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Painting Man Working On Tree To Illustrate Long Term Ecommerce Planning

Strategic Ecommerce Planning – How to Align Short-Term Actions with Long-Term Goals

Executive Summary

What can you learn about ecommerce planning from a weight loss program? A lot actually. The answer can even change how your team operates and set your ecommerce brand up for better long-term success. 

In this article, we’ll cover high-level strategic planning for you as an e-commerce leader:

  • What successful ecommerce planning looks like
  • How to ensure short-term actions contribute to long-term success
  • Key action items for you as a senior leader that make it easier for your team to stay focused on your long-term vision

So…what important lesson does your ecommerce brand need to learn from a weight loss program? To get the answer, we first have to establish what strategic planning means for your business.

Table of Contents

Table of Contents

What Strategic Planning Means for Your Ecommerce Business

Strategic planning for DTC ecommerce involves establishing a clear, long-term vision combined with specific goals and actions to support that vision.

And it’s easy to see why having clear, long-term objectives are important. We’ve all heard the quote (or a version of it) – “You have to know where you’re going in order to get there.”

But anyone can draft a business strategy. The real challenge — and the real opportunity — lies in executing your plan through daily, incremental steps. Yes, the magic happens when the majority of the actions, no matter how small, taken by the majority of your team directly contribute to the success of your long term plan. 

When you get your team to align the majority of their actions with your company’s strategic plan, good things happen.

  • Your DTC brand becomes more resilient
  • You get sustained growth instead of short wins that quickly die off
  • Long term initiatives like customer retention, improved user experience and increased market share finally take shape
  • Managing your team takes less work

But if most of your team’s actions aren’t aligned with the long-term strategy…

  • You waste resources on tasks that don’t move your business forward
  • Short-term wins mask deeper issues that don’t get addressed
  • You fall into endless cycles of fire-fighting (constantly expending time and effort fixing small problems without addressing long-term growth)

Key takeaway: Your strategic business plan is only as good as the short-term actions you and your team take to get there. 

Since a key part of strategic ecommerce planning is ensuring short-term (ST) actions contribute to long-term (LT) growth, it’s important to clearly understand the difference between two types of short-term actions. And that’s where weight loss comes in.

Ecommerce Strategy: ST for ST vs. ST for LT

In ecommerce, just like in weight loss, not all short-term actions are created equal. There’s a critical difference between short-term actions for short-term results (ST for ST) and short-term actions for long-term results (ST for LT). And we’ve seen firsthand how many senior leaders get too focused on the wrong one. 

Short-Term Actions for Short Term Results

Can you lose 10 lbs in 2 days? Surprisingly…yes. Weightlifters and fighters do it all the time to make weight for a competition. Granted…most of it is water, not fat. But the number on the scale does move by 10 lbs or more. 

That is an example of short term actions for short term results. 

So, if you can lose 10 lbs in 2 days does that mean every 2 days you can repeat the same short-term actions to get the same results, leading to 50 lbs of weight loss in 10 days? Definitely not. 

Are those short-term weight loss results sustainable? No. As soon as you hydrate and start eating again, you return to your normal weight in a few hours. 

Similar principles apply in ecommerce. 

ST for ST actions are the tasks you do to achieve immediate, often reactionary goals. Such as…

  • Running a flash sale to hit a monthly revenue target
  • Discounting products to quickly clear out inventory
  • Implementing last-minute marketing campaigns or store tweaks to try and boost sales for a specific product before the end of a quarter

Because the immediate results seem so tangible, these are the actions short-sighted managers are screaming about. They’re focusing on them because when you quickly address a short-term need, there’s a sense of closure and winning.

It is true…many ST for ST actions aren’t bad in and of themselves. You may need to do them from time to time and they’ll probably generate a short spike in sales and temporarily boost some KPIs. But just like a fighter’s crash diet to lose weight, the results are short-lived and aren’t repeatable long-term.

