By 2019 global online purchases will more than double to $3.5 trillion, making up more than 12% of total global retail sales revenue of $28.5 trillion. At home and abroad – in developing markets in the Far East, Southeast Asia, Africa and Latin America – more and more people are gaining online access. There’s also the generational shift at play, with Millennials taking on an increasingly more important role in the economic environment. And this is this first generation that grew up online, one that I’m proud to be a part of.

It stands to reason that many business owners see a move to eCommerce as something of a no-brainer, and a relatively easy way to increase revenue and profits. But before you decide to take the plunge and start focusing your efforts online, there are some important factors to consider – knowing what it takes to succeed in this arena is paramount.

By understanding where you have the ability to excel and what’s important to online buyers (In my case, label buyers), you can determine if eCommerce is right for you. And if you see that it’s not, then perhaps with a few tweaks you can get to where you want to be online.

As consumers, we all enjoy our mobile devices – our iPhones, iPads, Androids, tablets – whatever the gadget of the month is. But how do we feel when they don’t do what they’re supposed to do? When screens freeze and apps crash, it’s irritating, and we tend to remember these experiences. I keep this in mind when I think about my customers’ experience on SheetLabels.com.

You want your eCommerce customers’ shopping experience to be as seamless as possible. Whether it’s label design, selecting colors, die configurations, quantities in rolls or sheets – I want my clients’ time spent on my website to be smooth and effortless. And it is, but we’re always looking to improve our site’s functionality and company’s ease-of-doing business. I owe a lot of my success to my software development team’s extensive R&D efforts. We take great care in making sure our website and label buying portal is absolutely tweak-free. My advice: find the industry’s best developers, and work hand-in-hand with them in order to line up the user experience with your company’s value proposition.

It’s a lot like the Lean Manufacturing concept of continuous improvement. Our developers are never sitting still – we’re always looking to make the online label buying process better at SheetLabels.com. And I strongly suggest you take this approach if you are thinking about focusing on online sales.

The last thing you want to do is launch an eCommerce shop and not be able to deliver in a timely manner. Customers have come to expect next-day and same-day shipping. It’s one thing to have the ability to take an order online, but it’s a whole other animal getting the job on press shortly thereafter.

Fast, quick and easy is what you want to be when it comes to eCommerce. It may seem simple, but the reality is it is quite challenging. And with more and more competitors stepping up their online games and racing to the top of the search engines, you better be able to deliver on not only your turnaround time promises, but also the level of quality customers now expect.

Part of my goal in starting my label business – aside from it becoming a financial success – I had in mind the idea of that I wanted to re-energize the label printing and packaging industry. And I saw eCommerce as a means to achieve this.

Our website gets between 50,000 and 75,000 unique visitors monthly. We acquire and maintain our customers online, and we produce and ship anywhere from 150 orders on a slow day to upwards of 300 on a busy day. So it’s imperative that our software works perfectly, and our responsiveness is second to none. Our software follows our customers throughout the entire label buying process – from concept to delivery. So we know exactly where we need to improve, and areas where we can set ourselves apart from the competition.

At SheetLabels.com, we’re introducing an online label design tool. It’s in line with our value proposition – to be a seamless one-stop-shop for entrepreneurs – busy business owners that don’t necessarily have a lot of time or resources to spend on their product labels. But they still require the highest quality in terms of the labels themselves as well as customer service.

Only until recently, the label industry was characterized by traditional and conventional approaches to both label printing and selling. Digital printing and eCommerce innovations are significant parts of an evolving industry, as is the up-and-coming workforce that will be driving it into the future.

In the coming weeks, I’ll be discussing these topics and more, both here and also live at Labelexpo Americas, September 13-15 in Rosemont, Illinois, outside of Chicago. On September 13 at 2 PM and September 14 at 11 AM I’ll be presenting some of these innovations and more as part of the show’s conference program. And I look forward to seeing many of you there, and perhaps in person I can answer any questions you may have about eCommerce, and if it’s right for your business.



Adam Gray is president and CEO of SheetLabels.com, and is an expert in both entrepreneurship and eCommerce. SheetLabels.com was profiled in the April 2016 issue of Label & Narrow Web.