How to Grow an Ecommerce Business in 2026

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TL;DR:

• Growth is a trend line across revenue, retention, conversion rate, AOV, and churn, not a single good month.
• Personalization is the highest-leverage lever: 71% of consumers expect personalized interactions, and 76% get frustrated when they don't get them.
• Banuba TINT gives you personalization data and a try-before-you-buy experience in one step, with up to 300% higher conversions on the Banuba Virtual Try-On Plugin.
• Personalized recommendations in Banuba TINT are tied to up to 30% higher average order value.
• Returns are the tax on getting fit and expectations wrong: 19.3% of online sales came back in 2025.
• Email still wins the inbox: 60% of consumers name it their preferred channel for brand communication, ahead of social ads at 50%.
• Micro-influencers out-engage macro ones by a wide margin: 18% vs 5% active engagement on TikTok.
• New collections can be digitized for Banuba TINT in under 48 hours, so expanding a catalog does not mean re-shooting it.

What's Growth for an Online Store?

Growth isn't just a buzzword; it's the heartbeat of success. But what does growth mean for an ecommerce store, and how can a business owner gauge its progress? Growth encompasses more than just increased ecommerce sales figures; it embodies the expansion of reach, customer engagement, and financial prosperity. Let's dive deeper into how ecommerce businesses can track the effectiveness of their growth strategy.

Metrics that Showcase Growth:

• Revenue and Sales: The most tangible indicator, revenue and sales figures, reflect the financial upswing. Consistent or increasing revenue streams mark steady growth over time.
• Customer Acquisition and Retention: The rate at which new customers are acquired and, more importantly, retained speaks to the effectiveness of your marketing efforts and the quality of your products or services.
• Conversion Rate: This metric highlights the percentage of website visitors who purchase. A rising conversion rate signifies that your online store's design, product offerings, and user experience align effectively.
• Average Order Value (AOV): An increasing AOV suggests that customers purchase more items in a single transaction, indicating strong cross-selling or upselling strategies.
• Website Traffic: A growing number of visitors signals enhanced visibility and effective marketing campaigns. However, quality matters too – an uptick in engaged, relevant traffic is more meaningful.
• Customer Reviews and Ratings: Positive feedback and high ratings boost credibility and reflect customer satisfaction and loyalty.
• Social Media Engagement: Likes, shares, comments, and followers on social media platforms can reveal your brand's resonance and reach among your target audience.
• Return on Investment (ROI): Monitoring the ROI of marketing initiatives provides insight into the effectiveness of your spending and the channels driving the most value.
• Churn Rate: Tracking the rate at which customers stop engaging with your brand can help you identify potential pain points in your customer experience.
• When tracking and analyzing all the metrics, it's vital to remember that consistency is key. A growing online store shows a steady rise in key metrics over time rather than sporadic spikes.

Effective Growth Strategy for Online Sales

Ecommerce keeps taking share from the high street, and EMARKETER puts online at about 21.1% of global retail in 2026, on the way to 22.5% by 2028. That does not mean the era of brick-and-mortar stores is over. It does mean competition among small online businesses gets fiercer every year, and that growth now comes from execution rather than from the category rising underneath you. So how can you grow your ecommerce business in 2026?

Keeping Up with Trends to Accelerate Growth

Keeping up with trends can play a significant role in accelerating the growth of an ecommerce business. Trends reflect changes in consumer behavior, preferences, and technology, and by aligning your strategies with these tendencies, you can enhance your store's visibility, relevance, and appeal.

However, it's important to approach trend-following strategically. Not every trend will be relevant to your target audience or align with your brand identity. Carefully evaluate trends and their potential impact on your business before incorporating them into your strategies.

Working with Your Target Audience: Personalize

Working with your target audience and implementing personalization strategies can significantly contribute to the growth of ecommerce stores. By tailoring your approach to meet your customers' specific needs, preferences, and behaviors, you can enhance their shopping experience, increase engagement, and drive higher conversion rates.

According to McKinsey, 71% of consumers expect companies to deliver personalized interactions, and 76% get frustrated when they don't. Personalization is no longer a differentiator you can postpone; it is the baseline shoppers measure you against.

Personalization of offers and communication with your existing and potential customers is purely data-driven, so the practical question is where that data comes from without asking people to fill in a survey. One of the smartest ways to collect it is to introduce a virtual try-on feature to your ecommerce site.

The AI-powered TINT Platform from Banuba offers online try-on of makeup, hair color, glasses, contact lenses, jewelry, headwear, scarves, eyelashes, and nails. The artificial intelligence analyzes the buyer's facial features, complexion, and other personal characteristics to suggest the best-matching products. Besides, the smart algorithm also analyzes the input data, search, and behavior to offer personalized recommendations. On Banuba's Virtual Try-On Plugin, that combination is tied to up to 300% higher conversions and up to 60% lower return rates.

