Updated April 15, 2025

Online shopping has become the norm, and e-commerce continues to grow at an unprecedented pace. As of 2025, global e-commerce sales are projected to surpass $6.4 trillion, reflecting just how essential a digital presence has become for businesses of all sizes.

If your business still doesn’t have an online store, you could be missing out on massive revenue opportunities. However, simply launching an online shop isn’t enough. You need a clear, strategic brand identity to truly stand out and succeed in today’s competitive digital market.

Here are five essential steps to help you craft a powerful e-commerce branding strategy that connects with customers and drives long-term growth:

Identify Your Target Market

Before you begin any business, you should first have a feel for the market.

Sure, you are not the lone online business that sells beauty products. But there might be some gap in the market that you can fill in.

For instance, vegans are on the lookout for beauty products that were not tested on animals. That's because it defies the principles of veganism.

Some are looking for beauty products that will not worsen their skin condition, like rosacea. And some just do not fancy putting harsh chemicals on their faces.

Knowing these gaps helps you identify your target market and how you can resonate with them. Finding your niche can also help you increase e-commerce sales since you can appeal to an untapped market.

Build Your Brand Identity

Brand identity is how you present your e-commerce business to the world. Think of it as adjectives that best describe your business.

Are you an online enterprise that makes sustainable, cruelty-free, and all-natural beauty products?

Perhaps you sell shabby, chic, and vintage clothes online?

Whatever your identity is, this will set the direction for your branding elements:

Branding Colors

Colors define the look of your e-commerce business and convey the feeling you want to exude.

For example, a sustainable brand would likely use earth tones like green and brown. That's because these colors represent the Earth.

This explains why you should have a grasp of color psychology. Without it, you may be unable to communicate what kind of brand you are.

Logo

Skip this if you already have a business logo. If none, then you don’t want to overstep this vital component of brand identity. 

A good logo can sometimes speak for the company. But designing one is not an easy feat. Thankfully, logo design services exist. With hundreds of logo templates, you have a well of logo design ideas for your business. 

Having a brand identity can help you think of brand colors and elements you would like to see in your logo.

Check out some logos you can create:

Shopping Cart Commerce by Design

Shopping Cart Grocery by Design

Statistics Shopping Bag by Design

Online Store Shop App by BrandCrowd

Arrow Shopping Bag by BrandCrowd

Unique Selling Proposition

Your e-commerce business's USP is tied to your identity. If you have a great USP, increasing profits will be easier.

If you sell all-natural, cruelty-free, and sustainable products, this should show in your marketing efforts. Otherwise, what you say will be disconnected from what you are doing.

And this cognitive dissonance cannot help convince people to buy from you. It will also be challenging to separate your brand from your competition.

Branding Guide

The main components are the color palette, typography, patterns, and themes that you will use in your marketing collateral, including your packaging design, website, and social media graphics.

With the help of a brand bible, creating your collaterals that are on-point and uniform will be straightforward.

It can also help guide you in knowing the direction or plan you should follow for a solid branding strategy.

Develop Your Brand Story

Once you have figured out your brand identity, developing a brand story is next. A brand story is a narrative that describes the mission and vision of your e-commerce business.

Why do you identify your brand as sustainable, cruelty-free, and all-natural? Where did it all start?

A solid brand story can help start a movement through your business. Perhaps your mission is to empower women while saving the environment. Hence, you manufacture and sell sustainable and cruelty-free beauty products.

Even if you’re building your business through AliExpress dropshipping, a compelling brand story can set you apart from competitors and build trust with conscious consumers.

The key to successful e-commerce business is to build a brand that will resonate with your customers.

Know Where To Set Up Shop

What's fantastic about having an online store, e.g., Shopify, Woocommerce, or Wix, is that you can serve customers worldwide. But if you’re not careful, it can lead to logistical issues.

This is why you should identify who your target customers are. You’re able to know the location of your customers. That way, you would know where to set up your fulfillment centers and warehouse management system.

Say the majority of your customers are from California. It would only make sense to scour different California fulfillment services to partner with. This is to ensure that you are providing customer satisfaction to people who bring in the most sales.

Once you set up shop, it’s a good idea to automate your processes with a dropshipping platform. You can also leverage AI solutions for eCommerce to streamline operations and enhance customer experiences. Tools like these will allow you to automate order processing, data integration, and intelligent order routing, saving you time and money.

Establish Your Online Presence

Having an e-commerce outsourcing business is more than just having a website and selling products online. Your online store should rank for relevant keywords. Otherwise, your brand will not come across people who are likely to buy from you.

Enter Search Engine Optimization.

A vegan looking for a skincare product will likely type in "vegan skincare product" or "cruelty-free beauty product." If your e-commerce website is optimized for these keywords, you will be visible on the first page of the search results.

But do not take our word for it. It is best to do your keyword research and optimize your e-commerce website as needed.

This includes producing relevant and keyword-optimized content and engaging with your customers via social media. You might also consider using a PIM (Product Information Management). With a PIM, you can centralize and easily update product information, making it easier to stay organized even with a large inventory.

Conclusion

Your online business can be multi-faceted. Hence, there are no hard-and-fast rules in establishing a solid branding strategy for your online store.

In fact, a branding strategy should not be set in stone.

Nonetheless, you should consider all aspects of your business. This includes your unique selling proposition, brand personality, marketing message, and target customers.

From there, you can craft a robust branding strategy for your e-commerce brand. And it is something that can help you turn website visitors into paying customers.

Original artwork by Khim John Blazo

Written by DesignCrowd on Tuesday, May 4, 2021

DesignCrowd is an online marketplace providing logo, website, print and graphic design services by providing access to freelance graphic designers and design studios around the world.