Ecommerce has never been easier, though, in some ways, it’s never been harder. It’s simple to get an online store up and running, but a tidal wave of new challenges emerges as you begin to scale.
As your business grows, you have to manage more responsibilities, including complex compliance obligations, operational logistics, and delivering a modern shopping experience to compete with retail giants like Amazon. These big players have dedicated teams of ecommerce experts constantly developing new technologies and innovative strategies to maximize profits.
To stay competitive, many brands consider migrating to an expensive enterprise platform. However, this move can be costly, requiring over a million dollars and more than a year to complete the replatforming process. Moreover, most companies struggle with outdated customer databases and cannot afford the high fees associated with system integration, making the move even more challenging.
Some brands try to circumvent or delay the costly and time-consuming migration process by installing new apps or hiring ecommerce specialists to manage their online stores. However, this approach may not effectively address the issue at hand. Full-time support is expensive, and installing new applications may lead to conflicts that can hinder your site’s performance. In the end, it may result in another costly upfront investment that fails to positively impact your bottom line.
As the economy faces a potential recession, brands are tightening their budgets. To avoid losing ground to your competitors, consider the four ways Nogin can help you scale your business without hefty upfront investments.
1. Fractional Ecommerce Expertise
Staffing poses a significant challenge for ecommerce brands looking to scale up. Skilled ecommerce strategists are rare and costly to retain, making it hard for most brands to justify hiring them full-time.
Small teams are often stretched thin, primarily due to the seasonal nature of Direct-to-Consumer (D2C) commerce, where staffing needs fluctuate frequently. It’s crucial to have the flexibility to scale up during high-traffic holiday months and scale down during slower seasons like summer.
That’s where Nogin comes in. We offer fractional, on-demand access to experienced experts who excel in every discipline. Our Nogin Nerds will boost your in-house team and provide the extra horsepower you need for growth. Plus, as your D2C business evolves and your staffing requirements change, our team can be adjusted to meet your needs.
Choosing Nogin is not only cost-effective, but it also gives you access to ecommerce experts across all domains. Skip the time-consuming process of recruiting expensive talent and leverage our Nogin Nerds instead.
2. Luminate App Ecosystem
Nogin offers an enhanced Shopify theme called Luminate, which comes pre-integrated with the best Shopify apps from our tech partners and exclusive features developed specifically for Intelligent Commerce.
The Luminate application ecosystem covers all your ecommerce needs, including email marketing, SMS, review management, customer service, loyalty programs, payments, returns, international commerce, and more. Best of all, Nogin handles all the maintenance, testing, and optimizations to ensure the apps function seamlessly with one another to improve your online shopping experience while significantly lowering development costs.
Our dedicated site optimizers are constantly working to leverage each integrated app on Luminate, using insights gained from managing over 150 brands and $1 billion in total Gross Merchandise Value (GMV) over the past decade. We continuously release new features and enhancements aimed at boosting customer lifetime values and conversions.
While Amazon spent $22.6 billion on research and development efforts in 2018 alone, our approach allows you to keep up with big retail innovations without spending a fortune. This makes Luminate the most practical way to keep up with cutting edge technology, as features are developed once and deployed to all client stores.
Access the enterprise technology stack you need without the enterprise costs.
3. Customer Segmentation and Smart Offers
Are you finding that it’s harder and harder to convert visitors on your site? You’re not alone. Over the past five years, customer acquisition costs have increased by up to 60% due to consumer privacy legislation such as CCPA or GDPR, the elimination of third-party cookies, and the introduction of iOS 14.5. Despite these challenges, customers still expect a curated shopping experience that caters to their unique preferences.
Visitors now demand personalized shopping experiences, with 73% of consumers expecting companies to understand their individual needs and expectations. However, relying on generic and heavily discounted offers will not yield profitable results.
Instead of depending on one-size-fits-all promotions, find the right offers that resonate with each visitor using our AI-powered customer segmentation and smart promotion tools. Leveraging over ten years of anonymized data mined from our CaaS technology, we have built and optimized seven customer segments using our machine-learning technology and rule-based engine. This allows us to seamlessly place each shopper in a segment that aligns with their unique shopping behavior, even for mid-sized brands that don’t have the data required for most traditional CDPs.
Our team will work closely with yours to test various content and promotions, determining what offers perform best for each customer segment. This results in increased sales, lower acquisition costs, and reduced discounting. On average, our personalization tactics result in a 15% boost in revenue.
4. Affordable Shipping
Fulfillment is one of the biggest challenges to running a profitable ecommerce business. Many 3PL fulfillment companies are costly and eat into your bottom line, especially if you’re aiming to match Amazon’s fast two-day shipping.
With Nogin, you can lower your fulfillment and return costs. Our distribution centers on both coasts enable swift nationwide delivery, and our partnership with Happy Returns allows your customers to return items at over 4,000 Return Bars across the country. We constantly optimize our fulfillment process to improve operational efficiency and secure better shipping rates for our clients.
Our team is always innovating to increase your profit margins, whether it’s through strategic packing for lower shipping rates or automation using robotics in the picking and packing process. We also offer solutions for brands with more complex fulfillment needs, such as multi-warehouse order routing, dropshipping, and wholesale packaging.
While Amazon may have set the standard for ecommerce fulfillment, our team of logistics experts ensures that you can provide a comparable and consistent shipping experience that meets your customers’ expectations.
Plug Into Intelligence Commerce and Access the Most Advanced Enterprise Ecommerce Solution With NO Upfront Costs
Get the cutting-edge enterprise ecommerce technology and infrastructure you need to turbocharge your online business by plugging into Intelligent Commerce. We bridge the gap between entry-level and enterprise platforms, offering a revolutionary approach to ecommerce that future-proofs your business.
Our solution supercharges Shopify Plus and includes a market-leading customer data platform with machine-learning capabilities, algorithmic merchandising, and smart promotion optimization. The best part? There are no upfront replatforming costs, and instead of waiting for up to a year to complete the migration, we can get you live in under eight weeks!
If you’re looking to recession-proof your business and instantly boost profitability, it all starts with a smarter approach. Learn more about the research and data behind a Commerce-as-a-Service business model by downloading the Coresight Research Reports below, or contact us today:
