E-commerce Essentials for Early-Stage Businesses

Who Is This Workshop For?

Bristol-based small business owners who already have an ecommerce website up and running, but are still in the early stages of growing their online presence. If you’ve launched your store but feel unsure how to take it to the next level—this session is for you.

Whether you’re getting a few orders a month or struggling to drive consistent traffic, this workshop will help you build the foundations for long-term growth with confidence and clarity.

What We Will Cover:

Strengthening your ecommerce brand:

A practical introduction to refining and presenting your brand consistently:

• What makes a strong ecommerce brand?

• Creating a consistent look and feel across your website and channels

• Communicating your values, tone of voice, and visual identity

• Simple design tips to increase trust and credibility

Mapping the customer journey:

Understand how customers experience your site—from first click to checkout:

• How to audit your site for clarity and ease of use

• Creating a seamless shopping experience

• Identifying (and fixing) common drop-off points

Driving traffic to your website:

Explore free and low-cost ways to get more of the right people to your store:

• Leveraging social media with intent

• Content that drives clicks: blogs, posts, and product storytelling

• Getting started with search engine optimisation (SEO)

• Using directories, communities, and collaborations

Building an email list (and why it matters):

Move beyond social media and build a channel you control:

• How to set up a simple lead capture form or pop-up

• What to offer: incentives, downloads, or exclusive perks

• Tips for writing your first welcome email

• Tools to get started with email marketing

Creating consistency across your touchpoints:

Make sure your customer experience feels joined-up:

• Aligning your website, social media, packaging, and comms

• Reinforcing trust through branding and customer service

• How consistency helps convert and retain customers

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About your host

Anne Suddick is the Marketing Skills Advisor at YTKO, dedicated to empowering startup business owners and entrepreneurs. With a background in teaching and experience running her own marketing consultancy supporting SMEs, she brings a diverse skill set to the role.

Anne has worked with countless early-stage ecommerce businesses, helping them fine-tune their brand, boost their visibility, and turn visitors into loyal customers.

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Bristol Business & Enterprise Support (BrisBES)

Are you eligible to attend?

You must be based within the city of Bristol boundary served by the Bristol City Council. This includes those who have:

• A business idea
• Recently started a business
• A trading business already operating

Important: You must complete a registration form with your full name and address details during the Eventbrite registration process. After registering for the course, you will be sent an YTKO BrisBES Enrolment From which you must complete before attending the workshop. If we do not receive it in good time it may mean that we are unable to send you the Zoom details to access theworkshop.

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Bristol Business & Enterprise Support (BrisBES)

BrisBES is a fully funded support programme designed to deliver high quality, inclusive and sustainable support to people who are looking to start, launch and grow their own business.

We focus on building your confidence and skills and help you to learn the key knowledge areas to build a successful and sustainable new enterprise. We offer specialist learning and support through a mixed programme of training workshops, networking events, online resources and 1:2:1 support delivered by our team of enterprise advisors.

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Booking is essential as places are limited to ensure maximum learning and benefit for each participant. Please ensure that if you are unable to attend the session, that you let us know so that we can move this place to another participant.If you require any help accessing our courses, please contact us at westofengland@ytko.com

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How is BrisBES funded?

BrisBES is funded by the West of England Combined Authority and Bristol City Council. The programme will help to boost the local economy and create employment for people in Bristol.BrisBES has received £925k from the UK government through the UK Shared Prosperity Fund.

The UK Shared Prosperity Fund is a central pillar of the UK government’s Levelling Up agenda and provides £2.6 billion of funding for local investment by March 2025. The Fund aims to improve pride in place and increase life chances across the UK investing in communities and place, supporting local business, and people and skills. For more information, click here.