When and How to Diversify Your E-Commerce Sales Channels

Learn how to diversify your e-commerce sales channels and scale past $1 million/month in record time.

Global eCommerce sales are expected to reach $4.5 trillion by the end of 2021. 


You can get a piece of the cake too.


However, you won’t get there if you’re relying on one or two channels.


You see, many e-commerce companies make a brutal mistake…


They grow through Instagram, Facebook, TikTok, or a specific channel.


Then they double-down it.


It’s a smart move in the short but deadly in the long term.


Why?


You drive all of your traffic and sales through one platform.


If anything happens like your account getting banned or a big policy change, you can lose your business overnight.


Don’t worry though. Learning how to diversify e-commerce sales channels will reduce risk, drive more sales, and help your brand reach more people.


Keep reading today’s article to learn how to achieve all of these things step-by-step.

Why you should diversify your sales channels

These are some of the main reasons your company needs to start expanding into different sales channels as soon as possible.

More brand awareness

One of the biggest benefits of diversifying sales and marketing channels is the simple reason you reach more people.


Think about it.


There are billions of people that use Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, and all of the major social networks combined.



If you’re only leveraging one or two, you’re missing out on reaching billions of more people. Plain and simple.


These are prospects that will purchase products from you, share your content, and engage with you … all of which can generate a serious return on investment.


Nonetheless, you have to start sooner than later.


It takes a lot of time to build up a following and get people to trust you.


The longer you wait, the longer you are putting off success and growth.


Take the furniture company Ikea for instance. They have its company website where they sell products to start.



Ikea also sells its products on Amazon, the biggest marketplace in the world.



Let’s not forget they have thousands of physical retail stores for customers to visit.


Our point?


Ikea knows the power of taking advantage of as many sales channels as possible. 

Establish a competitive advantage

If your competitors are relying on specific channels and you leverage even just one or two more, it creates a clear competitive advantage.


You have increased reach, followers, and revenue potential than them.


It’s one of the quickest wins brands can take.


Social networks, email, market places, and other channels are a click away.


You simply have to create the account, upload your brand assets (logo, cover photo, etc.) and remain active.


That’s the key too…


Don’t just create a TikTok or email list for the heck of it and leave it to dry in the sun.


You have to use it.


Share content, jump into conversations, promote sales, and be an active part of your niche.


It’s a fact that consumers take multi-device paths to make purchases.



Think about ourselves.


How many of us browse from a smartphone, leave, and then return on a desktop?


65% according to the data.

Increased revenue opportunities

The big enchilada.


Being omnichannel as an e-commerce brand will generate more revenue, sales, and conversions.


95% of marketers agree multi-channel strategies help them target and acquire more customers.




Unfortunately, 51% don’t react to new channels or trends. They’re getting left behind in the dust.


This ties into everything we just spoke about.


If you are able to reach more people, get ahead of competitors, and offer a great product, it’s a recipe for massive growth.


One of our clients was able to scale so quickly with this system that they were later acquired by the luxury fashion company Farfetch.

You don’t have to worry about platform changes

Do you remember what happened to Starbucks a couple of years ago?


The coffeeshop giant grew its Facebook page to a whopping 36 million followers over 10 years. They also spent 10s of millions of dollars.



Crazy, right?


Well, get this.


Overnight, they suddenly woke up one morning to see that they were only reaching 1% (yes, seriously) of these tens of millions of followers they built.


Here’s the catch...


Facebook made changes to its policies and algorithm that severely limited organic reach for pages.


All of those millions of dollars and time spent became wasted and Starbucks had to pay to reach the audience they spent years cultivating.


That’s the risk of relying on rented channels.


Don’t get us wrong. You need them. However, diversification will prevent things like this from happening to your e-commerce brand.

When should you diversify sales channels?


You’re probably thinking, “When’s a good time to diversify?”


The first step is recognizing if you’ve been relying on a single channel for more than a few months.


At that point, it’s a good opportunity to begin branching out.


Set up accounts on all of the major platforms and study the biggest brands to see how they do their marketing.


You can set a milestone for every $250k in ARR, you expand and master another channel for example. 


It’s also wise to begin expanding into more e-commerce sales channels when you hit bottlenecks.


You know what we’re talking about.


You struggle to scale past $50k/month or another amount.


Nothing seems to be improving. Sure, things are going great, but they’re simply not going on an upward trajectory anymore.


Growth is slow. You’re stagnating.


That’s another warning sign that you need to start moving into other channels and platforms to break through to the next level.

How to diversify channels to scale your e-commerce business

Okay, let’s talk about the meat and potatoes of today’s article: how to actually break into more sales channels.

Look at where the attention is

Marketing and sales are a game of attention.


What do we mean by this?


Channels, trends, and strategies change like the wind.


The most successful e-commerce businesses are capable of seeing where the attention is and following it.


Listen to the Founder of VaynerMedia, Gary Vaynerchuk, speak about this:


https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0qSAWD7p_00


For example, TikTok is crushing it right now.



Instagram, Facebook, and Twitter were cool (they still work) but there are always a couple of platforms that have consumers’ attention.


You must keep up to date on what works and what doesn’t.


Look at competitors. Analyze the biggest brands in the world. Keep an eye out in the real world to see what apps and products people love.


That brings our next point.

Analyze competitors

Want to save a ton of time and headaches?


Then you need to analyze competitors and reverse engineer their strategies.


Imagine you have a competitor that’s doing six-figures per month and that’s where you want to be.


Clearly, they know something you don’t.


This is why 62% of retailers use data to create a clear competitive advantage.



Begin by creating a list of competitors and looking at their websites.


How do they write sales copy? How is the website structured? What do they sell and how do they position it?



Then, find all of the sales channels they use. This probably includes email, social, and influencers.


You can use a tool like BuzzSumo to see where a brand is mentioned and uncover these things.



Use the different tabs such as “Content,” “Influencers,” and “Monitoring” to view important information about them.



Adapt and master each channel

Every sales channel is drastically different.


How you sell over the phone is different from email or social media.


That’s why it’s important to adapt your marketing and sales channels to each new platform.


For example, quick, funny, and interesting videos crush it on TikTok.


However, if you’re on YouTube, you’d have to make videos about questions and topics that your individual customers care about.


Look at Wayfair for example. On Instagram, they post decor inspiration that includes their products.



Yet, on Twitter, they focus purely on promotions and responding to followers that engage with them.



Every channel requires specific content, messages, and offers. Adapting to each platform will generate the most growth for your brand.

Final thoughts on diversifying e-commerce sales channels

Hate how long your sales process is taking and want to grow faster?


Then you might have to begin expanding into more sales channels.


E-commerce brands can increase revenue, brand awareness, and establish a clear competitive advantage by adopting more platforms.


Odds are you aren’t using enough.


For example, are you driving most of our traffic only through Facebook Ads, Instagram, or another medium?


While we’re happy about your success, it’s a huge mistake to rely on it for too long.


You’re at the whim of platform changes or other external factors.


Sales and results could be gone in the blink of an eye.


That is, of course, unless you create a solid omnichannel strategy.


We recommend auditing competition, big players in your industry, and analyzing trends. 


What channels are working and where is everybody’s attention? TikTok, YouTube, and Instagram are crushing it right now but make sure to do your own research.


If you want to scale up to $1 million/month at record speeds while maintaining good margins, reach out to us today. Younotus can help your e-commerce business create a proven system to get the results you want.

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