Worse yet, repeatedly focusing on ST for ST actions leads to team burnout, wasted resources and the constant cycle of firefighting rather than building a solid foundation for future growth. If your organization subsists on these “quick wins”, you WILL pay the price in the long term. 

That’s why the majority of your team’s actions should be ST for LT. 

TRY THIS – Before continuing, take 5 minutes and a napkin and do this: Write down the last 3 things you asked your team to focus on. How many were “quick win” items? Show the list to a colleague and ask them the same question. What did it reveal?

Short Term Actions for Long Term Results

Can you lose 10 lbs of fat in 2 months? For most healthy people, that is an entirely realistic goal. And to achieve that goal, you need to take a completely different approach than a fighter doing a 2-day crash diet. 

You need to make small daily changes that contribute to your long-term weight loss goal, even if they don’t provide exciting immediate results. Things like…taking the stairs instead of the elevator, making healthier food choices, exercising, etc. Those small efforts, over time, contribute to lasting changes. 

Those are examples of short term actions for long term results. 

The same applies for ecommerce brands.

ST for LT actions are ones that may not provide quick, drastic changes, but build a solid foundation for growth and directly support your long-term ecommerce business plan. Things like…

ST for LT actions done regularly over time build a strong, scalable business that doesn’t need to rely on quick fixes or temporary boosts. 

However, ST for LT actions aren’t without challenges.

The Challenges of an ST for LT Strategy

Why is it such a challenge for most brands to implement a ST for LT ecommerce business plan? Here are a few key reasons. 

Which of these do you face?

  • Delayed Gratification: ST for LT actions don’t usually provide immediate results. That’s why it’s challenging to maintain motivation and justify their value to stakeholders.
  • Competing Short-Term Priorities: Immediate problems (like sales dips or other operational issues) make it hard to stay focused on long-term initiatives.
  • Cultural Resistance: Teams might resist ST for LT actions because they usually involve changing habits and processes that currently lead to quick wins. And since quick wins are often praised and incentivized, who’s going to want to sacrifice their short-term bonuses to focus on boring tasks that help the brand 5 years from now?
  • Resource Allocation: ST for LT actions are a heavier lift initially since they need a larger time and resource investment and more proactive management. Initially, this can strain budgets, especially when you’re still dealing with short-term pressures that demand attention.
  • Uncertain Outcomes: Instead of ST actions that provide quick feedback, it’s harder to predict the results of LT initiatives.
  • Leadership Alignment: It’s a challenge to get leadership and team members on the same page about prioritizing LT goals, especially when management expects and incentivizes quick wins.

Although there are definite challenges to implementing this kind of strategy, ST for LT planning is exactly how the best brands succeed. In the next section, we’ll cover some key tips and action items to help senior leaders make it happen. 

Key takeaway: You and your team need to focus on short-term actions that directly contribute to your long-term strategy. These are actions that may not produce an immediate result, but will lay the foundation for long-term growth. 

How to Align Short-Term Actions with Long-Term Planning

To achieve this, you and your team need a defined vision and disciplined focus. Here are some clear steps and specific action items to help you achieve this. 

Keep in mind, you may already be doing some of these. However, for your long-term ecommerce plan to work, it’s essential you do all of them. So get out a pen and paper or a note app and jot down some items to start implementing. And don’t miss a short checklist of questions at the end.

1 – Define Clear Long-Term Goals

Start by building a 3-5 year vision for your ecommerce business. This vision should include big, strategic objectives that will shape the future of your brand. 

Once you have a clear 3-5 year vision, identify exactly what needs to happen to make that vision a reality. 

Then build out a detailed plan for the next 12 months. 

Not sure what to include? We’ll cover exactly how to create the 3-5 year vision and detailed 12-month plans in a future guide. 

Key takeaway: The clearer your long-term goals are, the easier it is to align your daily actions with them.

2 – Identify and Prioritize Strategic Short Term Actions

Take your long-term vision and break it down into short-term goals and smaller supportive actions.