TINT is a web-based widget delivered over an HTTPS connection, so it runs in the browser on almost any connected device and needs no app install from the shopper.

Automate Your Ecommerce Store

Customers expect help to be there when they need it, and 53% of customer service leaders name round-the-clock coverage as a top benefit of using AI in service. Automated messages, pop-ups, CRM integration, and chatbots have long been the norm of the day.

However, it is the availability of a sales consultant to help make the right choice that has always differentiated the online experience from the traditional one. Forcing potential customers to wait for an available agent or fill out a bunch of questionnaires stands a good chance of being the winner for "Highest cart abandonment rates."

Introducing a smart assistant that replaces a human being solves this problem. About 35% of customers say they would prefer an AI agent over a human if it meant not having to repeat themselves. What matters is that their problem is solved.

TINT Platform offers a smart sales consultant who will help you find the best products for you or your dear ones. Clients just have to upload a picture or use a live camera for the AI to offer the best match. Banuba's own product data ties personalized recommendations in TINT to up to 200% better conversions and up to 30% higher average order value.

Enhance Your Customer Service

Excellent customer service is the heart and soul of any ecommerce business. According to Zendesk research, 73% of consumers will leave a company after a single bad experience, and 88% say good service makes them more likely to buy from a brand again.

Customer service is crucial at any step of your business journey. Many ecommerce platforms forget that building trustful and positive relationships with their target market can:

• increase customer loyalty, which leads to buyer longevity;
• encourage repeat business;
• turn new customers into the company's advocates.

Using the TINT platform reduces the risks of human factors in communication with a potential buyer at the consulting stage. The platform's algorithms cannot be biased towards the buyer, offer the best product suitable for them, and are available 24/7.

Review Your Marketing Strategy

Effective marketing strategies enhance brand visibility, attract a wider audience, and drive sales conversions. Online marketing, with its paid ads, search engine optimization, social media, and content marketing, forms the cornerstone of these strategies, enabling targeted outreach to potential customers and effective engagement. Regularly assessing the performance of marketing tactics through platforms like Google Analytics unveils valuable insights into user behavior and campaign effectiveness for any ecommerce business. This data-driven approach empowers companies to refine their approach, reallocating resources to capitalize on what works best.

Content Marketing

Content is the king of any ecommerce website. It forms its product pages, fills its blog, and rules the reviews section. Content marketing has shifted to a model where consumers create the content and brands put it to work. According to EnTribe, 84% of consumers say they are more likely to trust a brand that uses content from real customers in its marketing.

With TINT, consumers have an engaging and fun way to try new goods online and share pictures or videos. You can leverage this content for Google ads, reviews, and social media publications.

Video Marketing

Using video for promotional purposes is now commonplace. Live-stream shopping is still an emerging channel rather than a mass one: 12% of consumers have taken part in a livestream shopping event, while 79% of Gen Z and millennials now bring social media into their shopping journey.

Live shopping in front of an audience can become even more rewarding and engaging with TINT. The virtual try-on feature protects users from buying a cat in a sack while reducing return rates.

Email Marketing

Crafted email campaigns possess the potential to forge lasting connections with customers, particularly when combined with loyalty programs tailored to reward regular patrons with a discount code. Too many businesses inundate customers with a barrage of messages. A targeted approach ensures that valuable information, such as discount codes and exclusive offers, reaches the inboxes of recipients genuinely interested in the content. Email remains the channel shoppers actually want: 60% of consumers name it their preferred channel for brand communication, ahead of social ads at 50%, push notifications at 37%, and SMS at 34%. By harnessing the power of email marketing, e-commerce enterprises can nurture relationships, encourage repeat purchases, and ultimately cultivate a loyal customer base in an increasingly competitive market.

Utilizing TINT allows companies to send out email campaigns with product samples and personalized recommendations to try without visiting a physical store. This approach cuts the path to purchase and boosts sales.

Social Media

The typical social media user spends an average of 18 hours 36 minutes a week on social platforms, more than a full waking day. It's a crime to neglect social media platforms as an additional touchpoint. An ecommerce business can use UGC in its social media posts to promote its products. Nearly 79% of Gen Z and millennial shoppers move between social and other channels before they buy. The more omnichannel you are, the higher the chances of a deal.

Influencer Marketing

Influencer marketing is still in its heyday, although it has transformed a bit. People have become more trusting of micro-influencers as they see them as more authentic, and the engagement gap is stark: on TikTok, micro-influencers see 18% active engagement against 5% for macro-influencers.

You can diversify your interactions with Influencers by giving them digitized versions of products before they even hit store shelves. TINT allows you to digitize new collections in less than 48 hours, thereby reducing the cost of promotional materials and testers.

