Rising costs. Shrinking margins. Remaining profitable under volatile retail market conditions is no easy feat. The 2024 Deloitte Global Retail Outlook confirms what you already know – managing costs is more essential than ever to keeping your commerce business agile and thriving. So how can you cut expenses without sacrificing your competitive edge?
A big part of the answer lies in your tech stack as more forward-thinking retailers turn to AI and other clever tech to streamline operations, boost their return on investment, and elevate their customer experience.
Here are five smart tactics to reduce costs and improve ROI.
1. Use Tech to Drive Cross-Functional Efficiencies
Streamlining your team structure is one of the most effective ways to reduce costs and increase operational efficiency. By equipping your commerce teams with the right tools, you can minimize their dependence on IT for everyday tasks. This allows your developers to focus on more strategic, high-impact projects that drive growth. Empowering your teams with the right technology not only eliminates inefficiencies but also reduces delays and operational overhead. This can directly impact your eCommerce profitability through smarter cost management.
TIP: Optimize your processes by taking advantage of tools that streamline your operations, such as an eCommerce platform that empowers your commerce teams to configure everyday tasks themselves. This helps eliminate bottlenecks and boost cross-functional collaboration, resulting in a more efficient retail marketing ROI.
2. Tap into New Markets with eCom Internationalization
Expanding into new markets isn’t just about boosting revenue – it’s a smart way to diversify and reduce risk. When one market faces challenges, another can offset potential losses, ensuring a more stable revenue stream. You don’t need heavy infrastructure investments to explore new regions either. By leveraging regional marketplaces, you can efficiently test international waters without overcommitting resources. Scalable eCommerce platforms give you the flexibility to expand globally while keeping costs under control.
TIP: Flexible and scalable platforms help you enter new markets with minimal effort and reduced operational costs. This way, you can maintain a good ROI for your eCommerce channels while optimizing resources to efficiently reduce costs.
Learn how our next-gen eCommerce solution can help you optimize costs and drive sustainable growth.
3. Maximize ROI with Advanced, Data-Driven Digital Marketing
With marketing budgets under pressure, simply shifting to digital channels isn’t enough to drive growth. To truly maximize your return on investment, you should consider implementing advanced strategies like AI-driven personalization, programmatic advertising, and dynamic content creation. These tools allow you to deliver highly relevant messages to your target audience at the right time, driving stronger engagement and higher conversions. By continuously tracking performance and making agile adjustments, you ensure that your marketing dollars are spent on high-impact campaigns that deliver the best return.
TIP: Use data-driven insights and AI tools to refine your targeting, adjust in real time, and scale high-performing campaigns. This helps maximize your ROI while controlling costs.
4. Leverage Unified & Composable Commerce Tech for TCO Reduction
Lowering your total cost of ownership (TCO) is an effective step towards maintaining profitability. Upgrading your tech stack to a unified and composable commerce platform is a strategic way to achieve this. Traditional eCommerce systems come with high licensing fees and/or complex, costly maintenance. A composable platform, however, gives you the flexibility to integrate best-in-class technologies without being tied to expensive, rigid systems. This not only reduces operational costs but also optimizes your eCommerce performance, ensuring your tech investments drive long-term value.
TIP: Replace inflexible legacy systems with a unified and composable platform to cut unnecessary expenses, lower licensing fees, and fuel innovation with flexible integrations. Ultimately, this helps you optimize your ROI through strategic cost reduction – all the while optimizing your tech stack.
Conclusion: Accelerate Profitability with Strategic, High-Impact Investments
Maximizing profit in today’s competitive market demands laser focus on strategic investments that deliver long-term value. By prioritizing high-impact areas like automation and AI integration, you can streamline operations, reduce costs, and free up resources for innovation and enhancing the customer experience. Regularly evaluating the scalability and future potential of your initiatives ensures that your investments not only reduce costs but also drive sustainable growth.