E-commerce margins are under pressure due to rising advertising costs, higher expectations around delivery and service, and intense competition across nearly every category. At the same time, customers demand speed, relevance, and clear product information more than ever. To succeed with your e-commerce business in 2026, you need to build an operation that is efficient, scalable, and data-driven. (Updated: January 2026)
Here are six strategies that will help you increase profitability by understanding the customer journey, reducing manual work, gaining control of product information, choosing the right platform, measuring ROI, and using AI in a way that truly creates value.
A strong customer experience begins long before the purchase and continues well after. To improve conversion and profitability, you need to understand the friction points your customers face, where they hesitate, and what they need to feel confident.
Start by mapping the customer journey in three stages:
1. Discovery: How do customers find you, and what promise does your communication make?
2. Evaluation: What does the customer need in order to buy, such as product information, reviews, delivery times, and clear pricing?
3. Purchase and post-purchase: How do checkout, delivery, returns, and support perform?
Combine qualitative insights from customer service, surveys, and interviews with data from analytics tools. Look at where customers drop off, which products have high traffic but low conversion, and what questions keep coming up.
When you understand the customer’s real needs, you can prioritize the right improvements in your e-commerce platform, optimize your product presentation, and create a more relevant shopping experience that leads to higher conversions and happier customers.
Manual processes are often a hidden cost in e-commerce. They take time, create bottlenecks, and increase the risk of errors that lead to dissatisfied customers and extra work.
Automation is not about losing control, but about creating stable workflows where the right data is updated in the right channel at the right time.
Three areas where automation often delivers quick impact:
A reliable integration with your ERP system is often the foundation. It reduces the risk of inaccuracies, improves the customer experience, and frees up time for higher-value work such as assortment development, marketing, and business analysis.
Product information is one of the most critical drivers of profitable e-commerce. It influences conversions, return rates, customer satisfaction, and even how well you appear in search results.
Great product information is not only accurate. It is complete, easy to understand, and aligned with the customer’s decision-making process.
This includes, for example:
Many e-commerce teams also face the challenge that the same product information must work across multiple channels, such as e-commerce, physical stores, marketplaces, and different markets with different language requirements.
A PIM system makes it possible to collect, structure, and distribute product information efficiently. With a clear data model and strong workflows, you can ensure your product information remains consistent, up to date, and optimized for sales.
One important effect that is often underestimated is that better product information can reduce returns. When customers know exactly what they are buying, fewer mistakes are made, which improves both profitability and customer relationships.
E-commerce evolves quickly, and what works today may not be enough tomorrow. Many platforms can support a business for years, but become a bottleneck when you want to expand to new markets, launch new business models, or integrate additional systems.
A scalable platform should enable you to:
When selecting or evaluating a platform, ask questions that focus on how quickly you can change and improve. In many cases, speed in testing, learning, and optimizing becomes the real competitive advantage over time.
Measuring ROI in marketing is no longer optional. In 2026, you must understand which channels drive profitable growth, not just traffic and clicks.
Start by connecting marketing data with business data. A channel may look strong in clicks but be unprofitable if it brings customers with low average order value or high return rates.
Here are key metrics to track:
Create a routine for evaluating performance and testing new hypotheses, such as new messaging, audiences, product categories, or landing pages. Small improvements in conversion, average order value, and return rate can make a major difference to profitability.
AI is widely used across e-commerce organizations today, but there is a major difference between experimenting and building a reliable process that creates business value.
When used properly, AI can improve the quality of product information, reduce manual work, and free up time. It can also help you work more consistently across large catalogs and multiple markets.
Examples of AI that delivers practical value in product information:
The key point is that AI does not replace accountability. To ensure quality, you need:
When AI is combined with a PIM system, you can create an efficient workflow where product data becomes the foundation for faster production and stronger quality, without losing control.
To build a competitive and profitable e-commerce business, you need to work on both customer experience and internal efficiency. The most successful e-commerce teams in 2026 will have a strong understanding of the customer journey, automated workflows, high-quality product information, a scalable platform, data-driven marketing, and a structured way of using AI.
Quick checklist to use right away:
Want to discuss? Do not hesitate to contact us at curious@litium.com