Beyond the Algorithm: How Smart Strategy — Not Just Tech — Drives E-Commerce Growth by Anna Shtovbonko

Marketplace expert delivering proven tactics that drive 10% conversion growth and 70% support automation for leading e-commerce businesses. 

The bar for success in e-commerce keeps rising. It’s no longer enough to be online simply — brands now need to compete on strategy, efficiency, and experience. As online sales continue their upward trajectory, the real challenge for business leaders isn’t finding advice but choosing what actually works. That’s where real-world experience becomes indispensable—according to a report by Oberlo, U.S. e-commerce sales reached $1.3 trillion, marking an 8.6% year-over-year growth. This surge underscores online retail’s rapid expansion and consumers’ shifting preferences toward digital shopping experiences.​

Anna Shtovbonko, an e-commerce project manager based in New York, has been instrumental in driving such digital transformations using a structured methodology that combines AI insights with hands-on execution. With a Master’s Degree in Commerce, Banking & Finance, Anna transitioned from a background in financial analysis and corporate operations to specialize in e-commerce over a decade ago. She has significantly contributed to enhancing online sales, pricing strategies, and marketplace operations across platforms like Amazon, Walmart, and eBay, which she also described in her scientific works.

The following tactics — all tested in real business environments — demonstrate how a solid methodology translates into measurable results.

Listing Optimization: Visibility Starts with Identity 

In crowded marketplaces, product quality alone isn’t enough. A clear brand identity and optimized presentation are prerequisites for customer trust and platform performance.

For example, Anna helped Walmart sellers improve their product visibility by focusing on two things: making it easier for customers to find their listings and making the listings more attractive once they got there. In other words, she executed a dual-track optimization approach grounded in deep catalog analysis and platform-specific SEO. First, she researched keywords that matched Walmart’s search system and updated titles and product details to show up in more searches. Then, she worked with content teams to upgrade images and product descriptions so the listings looked better and converted more visitors into buyers. This practical approach helped transform basic listings into professional, high-performing product pages.

“Your listings are your storefront. Before advertising, ensure your product pages reflect a clear, competitive brand identity,” she says. 

Conversion Through Personalization: Practical Interface Improvements 

Personalization isn’t just a buzzword. It directly impacts conversion by simplifying the buyer journey and aligning with customer intent. According to a report by Exploding Topics, 85% of global consumers shop online, and personalization plays a crucial role in their purchasing decisions.

Keeping that in mind, Anna introduced the “Shopping Preferences” feature at Jomashop, a major online retailer known for selling luxury goods, including watches, handbags, and fashion accessories. Unlike many personalization tools that reset with each session, this feature gave customers a dedicated page that stayed filtered by their favorite brands and categories, automatically showing only new arrivals. This made it easier for shoppers to keep up with relevant products without needing to reapply filters, boosting both discovery and repeat visits.

As Anna puts it, “Personalization doesn’t necessarily require AI. Even small UX tweaks can create meaningful improvements in user satisfaction and conversion.”

She also developed the “Share My Cart” feature, which lets users build a cart and generate a payment link to send to someone else — ideal for gifting, shared purchases, or cases where one person shops and another pays. This made it easier for customers to complete purchases collaboratively, and it quickly became a user favorite. The feature alone led to a 10% increase in conversion rates — proof that simple, customer-centric functionality can drive measurable growth.

Operational Efficiency: Reducing Support Load with Targeted Automation 

Post-purchase pain points are often invisible to leadership until they erode customer satisfaction and overwhelm support teams.

Post-purchase pain points are often invisible to leadership until they erode customer satisfaction and overwhelm support teams. One of the most common — and costly — of these is the “Where Is My Order?” (WISMO) inquiry. These questions arise when customers don’t receive timely updates about their orders, often signaling a breakdown in communication and trust.

According to a 2024 survey by Statista, 44% of U.S. consumers stopped shopping at a company after just one poor customer service experience — making WISMO inquiries not just an operational nuisance but a direct threat to customer retention.

That’s why Anna led the development of a WISMO (“Where Is My Order?”) chatbot at Jomashop, integrated with the company’s order management system. The chatbot handled up to 70% of all customer service inquiries, dramatically reducing response times and freeing up human agents to handle complex issues. This not only cut costs but also improved customer satisfaction during a critical phase of the customer journey.

As Anna comments, “Automating high-volume, low-complexity support tasks can deliver instant ROI and protect brand loyalty.”

It turns out that investing in automation where customers repeatedly ask the same question can yield both time savings and service improvement.

Smart Infrastructure: Automation and Analytics at Scale 

The key to growth isn’t just adding people. You need to build systems that can scale. This aligns with the Ringelmann Effect, a principle observed in group dynamics where the productivity of each individual tends to decrease as the size of the team increases. In large teams, coordination becomes harder, communication slows down, and individuals may exert less effort because responsibility feels more dispersed. Without the right systems in place, adding more people can actually make execution slower and less efficient, not faster. “Identify recurring workflows that follow consistent rules. Those are your prime candidates for automation,” Anna insists.

For instance, Anna developed a rules-based automation system that identified items eligible for sales events based on brand policy, profit margins, inventory levels, and category relevance. In practice, this meant that instead of manually sorting through product catalogs and spreadsheets, her system automatically checked whether each product met preset criteria — for example, enough stock, high enough profit margin, and compliance with brand restrictions — and then compiled the eligible products into a ready-to-use list for marketing campaigns. This logic-driven workflow transformed what used to take hours of manual effort into a process that delivered a fully optimized promotional item list in minutes, significantly increasing speed and accuracy for a high-volume seller on eBay known as LePerfect.

Data-Led Scaling: Profit Margins Before Ad Spend 

According to Deloitte’s 2024 CMO Survey, the top priority for marketing leaders is no longer growth at any cost — it’s profitable growth with clear ROI. That makes pricing control, inventory efficiency, and fulfillment strategy essential guardrails before scaling ad spend.

Many e-commerce brands lose money by advertising products that are either out of stock or priced too low to turn a profit. To fix this, Anna designed a structured automation system that identified SKUs suitable for Walmart Fulfillment Services (WFS), which offers centralized warehousing, streamlined delivery, and customer service handled directly by Walmart, calculated pricing bounds for repricing tools and flagged restocking needs in real-time. This comprehensive framework allowed her team to focus ad spending only on listings with clear profit potential and inventory availability—an approach that significantly boosted operational precision and marketing efficiency for FashionGalaxy, a Walmart-based business known for managing a large catalog at scale.

As Anna advises: “Before turning up your ad spend, make sure your pricing and inventory guardrails are firmly in place. And never scale ads without knowing where your margins sit. That clarity gives you the power to spend confidently,” she adds

So what ties these wins together? It is a consistent, structured approach. Anna operates on a proven five-part “Marketplace Growth Engine” methodology that helps her identify the right problems to solve and deploy the right tools to solve them:

• Market & Product Analysis: AI-powered research surfaces overlooked opportunities.
• Listing Optimization: Search-driven content ensures visibility and engagement.
• AI-Driven Advertising: Campaigns are optimized across platforms for efficiency and scale.
• Operational Excellence: Streamlined fulfillment and compliance reduce friction.
• Performance Analytics: Real-time insights drive continuous refinement.

Whether boosting conversion through personalization, reducing support load, or preparing systems for scale, her results offer a practical blueprint for any CEO looking to drive lasting growth.

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