Estimated read time: 6 minutes, 58 seconds

Everybody likes a good quote. Whether it’s a simple self-care reminder or a cheesy line from a movie. We love reading and sharing these small snippets with one another.

But as a digital seller and online business owner, sometimes you need a quote that gives you more than warm, fuzzy feelings. You need something that makes you think about your digital business in a new way, renews your motivation, and helps you be more innovative.

To help get your head back in the game, here are some of our favorite ecommerce quotes from the best in the biz.

Communication

1. “Communication is at the heart of e-commerce and community.” – Meg Whitman, President, and CEO of Hewlett-Packard

We often talk about building relationships with your customers, and all good relationships are built on a foundation of good communication. Make sure you’re communicating clearly and often with your customers.

2. “Amazing things will happen when you listen to the consumer.” – Jonathan Midenhall, CMO for Airbnb

Communication is a two-way street. We spend a lot of time strategizing what we say to our customers, but we need to spend just as much time listening to understand our customers.

Customer Service

3. “We see our customers as invited guests to a party, and we are the hosts. It’s our job every day to make every important aspect of the customer experience a little bit better.” – Jeff Bezos, Founder of Amazon

I really like the way he thinks about the customer experience. We need to make our customers feel welcome and comfortable on our website.

4. “If you’re competitor focused, you have to wait until there is a competitor doing something. Being customer-focused allows you to be more pioneering.” – Jeff Bezos, CEO of Amazon

Yes! Always think about the customer first, then you can create products that fit their needs.

5. “Your most unhappy customers are your greatest source of learning.” – Bill Gates, co-founder of Microsoft

Nobody wants a bad review. But bad reviews help you improve and create a better experience for your customers.

6. “Customers don’t expect you to be perfect. They do expect you to fix things when they go wrong.” – Donald Porter, British Airways

We never want anything to go wrong with our products or customer experience, but it’s a fact of life. Make sure you’re prepared to make things right when you need to.

7. “Market-specific customer care – e-business leaders must understand how customers want to interact with their brand for customer service. Customers’ reliance on different service channels (e.g., call center, email, online chat, and social) vary by market, and well-localized websites will dedicate resources to channels relative to local preference.” – Lily Varon, digital business strategy analyst

Get to know your customers and their preferred communication channels.

8. “Don’t forget about those people who have spent their hard-earned money with you. They could be responsible for substantial online sales later down the line. Treat them like your family and take them with you on your journey.” – Matt Thorpe, founder and senior director of M.Thorpe & Associates Inc.

Nurturing customer relationships should always be a priority, especially with your subscribers. Make sure you have customer nurturing strategies in place.

9. “Customer service shouldn’t just be a department, it should be the entire company.” – Tony Hsieh, CEO of Zappos

This is especially true for small businesses that may or may not have dedicated customer service reps; every member of your team should be working to make the customer happy.

10. “For you to achieve your goals, visitors must first achieve theirs.” – Bryan Eisenberg, marketing expert, author and speaker

I love this! Always put the customer first.

Content Creation

11. “Create content that teaches. You can’t give up. You need to be consistently awesome.” – Neil Patel, co-founder of CrazyEgg

Content isn’t just about keywords and SEO. You want every piece of online content to offer something unique and useful to your readers.
Online Marketing

12. “You can’t wait for customers to come to you. You have to figure out where they are, go there and drag them back to your store.” – Paul Graham, Y COMBINATOR

To me, this quote is all about market research. You need to know as much about your audience as possible so you can find them where they are and know how to communicate with them.

13. “You can’t just open a website and expect people to flood in. If you really want to succeed you have to create traffic.” – Joel Anderson, CEO, Walmart

Finding the right online channels and creating the right messaging to drive traffic is probably the hardest part of running an online business. Be ready to put in the time.

14. “If you do build a great experience, customers tell each other about that. Word of mouth is very powerful.” – Jeff Bezos, Founder of Amazon.com

As much as we’d like to control the conversation surrounding our products and brand, we can’t. So, try to create a customer experience that’s worth talking about … in a good way.

15. “One key benefit of personalizing messages is that it recognizes the customers as individuals. By marketing one way to prospects, another way to those that have already purchased a product, and another way to long-term, high-value customers you can make your marketing messages far more compelling and effective. Customers will also appreciate the personal touch, and you’ll stop driving them away by bombarding them with messages which aren’t relevant to them.” – Dave Chaffey, author of five business books on Digital Marketing, Strategy, Implementation, and Practice

With so many automated personalization tools available, they need to be part of your marketing mix.

Website Creation

16. “Over-developed websites are slow to load. This directly impacts conversion rates. No matter how cute the treatment, if your home page requires a “Loading” message, you’re probably in trouble.” – Brian Massey, founder of Conversion Sciences and author of “Your Customer Creation Equation”

When it comes to websites, it’s all about simplicity. From your layout to design to CTAs to development, keep it clean and simple.

17. “Remember, every ‘mistake’ your customer makes, it’s not because they’re stupid. It’s because your website sucks.” – Peep Laja, Founder of ConversionXL

As hard as this one is to hear, it’s true.

18. “Overall the web is pretty sloppy, but an online store can’t afford to be.” – Paul Graham, co-founder of Y Combinator

See #16. Keep your online store clean and simple.

Differentiation

19. “The reason it seems that price is all your customers care about is that you haven’t given them anything else to care about.” – Seth Godin, Entrepreneur, Author and Blogger

Differentiate your products beyond the price point. Now, go read a Seth Godin book. You won’t regret it.

Ecommerce Inspiration

20. “I don’t create companies for the sake of creating companies, but to get things done.” – Elon Musk, CEO & CTO of SpaceX, Investor in PayPal

Love him or hate him, Elon Musk knows how to get things done. So, when you’re developing a new idea, ask yourself, “What problem am I solving?”

21. “Always deliver more than expected.” – Larry Page, co-founder of Google

You should apply this principle to every aspect of your life, not just your business.

22. “If you’ve made sure your product is super-valuable to the customers, when customers get the message from you that their card is going to expire, has expired, or their payment otherwise failed to go through, they’ll drop everything and update their card so they don’t miss a beat with your product.” – Lincoln Murphy, customer success consultant, and keynote speaker

I love this. Make your product or service so good that people can’t live without it.

23. “Ecommerce isn’t the cherry on the cake, it’s the new cake” – Jean Paul Ago, CEO L’Oreal

No matter what your business is, think in terms of ecommerce first.

24. “Timing, perseverance, and ten years of trying will eventually make you look like an overnight success.” – Biz Stone, co-founder of Twitter

I hate how true this quote is. Success takes time, so prepare yourself for the long-haul.

I hope you’ve been inspired and you’re ready to tackle your next ecommerce task, project, or venture with a fresh perspective. When you’re ready to grow your business, FastSpring is here to help! Get started with a free trial today.