When was the last time you actively went shopping? More to the point, when was the last time you bought something without checking it out online first?

Exactly.

Welcome to the retail apocalypse.

Or, in less dramatic terms, the demise of brick-and-mortar shops as the world shifts to buying online.

Where opportunities lie, entrepreneurs will pounce. That’s why at least part of ecommerce’s success can be attributed to people quickly learning how to start an online boutique, grocery delivery service, and so on.

Let’s take a look at some figures.

• By 2040, around 95% of all purchases are expected to be via ecommerce.
• In 2018, retail ecommerce sales grew 23.3% over the previous year.
• The total value of global retail ecommerce sales will reach $4.13 trillion in 2020.

Evidently, it is true. The retail apocalypse is upon us. Fortunately, we at Process Street are here to provide you with the tools to build your doomsday bunker. We have created 9 superpowered checklists that will ensure that you are equipped and ready to ride the wave of retail Armageddon.

If you’re just here for a checklist to use when learning how to start an online boutique, check out our free Business Plan checklist below!

Feel free to jump to a specific section of this post by clicking on the relevant subheader below. Or, just keep on scrolling.

• What is an online boutique?
• What to know before launching your online boutique
• How to start an online boutique: 9 free checklists
• How to establish & run a stellar boutique with Process Street

Alternatively, if you are already clued up on online boutiques and are ready to get stuck in, sign in to Process Street and start creating within Process Street.

(Sign up for a free trial here, if you’re not yet a Process Street user)

The links below will direct you to the section of this post that contains your desired checklist:

• Business Plan Checklist
• Brand Strategy Template Checklist
• Amazon Trends Analysis Checklist
• Monthly Cash Flow Plan Checklist
• Social Media Report Template Checklist
• Ecommerce SEO Checklist
• Neil Patel’s: Website Funnel Analysis Checklist
• PPC Report Template Checklist
• Quarterly Strategic Marketing Process

Now, it’s time to start building your doomsday bunker.

Let’s get started!
Continue Reading

This is a guest post by Sawaram Suthar, the head of marketing at Acquire and also a founder of Jagat Media. A digital marketing consultant, he has experience in branding, promotions and page optimization, along with research and strategy. He has an MBA from the University of Pune.

Engaged customers are any business’s biggest asset.

Seeing as customers are what make or break a business, you should do everything in your power to keep them engaged at all times.

But customer engagement is a tough coup to pull off.

A study conducted by Hall and Partners revealed that almost two-thirds of a company’s profit depends upon how effective customer engagement is. Another study found that 84% of customers think the experience provided to them by a company is far more important than its products and services. In simple terms, the success of your brand is dependent upon the quality of customer experience you can deliver.

In this guest post for Process Street, I’ll tell you how you can level up your business’s customer experience, thereby engaging customers further.

Specifically, we’ll be looking at:

• What’s the definition of customer engagement?
• The importance of customer engagement
• 5 ways to keep customers hooked & increase engagement
• Use Process Street to aid your customer engagement strategy!

Let’s get started. ⬇️

Continue Reading

This is a guest post by Jake Rheude. Jake is the Director of Marketing for Red Stag Fulfillment, an ecommerce fulfillment warehouse that was born out of ecommerce. He has years of experience in ecommerce and business development. In his free time, Jake enjoys reading about business and sharing his own experience with others.

Small challenges crop up every single day for those running an ecommerce business.

To make matters worse, there are larger, looming threats that you’ll need to counteract immediately if you want your business to survive.

These existential threats can come from products, customers, software, and even your overall approach to sales. Luckily, these challenges can be addressed properly if you’ve got a solid plan.

In this Process Street guest post, you’ll be looking at seven of these aforementioned challenges and my tips for solving them. Remember: Every investment in solving a problem has the potential to generate big ROI by keeping existing customers around and making it easier to attract new ones.

Make your way through the following sections to get clued up:

• The definition of ‘online seller’
• The 7 biggest challenges for sellers on the online marketplace
• How Process Street can help you succeed on the online marketplace

Let’s jump straight in.

Continue Reading

This is a guest post from Hugh Beaulac, a content strategist at MC2 who also works as a social media manager. With over 6 years of digital marketing experience, Hugh helps small and medium businesses grow online and likes to share his tips and tricks with top-notch marketing blogs like Wordstream, CrazyEgg, and Semrush. Follow him on Twitter to read his latest articles on Instagram marketing.

In the era of social media, when over 2.82 billion people have at least one social media account, email marketing isn’t the most obvious marketing tool.

It’s no wonder that more and more brands use social media platforms to promote their products and services as their target audience is active on these channels.

But here’s the thing: Although email is one of the oldest messaging channels, it still matters.

Why? Because nearly all social media users have active email accounts.

Recent Hubspot report claims that email marketing is still effective: 99% of customers check their email every day, 73% of people claim that email is the preferred communication channel to receive branded news and offers, and 59% of customers say marketing emails influence their purchase decisions.