  • Your long-term vision is like getting from the ground floor to the 10th floor of a building. 
  • Break that vision into SMART short-term goals (getting from the 1st floor to the 2nd and from the 2nd floor to the 3rd, etc.). 
  • Then break those short-term goals into smaller support actions (each step on the stairs from one floor to the next). 

Then compare that list to your and your team’s current workload. Take an honest look and ask yourself…

  • Can I identify how each action is contributing to our long-term vision?
  • What percentage of our tasks are actively contributing to our long-term vision? 
  • Which ST for ST actions should be reduced or eliminated?
  • Which ST for LT actions need more time and attention? 
  • Which ST for LT actions are we currently not implementing?

Key takeaway: Work backward from your long-term vision to progressively identify smaller goals and strategic actions that contribute to the larger strategy. Compare those to your current tasks and trim the fat to free up time and resources for ST for LT actions.

3 – IMPORTANT: Equip Your Team to Prioritize ST for LT Actions

This is one of the most important steps in this article. In fact, not doing this will undermine most of your efforts with all of the other steps.

It’s important because one of the biggest challenges in aligning short-term actions with long-term strategy is ensuring everyone on your team knows how to prioritize their daily tasks. This requires open communication, clear expectations and the ability to address conflicts between short-term needs and long-term goals.

As a leader, you need to equip your team with the tools and confidence to recognize when they’re asked to do tasks that might not align with the strategic plan. And you need to empower them to communicate their concerns if they feel short-term distractions are pulling them away from long-term priorities. 

Here’s exactly how you as a leader can do this. 

  • Get your team involved in your vision. Don’t just share your 3-5 year vision with your team. Get your team to help build the 3-5 year vision, even if it’s just part of it. When it’s something they’ve helped build, they’ll be more invested in its success. Then make sure your team understands the vision and the steps all need to take to reach it. And help each team member appreciate how their contribution benefits the long-term plan and their personal place in the company.
  • Create a culture of open communication. Encourage your team to regularly check in about their workload and raise red flags if tasks are taking them away from long-term strategic goals. If a team member feels they are spending too much time on ST for ST actions, they should feel comfortable voicing this concern. Don’t miss our future guide on “Efficiency Meetings” with tips for keeping ST for LT actions front and center.
  • Negotiate priorities. Help your team practice informal discussions where they can push back on requests that don’t align with the bigger picture. They should feel confident saying, “This task won’t contribute to our long-term strategy, so can we adjust the priorities?”
  • Get awkward conversations out of the way. Talk to your team about how to handle conflicting priorities. As a leader, show how to respectfully challenge short-term tasks that don’t align with strategic goals. Practice with your team how to negotiate these situations.

Key takeaway: Foster a culture where your team feels comfortable speaking up if they feel they’re getting lost in the noise of ST for ST actions.

4 – Maintain Operational Excellence

Look for ways to increase your operational excellence in routine processes like order fulfillment and customer service

Here’s why operational excellence in day-to-day activities matters for your long-term planning:

  • Day-to-day tasks keep your business running. You need to optimize core activities like processing orders, managing inventory and handling customer service inquiries to avoid operational bottlenecks. If these foundational activities are inefficient, your team will spend more time fixing problems (ST for ST actions) and less time on ST for LT actions.
  • Operational excellence supports scalability. Streamlined processes make it easier for you to handle increased demand as your business scales.

To achieve operational excellence:

  • Optimize key processes. Take a look at how efficiently your team is handling day-to-day operations. Identify areas for improvement like speeding up order fulfillment or automating routine tasks.
  • Ensure consistency. Make sure every team member clearly understands and follows the standard operating procedures and best practices for their role. Consistency prevents errors, improves efficiency and ensures high performance across the board.

Key takeaway: Operational excellence in day-to-day operations helps your team spend most of their time on ST for LT actions.

But sometimes, despite your best attempts at operational excellence and staying focused on long-term planning, something tosses a monkey wrench in the gears of your plan. How can you handle those inevitable distractions without losing sight of the big picture?

