How to Scale an Online Store: A Selection of Articles for Category Managers

As the American writer William Burroughs wrote, “When you stop growing, you start dying.” In e-commerce, standing still means lagging behind, so scaling an online store is necessary for its continued existence.

Scaling relies on key aspects such as marketing and service improvement. And, of course, the commercial success of an online store is impossible without a strong commercial department and category managers who manage their business units (i.e. categories). The experience, skills, and toolset possessed by the category manager are the foundation for development and expansion of the entire business.

How can we achieve more with the resources we have? You will find answers in our series of articles on scaling an online store, which include practical advice for category managers as well as case studies and ideas for category development. We talk about online store scaling indicators: what to pay attention to, what to track, and where to get data. And we reveal three key areas you need to work on in order to scale.

Contents:

Market (competitor analysis)

Partners

Clients

Why You Should Focus on Scaling

Market (Competitor Analysis)

We recently surveyed e-commerce category managers, asking them why they analyze competitors. 73% of respondents answered: “To find market trends, new points of growth and differentiation.”

Competitor analysis helps you to identify market trends and adapt your own strategies, taking into account data on current prices, assortments, and promotional activities of competitors. All of this information is the basis for optimizing your offers.

In our articles on competitor analysis, we provide practical advice on how to scale a category based on the following:

• Prices: Practical Examples of How To Take Advantage of Deficit and Surplus Situations
• Digital Shelf and Assortment: How To Find Category Growth Points
• Analysis of Competitors’ Promotional Activities: How To Conduct Competitor Analysis and What It Gives You
• Additional Parameters: How To Use Product Popularity Data, Ratings, and Reviews To Scale Your Category

Partners 

Working with manufacturers and distributors is the next important component for scaling a category, as partners ensure a constant and sufficient supply of products within the category and effectively expand your assortment. If you put effort into developing strong partnerships with vendors and suppliers, you can get various returns: bonus programs, exclusive promotions and products, marketing budgets for promotion, access to new products, improved delivery conditions, and so on.

In addition, collaboration with partners often opens up opportunities for joint marketing efforts. Affiliate marketing campaigns, promotions, and exclusive offers all stimulate product sales.

How can you get the most out of working with suppliers? We explore this in the following articles:

• Assortment: A Practical Example of Using Automation To Work With Supplier Data and Improve the Assortment
• Conditions and “Perks” of Partners: How To Scale an Online Store by Optimizing Work With Vendors and Suppliers

Clients

If you’re looking to scale category results, you’ll need a solid understanding of consumer demand and behavior. By effectively interpreting these trends, the category manager can create value for customers: adjust product offerings, add new products to the assortment according to the target audience’s needs, and optimize marketing campaigns.

It is also necessary to understand price elasticity and analyze how price changes affect consumer demand for a certain product. This is important for setting optimal prices that strike a balance between maximizing profits and maintaining customer demand.

In addition, the category manager must have a clear understanding of product selection factors for the target audience.

Therefore, our final set of articles on the topic of scaling an online store is devoted to practical tips for working with customers:

• Demand: How To Analyze Trends and Use Them To Create Value for Consumers
• Price Elasticity: How To Use It for the Benefit of the Business
• Product Selection Factors: Methodology for Using Data on Product Selection Factors and Their Practical Application

Read also:

Best Price Tracking Tools for E-commerce Businesses

Challenges of E-commerce Price Scraping

Why Is Pricing Intelligence Important for Retailers?

Why You Should Focus on Scaling

The e-commerce industry has grown significantly over the past decade. By 2026, the global e-commerce market is expected to be worth over $8.1 trillion.

The e-commerce industry is in a state of constant evolution, so if your business lacks positive dynamics in key business indicators, this is a reason to think about a scaling strategy to increase revenue without significantly increasing costs.

Category management is now a key target in the search for better e-commerce scaling strategies. Our articles dedicated to the nuances of working with categories will help you along the way.