For marketers, this means that combining social media and email marketing is a must. And with the growing popularity of Instagram marketing, there’s a perfect way to connect with engaged users and get more email list subscribers.

In this Process Street article, we’re covering:

• Why use Instagram to get email list subscribers
• Make the most out of your Instagram bio
• Give your customers a reason to share an email
• Use Instagram Stories to promote sign-ups
• Reach potential subscribers who don’t follow
• Benefits of Instagram marketing
• The Ultimate Guide to Instagram Marketing

Let’s take a look at four effective ways to grow your email list with Instagram.
Continue Reading

This is a guest post from Harry Southworth, a professional writer and editor.

Creating an e-commerce store is easy nowadays. But, making it a success and earning money with it is much more complicated. It takes a lot for an e-commerce business to turn into a successful website.

Only with an effective e-commerce strategy can this be done. If you’re new to e-commerce and have no strategy in place, you must learn – and fast.

At Process Street, we say: what better way is there to learn than from books?

Books can speed up the process and teach you everything from how to connect with a customer to how to market your e-commerce business. Many successful people have decided to put their words on paper, which is why you now have many e-commerce books to choose from.

We present you with the list of the best e-commerce books out there today to save you sieving through endless content. This article has been structured as below:

• Ecommerce strategy: What is e-business?
• Ecommerce strategy: The best books for starting a business
• How Process Street can help you with your e-business

Shall we get started?
Continue Reading

This is a guest post by Jessica Bruce. Jessica is a professional blogger, guest writer, Influencer & an eCommerce expert. She’s currently associated with ShopyGen as a content marketing strategist. She also reports on the latest happenings and trends associated with the eCommerce industry. Follow her on Twitter.

As soon as a new eCommerce website launches, there’s a race to get as many visitors as possible.

The race certainly isn’t easy, and what makes it harder are the additional hurdles that come up along the way. One of these hurdles, as you may or may not know, is the acquisition of conversions.

Conversion is the most crucial acquisition for any eCommerce business. An eCommerce business cannot survive with mere website traffic; it needs conversions to drive revenue.

“Trying to increase sales simply by driving more traffic to a website with a poor customer conversion rate is like trying to keep a leaky bucket full by adding more water instead of plugging the holes.” – Bryan Eisenberg, Call to Action: Secret Formulas to Improve Online Results

That’s why, in this post, we’ll be looking at what conversion and CRO (conversion rate optimization) are, how to calculate conversion rates, in addition to giving you a handful of free, useful CRO hacks that will boost your eCommerce sales.

What is conversion? And what is CRO?

Before digging deeper, let’s consider what conversion actually is first.

Continue Reading

This is a guest post from Emil Kristensen, CMO and co-founder of Sleeknote: a company that helps e-commerce brands engage their site visitors—without hurting the user experience.

If you have a SaaS company but you’re not using personalized marketing, you’re missing out on one of the biggest opportunities to grow.

The reason?

SaaS companies are different than many traditional models. Instead of building up to a one-off purchase, SaaS benefits from a long relationship with a customer.

That means you can increase brand loyalty in ways most consumer products cannot, and you have a host of personalized marketing data at your disposal.

Today we’ll look at the three most effective ways to use personalized marketing in SaaS to increase your sales: through your emails, website, and app.

Continue Reading

“We’re here for YOU“, the sign in front of me mocked as I waited my 22nd minute in line at the local store. We could all hear the staff chatting in a back room (a team-wide “lunch break”), discussing the weather while the rest of us silently fumed.

It’s horrible when a business doesn’t put their customers first.

That’s the problem that an omnichannel approach is designed to solve.

Following up from Whitney Blankenship‘s post about omnichannel marketing in e-commerce, we here at Process Street decided to tackle the subject as a whole and show what it means to be an omnichannel business in action.

From theme parks to banks, we’ve got a little of everything. Before all that though, there’s something we need to get straight…

Continue Reading

“That’s fantastic! Have you thought about selling those?”

We’ve all had a moment of inspiration for our own online store. Whether (like me) you took up a new hobby (crochet) and showed your project to a family member (my gran) or you stumbled across a cheap source for a certain product, the lure of online sales is difficult to ignore.

Ecommerce is a massive sector, with a projected value of $4.5 trillion by 2021. However, without the proper ecommerce processes in place it’s more than easy to fail before you even get close to selling your first product.

“… data from Statista anticipates a 246.15% increase in worldwide ecommerce sales, from $1.3 trillion in 2014 to $4.5 trillion in 2021. That’s a nearly threefold lift in online revenue.” – Aaron Orendorff, Global Ecommerce: Statistics and International Growth Trends

That’s why we here at Process Street have put together this ecommerce processes pack. These templates will provide you with detailed instructions on how to do everything from setting up an online store to listing products, designing a logo, and promoting your content.

Better yet, every last process is completely free!

So, what are we waiting for? Let’s start selling!

Continue Reading