How to Grow Ecommerce Revenue: Don't Start With the Top Line

I'm a big believer in the aggregation of marginal gains. Dave Brailsford applied the idea to British Cycling: break performance into small components, improve each one, and the gains add up.

I apply the same thinking to ecommerce. I don't ask the team to grow revenue by 100%. That is a heavy, vague job. I ask them to grow the small numbers underneath it.

I would rather try for 200% on a quiet Instagram line we are not using well than 100% on the whole store. Small base. Different job. Or switch on a channel we are not using at all. That is how I brief the team. It is not a result Theo produced, and it is not a promise.

If I have six sources driving revenue, I ask: how do I get a seventh? If TikTok is not being used, for example, that is a potential source sitting at zero. The point is not to add channels for the sake of it. It is to find an underdeveloped revenue source where the percentage improvement available is much larger than trying to force the whole business upward.

Sales vs Target puts the numbers in the morning email. You still get top-line revenue and whether you are up or down versus last month and last year.

Revenue = number of orders × average order value. That is why AOV is one of the first levers I look at.

How do I add a few percent to AOV? A small lift hits every order, on every channel, without buying more clicks. You do not necessarily need a new campaign. You might need a bundle, a better default, a shipping threshold that is not a guess, or a product page that sells the second item.

If AOV moves, the top line usually moves with it. If you only stare at revenue, you never see that lever.

Under the top figure, look at each sales channel and how much it contributes, including versus last month and last year. This is where you can turn ecommerce analytics into a specific job.

Instagram at a small share of the mix is a line, not a vibe. Last month and last year tell you if that line is dying while the store still “looks up,” or if it is sitting there underused.

If six sources are paying, they are on the list. A seventh that is not even on is not. You are not hunting a new strategy. You are hunting one more line that can produce.

The other thing I look at is daily revenue: up or down. Most stores already know their good days. Saturday is fat. Tuesday is quiet. If you only celebrate the fat days, you never fix the ones that lag.

Pick the lagging days. One offer. One email. One extra hour of ads. Same store, same products. A better Tuesday is a better Tuesday. It does not magically fix the year, but marginal gains do not need to.

Dave Brailsford on BBC Breakfast, quoted in Matt Slater, “Olympics cycling: Marginal gains underpin Team GB dominance,” BBC Sport, 8 August 2012.