If you're counting on price discounting for anything more than short-term sales boosts, you're not thinking straight, according to Amanda Squires, client services director at Pod1.

For long-term goals, Squires says, you need to implement a thorough customer relationship management program: "This is particularly relevant with the higher end of the high street and luxury brands where discounting is just not part of the brand strategy."

CRM can help e-tailers "more effectively use the assets they already have," she notes, by tapping into a wealth of information – "including inventory, buying guides, videos, and site search and sales data, not forgetting input from their existing community."

And of course social media is a consideration here too: Facebook (News - Alert), blogs and other social media tools "have now added an extra layer on to the traditional approach to CRM," she says, and "have made this a realistically achievable goal for smaller retailers and brands, as the information available about their customers and their preferences, purchases and recommendations is ever present."

Of course the other side of this coin is that this is what customers, especially high end customers, expect. So don't look at this as something that'd be nice to have as an option. Look at this as something your competition's doing.

"The simple rule is if you’ve got the data, then use it; don’t simply display it," Squires says. "Sales data is another asset e-retailers already have readily to hand, and this can be used to advise shoppers, by, for example, promoting top sellers that are relevant to given searches."

And let's just cut to the chase here, folks. "As unsexy as it sounds, online retailers can do no better for their businesses and their immediate bottom lines than by implementing a CRM strategy," Squires declares.