When ecommerce sites underperform, teams look for tactical problems. The headlines need work. The checkout has friction. The page speed is slow.
But often, the real problem is upstream: the people responsible for the site aren’t aligned on what it’s supposed to do.
The Hidden Conflict
Marketing wants the site to generate leads and build brand awareness. Sales wants it to close deals. Operations wants it to reduce support burden. Finance wants it to maximize margin. Leadership wants it to support strategic positioning.
These goals aren’t always compatible. Sometimes they directly conflict.
A marketing-driven homepage might not convert as well as a sales-driven one. A margin-maximizing product mix might not match what customers want. A brand-forward design might sacrifice clarity for aesthetics.
When stakeholders pull in different directions, the site becomes a compromise—satisfying no one fully, optimized for nothing specifically.
How Misalignment Shows Up
Inconsistent messaging. Different pages reflect different priorities because different people controlled them. The homepage says one thing, product pages say another, and checkout says something else.
Feature bloat. Every department got their feature request approved. The site accumulates capabilities that serve internal constituencies, not customers.
Frozen decision-making. Nobody can agree on changes, so nothing changes. The site stagnates while teams debate priorities.
Constant rework. Decisions get made, then revisited when a different stakeholder objects. Work cycles repeatedly without progress.
The Alignment Conversation
Solving this requires a conversation most teams avoid: What is this website actually for? Who is the primary audience? What outcome matters most?
These questions have real answers—or should. But they’re uncomfortable because they require trade-offs. Saying the site is primarily for customer X means it’s not primarily for customer Y. Prioritizing goal A means deprioritizing goal B.
Teams avoid these trade-offs by trying to do everything. The result is a site that does nothing particularly well.
Finding True North
Alignment starts with clarity about the customer. Not “customers” in plural—the specific person your site serves most.
Who are they? What do they need? What transformation are they seeking? When you can answer these questions specifically, many internal debates resolve themselves. Decisions can be tested against customer benefit, not stakeholder preference.
The Hierarchy of Goals
Every site serves multiple goals. Alignment doesn’t mean having only one goal—it means having a clear hierarchy.
Primary goal: the thing we absolutely must accomplish. Secondary goals: things we’d like to accomplish if they don’t compromise the primary. Constraints: things we must not do, regardless of other benefits.
This hierarchy provides a decision framework. When stakeholders disagree, you can ask: which choice better serves our primary goal? The answer might not make everyone happy, but it makes progress possible.
Getting Stakeholders Aligned
Alignment isn’t achieved in one meeting. It requires:
Shared understanding of the customer. Bring stakeholders into customer research. Let them hear directly what customers say. Shared exposure creates shared understanding.
Explicit goal-setting. Document the hierarchy of goals. Get sign-off. Refer back to it when debates arise.
Regular recalibration. As the business evolves, alignment needs refreshing. What was true six months ago might not be true today.
Someone with authority. Alignment often requires someone who can make trade-off decisions and make them stick. Without clear ownership, consensus becomes paralysis.
The Payoff
When teams align on what the site is for, everything becomes easier. Decisions have clear criteria. Debates have resolution mechanisms. Work moves forward instead of cycling.
More importantly, the site itself becomes coherent. Visitors feel the difference between a site that knows what it’s doing and one pulled in multiple directions. Coherence builds trust. Trust builds conversion.
The tactical problems are usually real. But if you solve them without solving alignment, you’ll keep generating new problems. Alignment is the foundation that makes everything else work.