Chloë Thomas: The real route to success is all about understanding the customer
Chloë Thomas, included in Top 10 eCommerce commentators in the world by Power Retail (Australia), confirmed her presence as speaker at TeCOMM – eCommerce Conference.
TeCOMM means two days dedicated to eCommerce, in October 21-22, 2015, Cluj-Napoca and Chloë Thomas will have the presentation about “The most powerful opportunities for building eCommerce success in 2016”.
Q. When did you have the idea to share with the public the eCommerce masterplan series of books?
Chloë Thomas: I’d spent many years discussing how frustrating it was that there was no blueprint that eCommerce business people could follow in order to fast-track their success and avoid the (to me) obvious pitfalls.
Then one day I was sat in a mastermind group where one of the other attendees was posing the question “how do I write a book”, so my surprise the complicated bit for everyone else was actually writing it. Publishing seemed easy.
To me the idea of sitting down and writing a book is the perfect way to spend my time – so the lightbulb went off and I sat down and wrote the first 2 books.
Q. From your books, we can learn tips to get new customers and ways to save our time. What is the main focus of each book you wrote?
CT: “eCommerce MasterPlan 1.8: Your 3 Steps to Successful Online Selling” explains the 3 steps any eCommerce business should follow to be successful. First off is working out your strategy (your eCommerce Business Structure, your USP, and your Product Range Scale); second is about the website, money, and products and promotions. The third and final step is all about the marketing – how to create the plan that will get the customers to your website.
“eCommerce Marketing: How get to Drive Traffic that BUYS to your Website” follows straight on from the first book, and explains how to approach each of the 9 key marketing methods an eCommerce business should be testing. Including how to measure success, and which of these methods you should start with.
“eCommerce Delivery: How Your Delivery Strategy Can Increase Your Sales” is my most recent book and my first deep dive into the power of customer service. It explores how to use your delivery strategy to both get the first order from a customer, and increase the chances of getting that all important repeat purchase.
Q. What are the impressions that you received from eCommerce masterplan podcast?
CT: The eCommerce MasterPlan Podcast launched back in June 2015, each week we publish an interview with an interesting eCommerce business person. I’m loving being the host – our guests always get me thinking, and share so much great information and tips. Plus the response has been fantastic! We’ve people listening in over 30 different countries around the world, and the feedback from listeners is great – either lots of praise, or all important suggestions for how to make it better.
Q. Power Retail (Australia) described you as one of the top 10 eCommerce commentators in the world. What does it mean for you?
CT: On a personal level I ran around the office for a few minutes with a massive grin on my face – to be included in a list with people as amazing as Rand Fishkin of Moz was just mind-blowing for me. I feel very honoured to have been included, and it just reminds me how important it is that I continue to provide great information to help my readers / listeners / followers to make the right decisions in their businesses.
Q. What new things should be looking at to accelerate a business growth?
CT: I believe the eCommerce industry is on the cusp of emerging from its teenage stage – so it’s time to focus on the fundamentals to accelerate growth. If you listen to all my podcast interviews you’ll soon see that the real route to success is all about understanding the customer, it’s not about the latest shiny marketing method or piece of technology.
So we should be looking to understand our customer’s journey through our business, and then find the best way to enhance that journey and our profits.
To get right to the core of “new things” though – the areas that are exciting me right now are delivery, remarketing, social media advertising, and subscription ecommerce.
Q. How you will describe in a phrase the success in eCommerce?
CT: Every business will have their own point of success in eCommerce, and I think it should include (at a minimum) turnover, profit, and how happy you and your team are.
You will participate at TeCOMM – eCommerce conference. You will talk about opportunities. How important is to pay attention to them?
One of the first tools any student of marketing learns about is the SWOT analysis – where you identify the Strengths of your business, its Weaknesses, the Opportunities for it, and the Threats that could damage it. The SWOT is a simple way of understanding your marketplace – and Opportunities is the most exciting part of it. Identifying the available opportunities and working out which ones to take advantage of is essential if you want to grow fast.
Q. Would you want to share a message to the audience of this event?
CT: I am really looking forward to coming over to Romania to share my thoughts and ideas about successful eCommerce with you. As well as meeting with, chatting to, and learning from all of you. Please do connect on Twitter @chloe_ecmp I’d love to hear your thoughts and questions
TeCOMM Cluj-Napoca –eCommerce Conference is at 5th edition, with the theme Power to the Customers. Registration and details about the event organized by Libero Events: www.cluj.tecomm.ro.
(Material published as part of a media partnership with TeCOMM)