How Your WooCommerce Store Can Compete with

Amazon…and win!

Why WooCommerce?

WooCommerce Adoption

…and climbing!

Cody Landefeld Senior web strategist and founder at @modeeffect. We provide WordPress and WooCommerce for enterprise companies, technology innovators & non-profit organizations.

modeeffect.com @codyL

About Me

Learn from our competitor(s)

Learn from our competitor(s)

If we’re aware of the competition in our product or service space.

It’s important to mine as much possible information to know how you can exist and bring value to the customers you’re looking to serve.

Learn from our competitor(s)

107 Billion USD in 2015

Is Amazon our competition?

Maybe not direct competition. But Amazon is a wealth

of insight and research to understand buyer behavior.

Amazon provides a wealth of data that we can easily

find within a few minutes of searching.

Learn from our competitor(s)

Learn from our competitor(s)

Learn from our competitor(s)

Things to learn from Amazon

• What are consumers buying?

• What are they complaining about?

• What features do they wish a product had?

• At what price point is a product selling?

Create a strategy

Whether we’ve completed a written strategy before

launching our store, there should be a high-level

strategy we have for our online store.

It’s also not too late to write down a specific strategy on

how to accomplish your goals.

Create a strategy

Key things to consider when creating our online store strategy.

• Are the decisions you’re making in alignment with your vision and

brand?

• Make sure our store does one thing really well before adding to the

product/service line.

• Share the strategy with key people on our team.

Create a strategy

Build a brand

The difference between Amazon and our online store is that we are able to create a specific brand that specializes in a certain niche that Amazon can’t effectively serve.

Build a brand

The best way to define our brand is to ask one

important question:

When a customer thinks about our store or purchases

one of our products, what are the feelings and

emotions that arise as a result of that interaction?

Build a brand

The process works like this:

Your Actions + Your Customers Emotions and

Feelings = Your Brand.

Build a brand

Running a small store gives us a competitive advantage over a giant like Amazon. While Amazon must appeal to everyone, we only need to appeal to your target audience and customers.

The same thing applies to the design of our store.

The layout, color choices, and overall feel all contribute to a single purpose and the building of your brand.

Build a brand

Storytelling

Another way to compete with Amazon is to leverage the ability to tell a story.

As a small store and brand, we can use our size to an advantage.

Craft a compelling story that spurs customers to want to be associated with your brand and products.

Storytelling

Saddleback Leather sells high-quality leather products. But they’re much more that that. They are a company that exudes quality, adventure, charity, and family values.

They invite you to play a part in what they’re building. Add in the customer service and a 100 year warranty, and you’ll have a hard time convincing anyone why buying from Amazon might be a better idea.

Storytelling

Warby Parker also tells a great story and sells a great product. Eyeglasses are a commodity, but Warby Parker does things differently.

While reading their story, take note of their minimalist design, great typography, and beautiful product photos. They help to tell their story about who they serve and provide eyeglasses for.

Storytelling

Building Relationships

Make sure you take the time to listen and communicate with some of the customers who purchase products from your store.

Amazon offers great service, but can’t reach out to individual customers. Individual customer reactions can be time-consuming, but when you’re small, you can reach out to customers consistently.

Thank customers for their business, ask how you can improve, and then act upon the information they provide.

Building Relationships

Taking the time to interact one-on-one with some of your customers is a great way to spread the word about your store, even if it’s done on a small scale.

People love to share stories and you have an opportunity to control the characters, settings, plot, and resolution.

Building Relationships

Conclusion

As a small store, you might find yourself worrying about the giants like Amazon, but it’s not necessary. They’re big, but that doesn’t mean you can’t survive and thrive in their presence.

Change within a small online store business can happen with greater speed. We also have the ability to target a specific group of customers and to tell a compelling story that inspires them to be part of your brand.

Conclusion

Thanks.