5 – Handle Distractions Wisely

In ecommerce, short-term distractions are inevitable. A temporary sales dip, sudden shifts in customer behavior, or dare we say…a worldwide pandemic can create a “fire” that easily pulls your team’s focus away from long-term goals. 

That’s why you need a process in place to handle distractions in a way that lets you stay committed to your larger goals.

Do this to manage distractions wisely.

Set clear guidelines for managing urgent tasks. Decide ahead of time how your team should respond to sudden issues without completely shifting focus. 

Evaluate the strategic impact. Remember the Eisenhower Matrix? Not every urgent issue is important and not every important issue is urgent. Ask yourself: “Will this problem impact our long-term growth if we don’t fix it immediately?”

Focus on long-term solutions. Instead of implementing quick fixes for short-term results, be committed to identifying underlying issues that contributed to the problem and then focus on fixing them.

For example, if you’re a DTC e-commerce clothing brand and you notice a sharp dip in denim sales, you could convene an emergency meeting and get ideas for immediately boosting denim (discount it this week, make it more prominent in our store, push it on social media platforms, etc.). Those might get you some short term wins, but remember — the closer you are to the time you want to influence something, the more leverage it takes to get a result. So you’re going to have to invest a lot of time and effort just to temporarily move the needle on the short term.

Instead of immediately taking away resources from ST for LT actions and throwing them at this problem why not analyze as a team…

  • Is this really a problem we need to fix right now?
  • What did we do this past year or two that contributed to this issue?
  • If it really is a sign of a bigger issue, what ST for LT actions should we implement to prevent this from happening again? And how should we rebalance our current ST for LT actions to include this new initiative without losing sight of our long-term goals.

Key takeaway: Handle distractions so you don’t get distracted. Focus on long-term solutions not quick fixes.

What You Need to Do As an Ecommerce Leader

When it comes to ecommerce planning, remember these 3 key takeaways from the article:

  1. Stay Focused On Your Long-Term Strategy: Build a strategic plan. Then make sure your short-term actions directly contribute to your long-term strategy. These are actions that may not produce an immediate result but will lay the foundation for long-term growth.
  2. Equip Your Team to Prioritize ST for LT Actions: Foster a culture where your team feels comfortable speaking up if they feel they’re getting lost in the noise of ST for ST actions.
  3. Stay Strategic: Streamline the day-to-day to maintain operational excellence and handle distractions in a way that keeps you focused on ST for LT actions. 

Here’s a checklist of questions to consider this coming week;

  • What is our strategic plan?
  • How are we tracking the plan’s progress? (A future KPI Focus Guide will help with this)
  • What ST for ST actions should we reduce or eliminate?
  • What ST for LT actions should we spend more time on?
  • When was the last time a team member talked to me about our long-term goals?
  • How did we handle the last distraction? 

FAQs

Here are some frequently asked questions other business executives ask regarding ecommerce planning.

A successful e-commerce business plan should first define your target audience, set clear financial goals, and identify your ideal customer and target market. Then it should include a clear plan for marketing strategies such as email marketing, social media marketing and affiliate marketing. The plan also needs to define the e-commerce platform you’ll use, product offerings and logistics for efficiently delivering products to customers.

E-commerce planning is different from brick-and-mortar store planning because your focus is on the online marketplace and digital tools. For both models you do need to understand your target customer, but the e-commerce planning process relies more heavily on e-commerce platforms, digital marketing strategies and the online shopping experience. E-commerce planning also means you’ll focus more on SEO, email marketing and website optimization.

Start by understanding your target market and customer avatar. Encourage customer feedback. Then take feedback and user behavior metrics seriously and use them to improve the overall customer journey — improve your store’s UX, create higher-converting product descriptions, personalize customer experiences, streamline fulfillment, etc. Plan customer loyalty programs to build long-term customer relationships. And consider offering subscriptions or auto-replenishment for consumable products.

Check out the Next Lesson

Ready for more?

Want to continue your journey in driving significant ecommerce profitability? Move on to our next lesson on the importance of business budgeting in ecommerce.