What four years running an international webshop taught me about healthy growth

For four years I was general director and e-commerce manager of an international e-commerce company, part of 123inkt and 123accu. The webshop sold replacement products around batteries and chargers, vacuum cleaners and LED lamps, in more than 25 countries worldwide. Not an advisory role, not a dashboard from a distance, but end responsibility. For the revenue, for the margin, for the team and for the question of whether we would still be growing next year.

Those years taught me more than any course or certification. Three lessons I have taken with me ever since to every webshop I work for.

Lesson 1: revenue is a choice, margin is a discipline

Buying revenue is not hard. Raise your budgets, lower your prices, run a promotion. The numbers go up and everyone is happy for a moment.

Margin is a different story. Margin demands that you know, per category, what an order really costs. Advertising costs, yes. But also returns, shipping costs, payment costs and the hours your team puts into an order. That is why at the company we did not steer on revenue but on contribution margin per product group. Some categories that looked good on paper turned out to be loss-making the moment you counted the returns. Those insights change your entire marketing mix.

What I now see at webshops: everyone steers on ROAS per channel. But a ROAS of 8 on a product with 15 percent margin is worse than a ROAS of 4 on a product with 45 percent margin. As long as your dashboard does not show that difference, you are steering on the wrong number.

Lesson 2: every type of webshop has its own channel mix

There is no standard mix. A niche shop with unique products and high margins can lean heavily on SEO and email. A volume player in a competitive market wins or loses on Google Shopping and operational efficiency. A D2C brand needs social and repeat purchases to earn back its acquisition costs.

At the company we learned this anew for every country. What worked in the Netherlands did not automatically work in the surrounding countries. Different search behaviour, different payment methods, different competition. The mix follows the market, not the other way around.

The practical question for every webshop owner: do you know what each channel really contributes, or does your agency divide the budget the way it did last year?

Lesson 3: scaling internationally is a matter of sequence

The biggest mistake in international growth is wanting everything at once. Five countries live, five times a half result.

At the company we deliberately chose sequence. First make one country truly profitable, then move on to the next. Per country we looked at three things: is there search volume for our products, can we compete logistically on delivery time and costs, and does the margin still add up after local shipping costs and payment methods. Two out of three green was not enough.

That same sequence approach is what I now use for webshops that want to take the step to Belgium, Germany or further. The answer is almost never "which country to add" but "which country first".

What this means for your webshop

Growth that comes only from more budget is not a strategy. Healthy growth starts with a stable baseline: organic visibility, a webshop that converts, customers who come back and a sharp view of where you stand relative to your competitors. On top of that come steering on margin, a channel mix that suits your type of webshop and international steps in the right order.

That is exactly what I help webshops with now. As senior expertise alongside your team and your agencies, with a dashboard that shows the complete picture. Curious what that looks like for your webshop? Take a look at the e-commerce strategy service or schedule an intro call.