What better way to celebrate Canada Day than with an interview with the CEO of Canada’s largest online retailer?

Experience Helps You Succeed in e-Commerce

What I love about Steve Matyas, CEO of Staples Canada, is his combination of bluntness and a sense of humour.

In this interview, recorded the week of major flooding in Calgary, Alberta (that becomes relevant during our chat), he acknowledges that being a big business offers some advantages that small ones can’t match. For example, having a nationwide network of stores really helps, as does having the budget to invest in constant e-commerce innovation.

However a lot of the lessons Staples.ca has learned in its 16 years online apply equally well to small and mid-sized businesses. Here are a few of them, but you really should listen to the full interview, because he was full of great insights!

Key Online Marketing Lessons

Be Patient; Becoming Profitable Online Takes Time

Think in terms of the lifetime value of a customer; don’t expect to make money on your first transaction with them.

Have a Single Point of Contact for Responding to Customer Issues

“The customer doesn’t care what happens in the background,” {Click to Tweet} Steve advises. So give your front-line staff discretion to solve customer problems.

Tell your staff to “use good judgement and don’t worry about making mistakes because it’s a statistical certainty that you will.” {Click to Tweet}

You Can’t Ignore Social Media; It Won’t Ignore You

Customers will comment on your company in social media, so you have to be aware of what they are saying and ready to engage with them. This is tough, and takes staff, but some of the benefits include:

* Insight into what customers want by way of products and services

* An increase in “net promoter” scores. (Learn more about the net promoter concept here.)

Do Ongoing Usability Testing

Staples Canada runs usability tests constantly. (Click to learn more about usability testing.) As Steve Matyas explains it:

“Our philosophy is that there’s always a better way of doing things; let’s find that way before somebody else does!”  {Click to Tweet}