Encourage Repeat Business

E-commerce businesses can employ a multifaceted approach that capitalizes on the foundation laid by their existing customers. Personalized engagement emerges as a linchpin, wherein tailored recommendations and exclusive offers resonate with the individual preferences and purchase history of customers. Timely and relevant communication through email newsletters and targeted social media campaigns maintains a consistent brand presence, nurturing a sense of familiarity and trust. Implementing a seamless and user-centric shopping experience encompassing intuitive navigation, swift checkout processes, and responsive customer support fortifies the bond between the business and its patrons. Incentivizing referrals and loyalty programs further amplifies the allure for repeat business, as customers become advocates who actively contribute to the brand's expansion.

Be Sustainable

Sustainability keeps climbing the list of things shoppers judge brands on. Adapting delivery routes, minimizing eco-packaging, reducing energy consumption, and selling cruelty-free products are just the tip of the iceberg. Transforming into a sustainable company can take time, but there are solutions you can implement today without putting a hole in your budget.

By eliminating testers with TINT, you can reduce your use of plastic and eliminate shipping. The entire new collection or items of interest can be emailed to you.

Leverage VR and AR

By leveraging these immersive technologies, businesses can provide unique shopping experiences accessible through mobile devices, tablets, and computers. VR and AR enhance product visualization, allowing customers to virtually try products before purchasing, resulting in higher customer satisfaction and reduced returns. Moreover, these technologies enable strategic upsells and cross-sells by suggesting complementary items based on user preferences and behaviors. Valuable customer information can be gleaned from user interactions within these immersive environments, empowering businesses to tailor their offerings and marketing strategies more effectively.  If you are weighing up the options for a storefront, this rundown of Shopify try-on apps that rarely make the obvious lists is a useful starting point.

Enhance Upsells and Cross-Sells

Cross-selling and upselling are excellent instruments to increase ecommerce sales for both new and existing customers. You can either use the "Compare" button on your website or utilize a smart virtual try-on that will offer alternatives to the customer's choice.

As TINT analyzes users' preferences, it suggests complementary items or premium alternatives during the virtual try-on process, seamlessly integrating cross-selling and upselling techniques.

Grow Your Geography

To expand its geography, an ecommerce business should focus on market research to identify viable regions, adapt its offerings to local preferences, optimize shipping and logistics for new locations, leverage online advertising and social media targeting, and ensure excellent customer support to build trust and loyalty with a potential customer.

Many people fear international shopping due to the inability to try and touch the item before purchasing. Returns are the cost of getting that wrong: 19.3% of online sales were returned in 2025, with fit and expectation among the leading causes. Shopify's own analysis of the problem points the same way, and one retailer, Gunner Kennels, cut its return rate by 5% after adding 3D and AR product previews. With TINT, you can attract more customers via convenient and true-to-life virtual try-ons.

If you want to grow your ecommerce business, you have to stick to a plan. Better yet, find a reliable tech partner who can cut your path to growth.

References

Bazaarvoice. (2025, April 12). Gen Z and millennials lead in social commerce trends. Bazaarvoice. https://www.bazaarvoice.com/blog/gen-z-and-millennials-lead-in-social-commerce-trends/

DataReportal. (2026, April). Global social media statistics. DataReportal. https://datareportal.com/social-media-users

Emplifi. (2025, October 13). Micro-influencers vs macro-influencers. Emplifi. https://emplifi.io/resources/blog/micro-influencers-vs-macro-influencers

EnTribe. (2022, July 6). New survey from EnTribe emphasizes value of user-generated content in marketing initiatives. GlobeNewswire. https://www.globenewswire.com/news-release/2022/07/06/2475085/0/en/New-Survey-from-EnTribe-Emphasizes-Value-of-User-Generated-Content-in-Marketing-Initiatives.html

HubSpot. (2025, August 7). Customer service statistics. HubSpot. https://blog.hubspot.com/service/customer-service-stats

McKinsey & Company. (2023, May 30). What is personalization? McKinsey & Company. https://www.mckinsey.com/featured-insights/mckinsey-explainers/what-is-personalization

National Retail Federation. (2025, October 15). Consumers expected to return nearly $850 billion in merchandise in 2025. NRF. https://nrf.com/media-center/press-releases/consumers-expected-to-return-nearly-850-billion-in-merchandise-in-2025

Optimove. (2026, March 5). Email is the channel consumers love most and hate most, Optimove research reveals. GlobeNewswire. https://www.globenewswire.com/news-release/2026/03/05/3250556/0/en/Email-Is-the-Channel-Consumers-Love-Most-and-Hate-Most-Optimove-Research-Reveals.html

Global ecommerce Sales Growth Report (2026) - Shopify. (2025, September 29). Shopify. https://www.shopify.com/blog/global-ecommerce-sales

Shopify. (n.d.). Ecommerce returns. Shopify. https://www.shopify.com/enterprise/blog/ecommerce-returns