Match your unique limits to your store strategies

Last Friday I went a bit crazy pruning our tomatoes.

A heavy late-summer rainstorm was coming and I let the tomatoes grow a bit wild.

The problem is that the tomatoes used their limited time and energy to grow more flowers and start more fruit, instead of ripening what they already had. I ended up cutting off and throwing away buckets of underdeveloped and under-ripe tomatoes and vines.

If I planned it better, I would have pruned them weeks ago before they invested energy into that extra growth. That would have diverted growth into the existing tomatoes that had a chance to ripen before the rains and cold weather started.

All ecommerce stores have a limit on their resources.

Money, time, people, and, energy are the most common ones but limits can exist anywhere. Anything that blocks you or slows you down because you don't have "enough X" can be a limit. Different stores have different limits, as your store's limits are different than Target's and Amazon's limits.

You need to be aware of where your limits are and pick strategies that make the best use of them. You want to workaround your limits so the limits are less harmful.

For example, if money is your biggest limit then you might want to avoid paid traffic and instead focus on earned traffic like SEO or referrals. If the physical space for people shipping orders are your limit, then outsourcing fulfillment would be a good strategy.

Let your unique limits guide to the strategies that will pay-off the most. Trying that new thing some VC-backed DTC brand is writing about might work but not if their limits are vastly different than yours.

Are you struggling to grow your repeat purchases because your customers are defecting? Use the Cohort Reports in Repeat Customer Insights to find out which month you're losing them.

Eric Davis