Welcome to the War.

Whenever you first decided to sell on the internet, you quickly discovered this was going to be pretty tough. The infomercial talking heads pitch a turn-key e-commerce dream, but that quickly evaporates into the grim reality of what it takes to succeed online. Far from a walk in the park, you realized you'd stepped headlong into a pitched war, with customers and their wallets as a rallying source of contention among other existing stores. Add to the mix economic turmoil, and the conflict only intensified.

And yet, with explosions ripping all around them, many retailers continue to wander through the battlefield in a daze. Without any semblance of strategy, they move ahead trying to capture even the tiniest bit of ground against opposing forces. They're out-maneuvered by a more experienced army that know what weapons to employ and when to use them. Finally, they give up, confessing they simply don't have the resources or energy to put up much of a fight anymore.

I'm here to tell you that one of the most invaluable weapons available for use in e-commerce battles is largely ignored or undiscovered by retailers. Equipping your store with a powerful brand unleashes the components necessary to differentiate from the hordes of desperate competitors. When you have a fully-realized, well thought-out brand, confidence among customers soars. All of a sudden, whether or not you have the product they want becomes secondary to the experience of buying that product from your store. Doubt gives way to trust, conversion rates go up, and competitors begin to investigate the threat from this upstart store. Perception becomes reality, as your ultimate brand becomes what customers believe it to be.

You then become the brand to beat.

Friends, you cannot afford to ignore how emotion is tied to selling, and nothing influences emotion more than brand. Your own buying decisions are married to your emotions; how you feel determines how you buy. Think about the offline stores that you buy products from, and ponder how trust and experience plays a vital part in those purchases. You simply won't buy from stores that you don't trust or that you have repeated bad experiences with for one reason: You don't feel like it.

Many people reading this are logical thinkers, influenced more by facts and figures more than anything else. One fact to remember is that the emotional brain is two dozen times more powerful than the logical brain. Your customer wants a great shopping experience, not just the product. To do this, you have to invest in your brand far more than a pretty logo. Brand is more than a logo: it's everything about your company that makes you different than the other guy, from your checkout page design to the way your staff answers the phone.

If you pay attention to the experience of your store, you'll build a compelling brand that is irresistible to the buying public. This is the reason EYStudios exists. Every designer, programmer, and consultant here is dedicated to the fine art of making you stand out from the crowd. When you do that, you'll embrace a brand that will embolden you and your team, releasing the power required to win the war.

For more information on branding and how EYStudios can help you stand out from the crowd, give us a call at 888.429.4803

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