e-Commerce Ascension Series: Strategic Scoping (I)

Hi there, e-Commerce enthusiast! You seem hungry for success and information about how to dominate the e-Commerce industry.

Fear not. You landed in the right place! This post is the first part of a blog series in which I will go through each of The e-Commerce Ascension™ levels and provide a more in-depth presentation of crucial aspects you need to get right for a smooth journey to the top of the sales chart.

If you haven’t checked out the previous post on How to scale your e-Commerce website in nine proven steps, I recommend you do it before you start this series. It’s not mandatory, but you should at least be familiar with The e-Commerce Ascension’s structure and objectives.

All good? Let’s do this!

The first step of The e-Commerce Ascension™ is called Strategic Scoping. The first business decision anyone should ever make is establishing their end goal. World dominance? We will get there. But first, ask yourself, what are your long-term and short-term objectives? Are they achievable? What do they require? Take your time. This process shouldn’t take place in a hurry. Got an idea? Nice! Now divide it into smaller steps. Think of your goal as increments on a scale. Every desired objective has some steps to be accomplished to achieve it. Don’t be afraid to go into micro-level details. The more in-depth you go, the easier it will be to track your progress later. If it helps, try to imagine you must give the business plan to somebody else and let them use it. Do they have many questions about reaching success with your business plan? Then, you haven’t done a great job in setting micro-goals.

The next step is to analyze what materials are required by your micro-goals. What costs? From where do I get them? Will this be a one-time deal? Figure it out! Don’t be afraid to ask other people in the industry. After all, the e-Commerce industry is one big family that steals each other’s successful ideas. I’m kidding, of course. Usually, people in the e-Commerce industry are open to discussions on many forums. There’s a big chance you found out about this blog on one of those forums. 

Coming back to Strategic Scoping, you must get your business objectives right. You can’t look for answers if you don’t settle on the questions. Once you get the goals and questions, it’s time to look for answers. This is where The e-Commerce Ascension™ shines. Whether you want to scale your business, redesign it, or transform it into something brand new, Neo Vision’s team can help you choose the path you want to go on.

Once you figure out the path, it’s time to analyze your competition and pinpoint what differentiates you from them. Think of this phase as a SWOT analysis on steroids. Then move on to the users. Identify them, empathize with them, and learn everything about your users. This will narrow the funnel of potential features you might need. Knowing your goal, strengths, and users will make it easier to choose the right technology for building your business. As you might have figured out by now, the next step is to assemble the team and pick the technology you want to use to bring your ideas to life.

This is the most painful step for most e-Commerce shop owners because the difference between the business person and the programmer is enormous. It’s like they rarely talk in the same language. So the business person gets frustrated searching for bad tutorials on the internet, and the programmer doesn’t understand why people don’t want to use his coding skills. It’s a communication error. This is why The e-Commerce Ascension™ is a game-changer. Neo Vision’s team of experts is available to act as your in-house CTO, bridging the gap between business goals and programming solutions so that you can focus on your business and not on technical stuff. 

Once you got your business plan, your goals, your micro-goals, your tech stack, and your features all decided, it is time to move on to the second level of The e-Commerce Ascension™, Holistic Architecture, where you analyze the potential of using psychology insight to gander into the mind of your customers.