How To Build an Ecommerce Strategy in 2026

An ecommerce strategy helps brands tap into the growing global market. Whether your website supports a physical store or is exclusively an online business, you need a strategic plan because retail ecommerce isn’t going anywhere.

Data suggests the worldwide ecommerce market will reach almost $8 trillion by 2028. In the first quarter of 2026, ecommerce sales accounted for 16.8% of retail sales. 

Ahead, learn how to build an ecommerce strategy, including the components you’ll need, plus how to measure and evolve it. 

What is an ecommerce strategy?

An ecommerce strategy details a series of tactics to build and grow an online store. 

Why every online business needs a strategy (not just a plan)

Ecommerce success depends on thoughtful, strategic decisions made throughout the entire customer journey. While a plan serves as a list of ideas, ecommerce growth strategies prioritize goal-oriented outcomes and the actions needed to achieve them. 

For cosmetics shop PAUL & JOE, ecommerce is a crucial sales channel: The store saw sales quadruple between its first year in 2020 and 2023. A comprehensive ecommerce strategy supports growth for brands like these. 

The 5 C’s and 7 C’s of ecommerce, briefly defined

The 5 C’s of ecommerce marketing are company, collaborators, customers, context, and competitors. 

• Company: The competitive advantage of your brand. 
• Collaborators: Essential partners like manufacturers and suppliers. 
• Customers: Your target audience.
• Context: The trends and status of the greater market.
• Competitors: Your competitors and their strategies and advantages. 

The 7 C’s of ecommerce, according to Rayport and Jaworski’s design elements model, include context, content, community, customization, communication, connection, and commerce. 

• Context: Website design and layout. 
• Content: Your website’s written and visual elements.
• Community: Your fans, target audience, customers, and social media followers. 
• Customization: Personalization along the customer experience. 
• Communication: How you reach your customers and engage with them. 
• Connection: How unified your systems and brand experiences are. 
• Commerce: A smooth and painless checkout experience. 

Choose your ecommerce business model first

Ecommerce business models include selling directly to customers on your online store, using marketplaces and online selling sites, or taking an omnichannel approach. 

DTC, marketplace, wholesale, or omnichannel

A direct-to-consumer (DTC) ecommerce business model is when brands sell goods directly to customers from an owned media channel like an ecommerce website. Selling on marketplaces is when businesses choose a third-party website like Etsy or eBay.

Brands that use a wholesale model sell goods in bulk to other businesses, who in turn sell those items to customers. Omnichannel is when brands sell on several channels. 

An omnichannel approach can also stem from a retail-first model. That was the case for comic book store Revenge Of Founders Jeff Eyser and Joe Meyers. 

“Initially, the idea of an online store wasn’t even in my mind. … In the get-go, it was, ‘Let’s create a cool space where we can hang out with some friends and hopefully sell some stuff,’” says Jeff. “When we realized that we could do that online as well, we started going down that road and trying to grow that side of the business.”

Similarly, when cafés closed during the pandemic, Canyon Coffee was able to make up grocery sales online. 

How your model shapes every other strategic decision

The type of ecommerce business model you choose affects your margins, marketing strategies, communication with current and potential customers, product positioning, and sales channels. 

For example, Sean Reyes, founder of Shock Surplus, started selling car suspension systems through eBay and Amazon in 2012. After moving to a direct-to-consumer (DTC) model on Shopify in 2017, sales doubled, and cost per sale dropped from 15% to 6%.

7 components of a winning ecommerce strategy

• Product and pricing strategy
• Sales channel selection
• Customer acquisition
• Conversion and checkout optimization
• Customer retention and loyalty
• Operations and supply chain alignment
• Measurement: KPIs by growth stage

Product and pricing strategy

Start by determining your product strategy. Product strategy includes: product vision, a road map, market and competitive analysis, and choosing inventory production and fulfillment methods.

Your resourcing and fulfillment methods will, in turn, impact your pricing strategy. For example, dropshipping eliminates the need to hold inventory, but margins can be slimmer, which may change your pricing approach.

Sales channel selection

Select the sales channels you plan to focus on first; prioritize the channels where your potential customers spend the bulk of their time. To find out where that is, research and get to know your audience. Your findings will help determine your first sales channels. 

For example, if your primary audience consists of Gen Z, you’ll want to use social media as a sales channel, as Gen Z shoppers use it as a research tool. 

The overall goal of sales channel selection is to increase sales, so keep that in mind as you choose them. That means taking extra costs, like marketplace selling fees, into consideration.

Customer acquisition

Customer acquisition, the process of obtaining new customers through marketing tactics, is essential to growing a business. But customer acquisition costs grew by 40% from 2023 to 2025. 

And in Shopify’s November 2025* research, 37% of surveyed store owners cited marketing as their top year-one challenge. That’s why planning your marketing approach as part of your ecommerce strategy matters. 

Break out customer acquisition tactics by marketing channel: search engine optimization (SEO), paid, content, and social. 

Conversion and checkout optimization

Once you acquire potential customers, design and revise the ecommerce checkout process to increase conversions. 

Different factors, like page load time and design, influence conversion and checkout process optimization on your ecommerce site. 

• Baymard Institute’s research found that the average ecommerce site can lift conversion rate by 35.26% through better checkout design. 
• Data from Yottaa’s web performance index illustrates that site speed and page load time directly impact bounce rate, suggesting that slow websites lose revenue.

Baymard Institute also found that the top reason shoppers abandon their carts (aside from just browsing) is unexpected costs at checkout. 

Customer retention and loyalty

According to Gorgias customer data, repeat customers generate 44% of total revenue and 46% of orders despite accounting for only 21% of the customer base. That’s why you need to focus on providing a positive post-purchase experience, obtaining and implementing customer feedback, and ensuring customer retention.

Customer retention tactics include loyalty programs, customer education, and personalized offers. Select the types of customer retention and loyalty tactics you plan to start with to increase repeat purchases, and list them in your ecommerce strategy. 

Operations and supply chain alignment

Inventory management and supply chain alignment ensure a smooth customer journey from purchase to delivery. Use operations management to prevent stockouts and overstocking, and keep shipping logistics simple. 

To optimize for efficient supply chains, determine how you plan to:

• Establish production as close to your end consumer as possible
• Eliminate intermediaries handling your product and minimize transfer freight 
• Source your own packing and packaging materials 
• Scale volume and negotiate better shipping/freight rates 
• Use micro fulfillment strategies, shipping from localized hubs
• Retain visibility of your entire supply chain

Measurement: KPIs by growth stage

Key performance indicators (KPIs) for ecommerce measure the growth and performance of your online store, cluing you into key ways to improve. 

That includes paying attention to benchmarks, like the average national ecommerce return rate of 19.3%. 

As you’re starting your business, you might keep an eye on ecommerce metrics more frequently than you will later on, like the founders of comic store Revenge Of. 

“We’ve hit a point where we are not so much watching the daily anymore, but looking at starting to be at a point where we can view our monthly and our quarterlies. We’re at the point where we’re doing like 80 to 90 sales online per day,” says Revenge Of Cofounder Jeff Eyser. 

Below, find ecommerce KPIs and how to act on them depending on the stage of your business. 

Ecommerce marketing strategy in depth

Digital marketing efforts are where you influence online sales, draw organic traffic, re-engage existing customers, and generate revenue for your business.

• Organic: SEO and content marketing
• Paid: search, social, and retargeting
• Email and owned channel strategy
• Social commerce and influencer marketing

Organic: SEO and content marketing

Organic marketing consists of activities that don’t require pay-to-play. This includes search engine optimization (SEO) and content marketing. 

Use SEO basics to increase your store’s potential to reach the top of search engine results. Conduct keyword research to identify the terms shoppers type into search engines, like product names, comparisons, and category terms. 

Remember, your target audience won’t always know or use proper industry terminology. Consider the customer’s intent, such as finding a solution to a common problem, when building your list of search terms.

List how you’ll optimize specific pages for different keywords. For example, you’ll map category terms to collection pages and question-based terms to blog posts, so each page targets relevant search results for specific queries.

Content marketing includes blog pages on your website and external channels like YouTube, covering topics to engage and convert visitors. 

Create an ecommerce SEO strategy by deciding how you plan to: 

• Conduct keyword research 
• Follow on-page SEO best practices on your ecommerce website 
• Optimize your site architecture 
• Make technical SEO improvements
• Publish relevant written and video content 
• Build links 

Paid: search, social, and retargeting

Paid advertising requires funds to show ads to your target audience across channels. This includes: 

• Precise retargeting. Reach people who have already visited your store, viewed a product, or started a checkout.
• Paid social. Sponsor advertisements that show to your target audience while they’re scrolling. 
• Paid search. Pay for above-the-fold placements on search results by bidding on relevant terms. 

In this part of your strategy, define your target market and budget. Once you’re ready to get started, you’ll spend time coming up with the ad creative, including copy and visuals. 

Email and owned channel strategy

Email and mobile (SMS) are owned, organic digital marketing channels. That means you control the list, the timing, how often you send, and the message content.

Common email types include:

• Welcome email: Thanks new customers for signing up. 
• Post-purchase email: Confirms orders, thanks customer, upsells, or provides helpful information, like how-to or shipping updates.
• Come back or winback email: Aims to re-engage stagnant accounts. 
• Abandoned cart email: Triggered when a shopper adds an item and leaves without checking out.
• Newsletter email: Informational updates that you send on a set basis, like daily, weekly, or monthly. 
• Promotional email: Offers and limited-time deals. 
• Campaign email: One-off email sends tied to a launch, holiday, or event.

If you use Shopify, you’ll have access to Shopify Messaging, built-in email marketing for retention strategy, audience segmentation, and automated flows. 

Social commerce and influencer marketing

McKinsey’s 2025 State of the Consumer report found that 32% of shoppers do product research on social media, an increase of 5% from 2023. 

Identify the relevant social media platforms for your category and use those accounts to build brand awareness.

Then, identify audience-appropriate influencers and creators to work with, allowing you to reach their existing, engaged audiences. You can also choose to license that content for your own paid campaigns.

Influencer categories include: nano influencers (1,000 to 10,000 followers), micro influencers (10,000 to 100,000 followers), and macro influencers (100,000 to 1,000,000+ followers). Track your total investment and calculate your ROI (return on investment) for every influencer you work with. 

Omnichannel ecommerce strategy

An omnichannel customer experience is one that brands coordinate across channels: a website, retail locations, and social selling operate as one connected system rather than separate businesses.

“One of the reasons for launching the online store was the limited number of physical stores. For instance, some customers were interested in the brand but couldn’t purchase products because there were no stores nearby or because they worked during the day,” says PAUL & JOE Group Leader Takayuki Sakakibara.

Connecting online, in-person, and social selling

According to McKinsey’s State of the Consumer report, 29% of customers in Germany, the UK, and the US purchased from a brand they learned about on social media. 

“We are very in touch with our community and what they’re into and what they’re reading. If we take that and apply it then to our ecom, we’ve seen a lot of great results,” says Revenge Of Cofounder Jeff Eyser. 

Build customer relationships and prioritize a positive customer experience. Coordinating channels covers pricing, promotions, and returns, like accepting an online return in-store, or letting a store customer reorder online.

Use user-generated content (customer photos, unboxing videos, and reviews) across paid and organic social, email content, and product pages to create trust and social proof. 

Managing inventory and customer data across channels

Centralized inventory management tracks stock levels across all of your channels, including online, retail, social channels, and marketplaces. Similarly, centralized customer data tracks order history, contact details, support requests, and loyalty status in one account. Consider creating unified customer profiles.

Keeping information in one place simplifies retail operations and provides better experiences for your customers. 

AI and ecommerce strategy

Consider where AI fits into your ecommerce strategy, and use tools like Shopify Sidekick to improve processes and speed up website creation. 

Where AI fits: personalization, forecasting, and operations

Determine how you’ll use AI and list that in your ecommerce strategy. Below, find three applicable use cases. 

• Personalization. In online marketing, use AI to analyze customer data and create more personalized experiences. 
• Forecasting. AI can forecast demand to help you understand what products and how many of them to order. 
• Operations. AI can power customer support, answering simple queries and triaging more urgent requests. It can also help with complex workflows.

Using Shopify Sidekick to make faster strategy decisions

Shopify Sidekick is an AI assistant embedded in Shopify admin. It helps merchants make strategic decisions, set up campaigns, and optimize their store in real time with AI. 

How to measure and evolve your ecommerce strategy

Your ecommerce strategy is meant to change with your business over time, as are the key performance indicators you’ll use to track growth. 

Launch-stage KPIs vs. growth-stage KPIs

The metrics you use to track performance and growth depend on your business model and on your stage. For example, Canyon Coffee Cofounder Casey Wojtalewicz says that the brand saw a notable change in revenue during a major growth phase. 

“I think we almost tripled in size that year. I think like the year before that, 2019, we had done maybe like $340,000 in sales and then 2020 we did like $820,000,” says Casey.

At launch, however, the KPIs you track will be different. Focus on conversion rate, cost per acquisition, and repeat purchase rate.

At the growth stage, focus on reaching profitable growth and increasing customer lifetime value (a customer’s worth across the full length of their relationship with your business).

Signs it’s time to pivot your strategy

Here are a few signs it’s time to reconsider and update your ecommerce strategy:

• Your best customers aren’t making purchases.
• Retention rate has stalled below industry averages. LoyaltyLion recommends a retention rate of at least 25%. 
• One channel is doing all the work. 
• Your original sales model isn’t working for you anymore. To solve this, a DTC brand might add wholesale, or a single-channel brand might move to an omnichannel strategy.

*Based on a 2025 survey of 500 Shopify store owners conducted in English across Australia, Canada, the United Kingdom, Ireland, New Zealand, and the United States. Respondents were established merchants with two or more years on the platform. Results reflect the experiences of this specific sample and may not be representative of all merchants.