If you have an eCommerce business, you may already know how hard it is to keep everything in order. Because of this, a lot of people who run online stores hire consultants to help them do their jobs better.
But there are a few things you should think about before you hire an eCommerce consultant. Here, I’ll go over every important thing you need to know before hiring a consultant.
What eCommerce Consultants Really Do
In everyday language, an eCommerce consultant can be a single person or a group of people who can help you with all sorts of tasks and services related to running an online store. A consultant can help you with packaging, shipping, marketing, managing inventory, and so much more because they have a wide range of skills and experiences.
You can hire a consultant or a whole team full-time (in-house), part-time (on a contract), or as a freelancer. If you think your online business needs more help than you can give, and you don’t know how, a good option is to hire a dedicated consultant. So, you can think about getting in touch with an eCommerce consultant when:
- If you want to expand the way your eCommerce store works as a whole.
- When you open a new online store or plan to start a new vertical.
- If you don’t have enough people or need people with certain skills.
- If you want an outside organization to check how your store is run.
- When you’re stuck and can’t seem to get any better results.
- You want to switch to a different technology or framework, but you don’t have enough experience with it.
What an eCommerce consultant can do for you
A good eCommerce consultant should be able to help you in more ways than you can think of. Consultants have different skills that range from improving existing processes to making new ones better. Most of the time, online businesses and eCommerce store owners hire consultants to help them with:
Optimization of Conversation Rate
This is by far the most common problem that online businesses have to deal with. Either they can’t come up with enough leads or it’s hard for them to turn those leads into potential customers.
If you’re losing leads at different points in the marketing funnel, there must be something wrong with your strategy. In this case, a marketing consultant can help you get more leads and make your campaigns more effective overall.
Launch & Manage Different Verticals
When an online business wants to open and run a separate vertical is another common case. Let’s say you already sell clothes for women and want to start selling clothes for children. So, you can think about making your store bigger and starting a new vertical instead.
You could hire an eCommerce consultant instead if you don’t have much time. They can easily take over the new vertical and finish all the tasks from start to finish, so you can focus on your business.
Do audits and find your best products.
Even if your online store is doing well, you should still do audits on a regular basis. In this case, an experienced consultant can help you figure out which of your products sell the most so you can focus on those.
At the same time, they can help you figure out which products aren’t selling well and why certain marketing strategies didn’t work. You can use their help to learn from your mistakes and do better next time.
Simplify the process of the supply chain
It might surprise you to hear this, but a lot of online stores have a broken supply chain model. There’s a good chance that your store is having trouble getting products on time.
Because of this, you might also want to talk to a professional about how to solve this problem. Since they are experts in the field, they can easily put you in touch with some of the best suppliers.
Use new chances and trends
You might already know that the online marketing space is fast-paced and full of competition. So, if you want to be ahead of your rivals, you need to take advantage of new opportunities and trends.
You can hire a consultant to do thorough market research on your business’s new opportunities. They can also do a competitive analysis to help you get ahead of other businesses in your field.
Before Hiring an eCommerce Consultant, Things to Think About
Even though hiring an eCommerce consultant might seem like a good idea at first, there are a few things you should think about first. This will help you find the best consultant for your needs and get better results.
Set clear goals for your business
Before you hire a consultant, you should know everything there is to know about your business. You should also try to figure out what problem you want the consultant to fix. For instance, do you want to improve the results of your marketing campaigns or make the supply chain run more smoothly? Before you hire a professional consultant, make sure you know what you want to achieve.
Talk to them about their role and work.
I think you should talk to the consultant about their role to avoid any confusion. You can give them full freedom or let them work with the rest of your team. Just make sure they know what they have to do and how much they have to do.
Make a rough budget plan.
If you work with a consultant, you might spend more than you need to. So, you can set up a rough budget for a one-time process or one that will go on for a while. To set up your budget, you should also know how much the consultant charges per hour or per project.
Read about what they said and what they did.
Most professional consultants have a website and social media accounts where people can find them. Visit their websites to find out about their past clients before you hire them. You can also do your own research and read what other customers have said about them as a whole.
Have Quantifiable Objects & Responsibilities
Great! Once you’ve set up a budget and decided what their role will be, you can also come up with goals and responsibilities for them. I would suggest that you give them OKRs that are easy to measure. This way, you can quickly figure out the return on investment (ROI) of hiring an expert and see if it’s a good idea or not.
Why it’s a Good Idea to Hire an eCommerce Consultant
By now, you should have a good idea of how an eCommerce consultant works. If you’re still not sure if they’re right for you, think about the following benefits:
saves money and time
Most people who own a business hire a consultant because they can’t handle certain business needs on their own. You can hire a third-party consultant so you don’t have to do everything yourself. If you hire a third-party consultant instead of a full-time employee, you will also save a lot of money.
Get feedback from everyone.
Businesses can sometimes get stuck in places where they can’t grow. That’s why bringing in someone from outside your business will help you look at it with fresh eyes. A professional consultant will give you honest, unbiased feedback that will help you see where you need to improve.
Get your business needs in order.
Most importantly, you can give your business a better shape. A business consultant can help you figure out what your company needs. They can also give you a detailed plan for how to meet the needs of your business.
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Wrapping up
From our side, that’s it! I’m sure you’ll find this detailed guide to eCommerce consultants useful. To make things easier for you, I’ve listed the main reasons why you should hire an eCommerce consultant and how they can help your business do better.
Make sure you know a little bit about the consultant you want to hire before you hire them. You can also get help from dropship-empire to find products to sell on your dropshipping store and manage its overall services.