E-commerce is big business. Especially now in 2022.

We see new ads, new offers, new deals, new fire sales, new platforms, new products, new services and new names almost every day.

Why? Because we’ve all come to agree that e-commerce is the model solution to the obvious problem of generating reliable foot traffic since the pandemic hit.

Simon Sinek’s book Start With Why – which was published 10 years before the start of Covid-19 – is an almost perfect field guide for how new companies and owners can cut through the clutter of a heavily saturated marketplace, and more importantly – survive it.

But with that said, it seems very few companies understand the concept of why WHY matters.

When you scroll through your feeds every morning, it is likely you see dozens of targeted ads for products you haven’t seen before but are related to your past searches/purchases.

This is SEO marketing in action. An algorithm trying to put as many products in front of you based on keyword searches of things you may have once looked for.

This is not done manually by someone at a desk looking at your history and selecting what you might want to buy one by one.

This is a system designed to pull up ads using a “spray and pray” method to drive you to view volume and then buy.

It’s very likely this has worked on you more than once, but it was likely on impulse, or by accident.

SEO is effective, of this, there is no doubt, but the majority of new companies are failing to take responsibility for why they want you to buy. They instead seem to be more focused on how many views the product gets.

Sales and discount ads for products and services are great for one-time sales, but that’s not how brands become memorable, or how customer loyalty is built.

Loyalty comes from – as Sinek describes it – with WHY a company does what they do, not what or how.

“SALE ENDS AT MIDNIGHT!” is enough to drive a sales flood and clear your inventory, but without a WHY that emotionally connects a customer to who you are or what you do, your company will have no chance of standing out.

You will be nothing but noise in an over-saturated marketplace filled with merchandise, without a message.

If you want your business to survive, focus on what your mission is to your customers as well as who you are.

A sales-based plan will give you short-term success, but then you will become a victim of cutting your profits on repeat until you’re forced to close your doors. Then all that’s left of the dream is wondering how it all went so wrong.

Meaning matters more than sales. Meaning lasts longer than after midnight.