerk’s recommendations sliders is perfect for this, as they can be placed throughout the customer journey. 

Tip 3: Understand your customers’ journey. 

And finally, Mikkel’s last tip is to thoroughly understand your customers’ journey.

As an e-commerce owner, you must understand how they interact with your webstore and set up your store accordingly.

E-commerce websites should function just like real-life stores. For this example, let’s take a supermarket.

Your website’s front page should act like the front of the supermarket, featuring new products and trending items. This page needs to grab the customer’s attention because they will leave if they don’t find your store interesting within the first 10 seconds.

The product collection pages function like the aisles, and just like a supermarket aisle, there should be an appropriate number of products to keep people interested and scrolling. Too little is alarming, but too many is overwhelming. 

The cart page functions like the shelves at the counter, stocked with those final impulse purchase products to increase basket size. 

Concluding remarks:

And there you have it, three tips from our CEO Mikkel, all ensuring you make the most of your webstore. 

Stay tuned for the next article in our e-commerce tips series!