How to get buy-in from the board for ecommerce design and development initiatives.

Ecommerce managers are the closest to the customers’ perspective and the day-to-day management of the store.

As such, they’re in a great position to guide design strategy and the development roadmap. Consequently, the ecommerce manager has no shortage of ideas on features, functionality and other changes that could make a difference to customer experience, and therefore, profits. 

Naturally, most ecommerce managers will require a degree of senior sign-off on most design and development initiatives. 

Therefore, making a business case is a key part of the role. 

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How to get people to buy into our ideas 

People buy into our ideas when they believe they will achieve their objectives. And to believe this, they need to see the evidence.

But the evidence is not enough, they need to be “moved” to act, too!  

Here are some specific steps we can take to persuade senior stakeholders to run with our ideas and approach: 

Get them interested in the problem, before you present a solution. 

It’s easy to think of ideas, but often it’s hard to get others on board with them.

Why is that? 

Because others see your ideas as that. As your ideas, not their ideas.  

Try this Instead: start with the problem. 

It’s much easier to get senior stakeholders to care about a problem than about an idea.

By defining the problem, the need for the solution becomes self-evident.

For example, we might have identified that some new customers aren’t converting (that’s the problem).

As we explore this problem, we uncover smaller problems that ladder up, making it easier to isolate and tackle separately.

Here’s an example.

Let’s say the causes for this problem are various pain points across the purchase funnel. The homepage doesn’t showcase the range properly, misleading customers into thinking they won’t find what they need. The category navigation lacks important filters, and the Product description page (PDP) simply doesn’t do justice to the products and needs a whole redesign.  

Now we can add – only 10% of those who get to a PDP add an item to their basket. But benchmarks tell us an average retailer gets 25% of add to baskets from a product page. 

We have identified a gap – and this gap is what’s going to get senior stakeholders interested.

Once you get their attention to the problem, present your solution. 

Introduce a KPI framework as part of the ecommerce team’s goals. 

Revenue (or profit) is ultimately the main objective for most ecommerce businesses. 

However, revenue/profit shouldn’t be the only KPI. 

This is because revenue is something we can’t control directly (we can only grow revenue by using more specific levers that offer more direct control), and because it’s affected by external factors such as market demand and seasonality. You can read more about this with our KPI framework.  

Helpful KPIs include CAC (Customer Acquisition Cost), LTV (Lifetime value of customers), Conversion Rate and Average Order Value. All these metrics impact the growth of revenue directly, and offer more tactical levers we can use. They are also easier to isolate from external factors. 

Other important KPIs relate to customer satisfaction, such as NPS. While there isn’t a direct relationship with revenue, you can use modelling to translate how gains in NPS will become revenue gains through increased lifetime values.

Once you have agreed on all the metrics that matter to the company, selling ideas is easier.

Back to our example again – we can make the argument that a new PDP redesign will increase the add-to-baskets. More add-to-baskets will increase the conversion rate. And conversion rate will increase revenue. 

Modelling: Estimating revenue potential for each solution. 

The beauty of a problem-first approach and revenue-based KPI framework is that it can be used to do modelling – this is where it gets to the next level. 

Back to the example. We think that adding better product images will increase the add to basket rate. Let’s say we think it will increase 5%, to 15%, still far from the retailer’s average, but a meaningful increase. 

With a few Excel skills, you can now estimate what that impact on add to baskets could mean for your yearly revenue. 

This example in particular is really easy to model. Because adding to basket correlates directly to revenue, increasing 5% of your PDP add-to-basket will literally increase your revenue by 5%. For a retailer on £10m, this is £500,000. 

A gain of 5% of revenue from solving a clearly identified problem with a straightforward solution (better PDP design) is almost impossible to say no to. 

Consider tests for your ideas, rather than full roll-outs. 

It’s easier to agree to a small experiment than to agree to a new, radical change. 

Back to the example, we had identified the homepage “first impressions” weren’t doing a great job of communicating the range and value proposition. 

However, agreeing with everyone to tackle a new homepage is a tall order, and quite frankly, a huge Pandora’s box of opinions, personal preferences and agendas. 

Plus – we don’t know exactly what’s wrong with the homepage, just a few different suspicions.  

Instead, we can break the big solution (a new homepage) into smaller elements, such as headers, copy and blocks. Then, we can test them one by one, in a series of split tests, measured on “engaged sessions”, or sessions that continued past the homepage.  

The management team will be a lot more open to doing smaller tests with small components of the homepage than to the thought of waking up the next day to a new homepage they don’t like. 

This way, everyone gets what they want. The homepage will be improved over time, and the management team has reduced risk and retained control. 

Measure the impact post-deployment. 

Don’t just ship and forget. 

With any project, there’s measurement to think about at the planning stage before we design, and measurement to think about after the deployment. 

We need a measurement framework to guide us as we identify problems and to tie in each problem/solution to a set of KPIs. (that was point number two, remember?)

And then we need a measurement plan to determine how things will be measured, as well as the definition of success. Having this plan in advance will reassure the senior stakeholders we’re trying to persuade. 

This doesn’t need to be super complicated. After all, if the measurement plan is more complex than what the senior management needs to see, we might lose them. 

Let’s say we’re planning to roll out better product photography on a set of products. 

For our “new PDP” example, we could measure two things after deployment: 

• If we’re deploying a new PDP template for only part of the store, or only for one instance in a portfolio of stores, we can compare differences in performance before and after deployment. 
• If we’re deploying on everything we have (the whole site, and / or all the sites), we could measure before and after – but in this instance, we need to be able to control for seasonal effects, impact of sales / discounts and other external factors. 

Show your bosses examples of competitors doing it better. 

Nothing gets a CEO’s attention like seeing competitors doing a better job. 

Most CEOs will feel an itch. An itch to do something. 

Let’s say we have put all our evidence together as to how this substandard PDP design is hampering conversions. We have modelled the potential revenue gains of increasing add-to-baskets, and we have a robust measurement plan post-deployment. 

All the science is in, and it’s undeniable.  

Something is missing. What is it?

Emotion. 

Emotion is how people actually decide, how they “go for things” – even the most analytical people need a bit of emotion. 

Showing your CEO a few examples of competitors and market leaders doing a great job could just be the final touch to get them to say “yes”.

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Do you have great ideas to improve your customer experience on your Magento store, but aren’t sure how to put together a business case? Email me at [email protected] and let’s talk!