Success doesn’t come easily, and in eCommerce that means survival itself will be a struggle. You can see this in numbers from the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics, where around one in five new businesses fail during their first two years and almost half within five. Only one in four businesses see the kind of success it takes to last fifteen years.
Every year is the most important year for your company, a win-or-fail year. In 2024, e-commerce is changing and evolving rapidly, so you want to make it through this year strong in order to be ready for the opportunities and challenges of next year. You need real, solid strategies to focus on, and Matthew Hammonds, co-founder of the Full Leaf Tea Co., has three that he recommends.
1. Be Creative
If almost half of businesses fail within five years, you need to do something that those businesses aren’t doing, or else you’ll become part of that statistic. Differentiating yourself from the competition can mean many different things—unique marketing campaigns, special products, engaging content for an unexpected audience—but it probably means trying several things and seeing which works.
“We’re constantly trying to improve and test new things,” says Matthew Hammonds of the Full Leaf Tea Co. “Most of the time it doesn’t work out, but those few times it does, that’s what really accelerates you.”
2. Stay Flexible
E-commerce is a high-speed mode of business, especially with new tools giving you and your competitors access to real-time analytics, more market control, and better connectivity with your customers.
“For us, it’s been about looking at all the opportunities out there, but also internally not trying to stretch ourselves in too many different ways,” says Hammonds, “We want to be able to jump one way or the other if we need to.”
You want to begin thinking in terms of responsiveness, agility, streamlined operations, and data-driven decision-making. That’s a lot, but winning at business isn’t easy. Particularly if you’re shipping products to consumers, you’ll get a lot out of a streamlined supply chain and inventory management systems that are quick to respond to decisions you make, and you’ll want better data so you can more quickly make effective decisions.
3. Build a Buffer
“I just honestly think the most important thing most brands can do right now—if possible, because we haven’t always been able to do this—is build a little bit of a buffer in there, financially,” says Hammonds.
This is about risk management, and the ability to allocate reserved resources to weather fiscal storms. Hammonds goes on to talk about survival, saying, “It’s those points where your market drops and your sales are down 30% for six months. Can you survive that?”
Surviving in E-Commerce
Hammonds doesn’t give this advice idly. He and his wife founded the Full Leaf Tea Co. together with just $100, and today they lead a 26-person team through product development, fulfillment, and operations, to a year-over-year growth trajectory of 70%. They keep their product special by focusing on creating organic teas with real ingredients, staying agile with cost-effective shipping to keep their overhead low, and weathering bad times to come out on top. They’ve created a brand built on natural flavors with the best herbs and spices, not to mention great business practices.
To build an enduring e-commerce brand like the Full Leaf Tea Co., it’s important to implement great strategies. These three strategies are a starting point, but you’ll want to find your own, too. You might want to ponder your plan over a nice cup of fresh, natural tea. Your future business success is counting on you.
