Boom! Pow! Expand!

"Blowing up" Your eCommerce Business In The New Year

I like to start each New Year by looking over the past and evaluating what was good and the not-as-good over the previous three hundred sixty-five days. I break things down into categories like sales, advertising, promotions, search positioning, and other things like that.

By going through all the major aspects of my store and seeing where things worked (and where they didn’t) helps me gauge what I want to spend time working on in the coming year and what I want to either spend significantly less time on or remove entirely.

For me, the beginning of the year is the time for expansion – growing the things that are making me money and diversifying my business to make it stronger and more secure. For me, eCommerce is about sustainability. It's about creating a business with a solid foundation that only becomes more stable over time. That’s why this type of year-end reconciliation of your store tactics is important for you to do.

Of course you don’t have to do it in January if that doesn’t make sense for you, but for many, the holiday rush is the biggest buying season. So, once it’s over, it makes sense to start planning and implementing so you can increase your profits when it comes back around again.

Figuring out where your tactics and stores stand is the first step to take when looking to expand. So once I’ve figured out what areas are working I then look into ways to expand them and / or grow them. I make the distinction between expanding and growing because I see them as related but ultimately different ideas.

"Expansion" I define as making something bigger, while "growing" I consider more as cultivating. And cultivating can sometimes entail actually culling. They often go hand in hand but separating them makes them easier to talk about.

Expanding Tactics

For instance, one of the things I'm going to be expanding this year is my AdWords presence. I now employ a near full-time Pay Per Click manager, which allows me to triple the amount of AdWords ads I have running. I’m also going to be able to grow my AdWords campaigns by more narrowly focusing efforts and cash on Ad Groups that are already paying off and removing campaigns that have been deemed outdated.

So yes - PPC is one of the big areas I recommend eCommerce storeowners spend more time on in the New Year.

You’ll want to do the same with your natural search optimization tactics, your article marketing efforts, store blogging, sales / promotions, and your site conversion. I also do the same with my vendors. If something isn’t working the way I want it to with any of them, I call them up and discuss it with them. If it’s a big enough issue and they won’t bend, I just grow my business...by firing them as a vendor.

Expanding Products

Now I want to talk about expansion in terms of your products and your store(s). If you have a product or product line that consistently sells well, finding more products like it might be a way to expand on a current success. This might mean simply adding more products from one of your current vendors or it might mean finding a new supplier in order to expand your product line.

Finding new vendors is a great way to expand your business - though it can be a daunting task. Before going out and searching for new vendors by hand, I like to go through the World Wide Brands drop ship source directory at NewVendors.Info. Even if I don’t find a vendor for products to expand my current line, I usually find a few that I’m interested in dealing with, in some way or another. Finding a new line of related products is a great way to expand your store and using World Wide Brands is an easy way to find quality drop shippers and wholesalers without putting in hours of search time.

Now let’s look at another scenario. Let’s say your most profitable product line is pretty large in terms of number of products. Let's say you’re looking to expand it by finding another vendor. So you find one, and the line they offer is also very large. What then?

Consider this. Instead of adding it to your current store, what about opening a new store centered around that product line?

I do this all the time. Over the past few years I have opened a new store every year – it has become one of my yearly goals. The more income streams you have out there, the more stable your business. But a new store doesn’t have to be completely different than your current store(s)! There is nothing wrong with opening a spin off niche site selling some of the same things you’re already selling.

Say, for example, that my Civil War weaponry and costumes are selling like hot cakes. I would happily open a second weaponry store designed for the Civil War niche. I would use the products I get from my current vendors and find a few more that I could source from to fill out the store.
Niche sites are great and they are easier to rank with and maintain than larger stores. Breaking out your successful products in this way will grow your business in a relatively easy way. It’s nice to start a new store knowing you have a product that sells because you’re already successfully selling it.

You don’t have to get rid of the products on your first store when you open the new store either. In fact, I would recommend NOT removing them from you first store. By creating a niche store around items you also sell in your big store you’re creating even more competition for your competitors. That’s a cool idea, huh?

You’re expanding your market reach, getting on your way to dominating the search engine listings, and giving yourself more chances of getting the sale. Competing with yourself is a strategy I also recommend eCommerce storeowners work into their planning.

This year I am opening a brand new store (in a brand new market) and starting a spin off store. The spin off store is going to take much less time to create and I already know where to focus my efforts in terms of SEO and paid advertising. So I’m going to create that one first. I’m confident it will be making money as soon as I get my PPC ads rolling so I’ll begin the brand new store pretty much the day after the spin off is open for business.

If you’re looking to open a brand new store, it’s a good idea to test your market before spending the time and effort it takes to build a whole store. Testing with AdWords is one of the best ways I have found to test my market research and make sure the market I want to dive into is viable. Setting up a few test ads around your main products doesn’t take very long and the numbers will start coming in right away. I recommend this type of testing to anyone looking to open a store. Reaffirming your market research is always a smart move.

Now I’d like to talk a little bit about diversification and different ways of expanding.

Diversifying Your Business

To create a strong, sustainable business you want multiple streams of income, not just one giant income source. You just never know if something is going to happen to jeopardize that one source, which is why having many sources creates a much more stable business environment and adds to your personal financial security.

Diversification doesn’t mean you have to open a new store; any new stream of recurring income that you can bring in is diversifying. In my opinion the more revenue streams the better. I’d rather have ten sites bringing in $1000 each per month than four sites bringing in $2500 each per month. That way if a couple markets take a dip, my income isn’t as effected.

So I have four main online stores. As I mentioned, this year I’m opening two new ones. My stores are my main sources of revenue. I also have in the ballpark of 100-150 affiliate / AdSense sites out there. I don’t make nearly as much with these as I do with my stores but they provide a nice passive income every month. That’s what I set them up for – passive income. I could make more with them if I spent the same amount of time working on and promoting them as I do my stores, but I don’t want to. They are not my main business because I don’t want them to be.

I like being a storeowner and spending my time and effort promoting the things I actually sell. But it makes sense for me to take some time to create affiliate sites and spend a little more time getting them ranked because once they are going to stay going for a while and produce consistent income. Passive income is fantastic because it doesn’t require much work from you and gives you a nice monthly cushion.

When you begin diversifying, I suggest you start by opening a second store. Building your second is a lot easier than building your first. You already know what to do and you’ve done it once – it’s a faster process the second time around.

These are the things I focus on every New Year and I’m always looking and open to new ideas for generating and optimizing income streams. The deeper you look into your existing business the more areas you’ll find where you can optimize and the better ideas you’ll have for diversifying your income.