I saw a chart the other day that gave me pause. In it, you have three slices of the total American ecommerce pie: the top 14 publicly-held retailers, Amazon, and everyone else. The latter is about 30% of total online sales in 2022.
On the one hand, that pie is very large, comprising over $1 trillion of annual sales. On the other, I suspect that the slice for direct-to-consumer businesses is even smaller than the aforelinked. And it’s probably decreasing over time.
Between this trend, a general favoring of experiences, inflation, and overall market uncertainty, it’s a rough time. Independent businesses have two options: fight or fold.
You’re probably reading these letters because you fancy yourself the fighting type. Fortunately for us all, there is hope. Niche businesses are doing great, because they can create more effective competitive moats against big players. Smaller addressable markets mean a bigger opportunity for independent businesses to communicate effectively.
That’s where store design comes in.
Above all else, store design is a process of listening and responding that generates significant profit. I believe it’s a powerful way of restoring the relationship between your business & your customers, at scale. And anyone can learn & practice it.
We’re going to be closing preorders shortly for Store Design, our next book and the authoritative text on practicing design for stores of any size or shape. We invite you to join us in the good fight.
This week, for paid members
- Our paid lesson is about the right layout for image galleries on product detail pages. Since these are both the most prominent and the most interacted-with element on most PDPs, it’s important to get them right!
- Our design of the week finds the most common error in conversion copy, on… a very unlikely store to make such an error.
- And our monthly office hours are booked for today, March 21, at 1p CDT. Join us!
Want in? Join us now – named one of the best ecommerce communities going on the web.
Links
UX Collective has been on a roll lately:
- Apparently we’re calling value-based design “growth design” now. Fine.
- Learning how text is read is essential for both accessibility initiatives and well-written copy.
- Fewer choices makes for improved usability. One at a time, please!
And elsewhere: