Ecommerce Market Research Guide

Learn how to leverage ecommerce market research to holistically supercharge your DTC operations.

Why read this guide?

Here’s where your company is headed: you connect with the market in a manner that delights customers and your bottom line.

This guide is about how to get there.

When you’ve reached the top, after following-through on the ecommerce market research guide’s steps below, you can expect a future that looks like this:

Every product you produce and market is a hit.
You run ads that deliver the highest results possible.
Your internal teams are dialed in to your target market and their needs…and it shows in profit dollars.
Your new product development pipeline is informed, strategic, confident, and exciting.

Author's Bio

Hi, I’m Yates. I’m the Founder and Principal Consultant here at 2 Visions. I’ve had more than 15 years of leadership experience in DTC ecommerce with a multi-billion dollar ecommerce portfolio. Prior to 2 Visions, I was Managing Director at a two-time Inc 5000 ecommerce firm, growing its portfolio to $400M/yr in ecommerce revenue. Today, at 2 Visions we average half a billion per year in ecommerce revenue guided by our firm. To learn more about me, checkout my bio.

This article was written 100% by me and not by any AI or an intern.

– Yates Jarvis, Founder & Principal Consultant

Instructions on How to Use This Guide

This isn’t a long-winded article. It’s short and to the point so that it can be quickly useful to C-level and senior leaders.

Read each section carefully and slowly.
Double check that you understand the section and think about if you have already completed this work.
1. Have you done it recently enough? (things change)
2. Have you done it with the right quality? (no shortcuts)
3. Have you done it fully? (half-baked won’t work)
Use the prompts we provide and write down on a piece of paper any areas that you think need follow-up. These could be key areas of opportunity for your business.
Once you have read through the guide and noted any ecommerce branding areas that stood out for greater inquiry and planning, organize that list into a ranked list that considers impact, effort, timing, and cost.
Tackle item #1.
Get help. If I could be of service to you, please don’t hesitate to reach out.

Section 1: Assess Your Market Research Intel Today (in its current state)

Remember: Market Research Planning is Relative!

First thing we do is take a look at where you are today because any planning on next steps has to be relative to that position.

Market Research Areas to Consider

Walk this list. Which of these do you feel has room for improvement in terms of your a) understanding and insights, b) planning and strategy, and/or c) execution. Mark L (low), M (medium), H (high) or IDK (I don’t know) for each based on your perceived room for improvement.

Customer Research
Competitor Research
Product Research
Pricing Research
Ad Creative Research
Messaging Research
Brand Research

Section 2: Define Your Market Research Intel Goal (in its future state)

Walk this the list below now and jot down goals for the performance of your market research- what you want to get out of it.

You are imagining not what you think is doable but what you want to goal towards. Set goals for how much your market research will be factored into the following:

CVR
Rev per SKU
Traffic
CAC/CPA
Rev
Profit
Cost Reduction
Ops Bandwidth
Time to Tier 1
CTR
AOV
CLV
Market Share
Purchase price
Loyalty

If you don’t think your market research should impact these items, you shouldn’t be completing a market research guide. Perhaps the big question for you might be, how much should I expect a revamped market research program to impact these items? Now that’s a good question. That’s where I help. Feel free to reach out to kick start a convo.

Other items to consider:

How many months/years do you have to hit these market research goals?
Are there incremental milestones of achievement you feel would be acceptable?
What budget can you commit to achieving these goals? Or to approach it another way, what ROI would you need to have to justify budget dedicated to achieving these goals?

Section 3: Build a Plan for Market Research Program Development

Once you have assessed the current state of your ecommerce market research, defined the future state, and set a timeline and budget, we now would need to connect the dots via an ecommerce market research program plan. The plan is the how-to journey to get from where you are today to where we need to be in the future. You will want to identify the following for each activity/initiative you plan:

KPI Targets (leading indicators)
Relevant and correlated future goal target (from Section 2)
Due dates
Person responsible for driving the initiative
Minimum budget

Section 4: Implementing Ecommerce Market Research Initiatives

Even with the best plans, implementation could be an area that prevents the business from realizing the gains you’d expect from your market research plan. Take a look at these areas of implementation and mark L (low), M (medium), H (high) or IDK (I don’t know) for each based on your perceived room for improvement.

Cost
Speed
Accuracy
Quality of Input
Quality of Output
Breadth
Frequency
Depth

Summary

That’s it! The opportunity for your company is not in any secret sauce tips and tricks, it’s in the slow, methodical execution of competing via your market research intel. If you take a few minutes to review the items above and really understand each item, you have a great shot at identifying opportunities to level up your ecommerce market research so that it starts to work for you.