7 Types of Branding for Ecommerce Companies To Explore

Branding is more than designing an eye-catching logo—it’s a visual and emotional representation of your company’s mission and personality. The right brand identity can shape consumer perception, inspire shared cultural values, and convert one-time shoppers into lifetime customers.

A 2020 study by Zendesk found that 74% of shoppers are loyal to at least one brand, and 52% will go out of their way to buy from a brand they love. Don’t underestimate the power of a fine-tuned brand identity.

Here’s an overview of what branding is and the seven types you can use to guide your products, marketing campaigns, and customer experience.

What is branding?

Branding is how a business creates a distinct identity that expresses the company’s personality, mission, and offerings. A strong brand identity is consistent, tells a compelling story, fosters community within your target market, and often appeals to both shoppers and employees. Key branding elements include:

• Visual identity. Part of your brand includes a logo design or company name used in marketing materials and any branded content. Consider elevating key elements of visual design, like using a distinctive website color palette and a custom typeface.

• Messaging. Your messaging strategy determines the tone of communications and marketing copy. A brand messaging strategy ensures all written content is consistent. 

• Mission statement. A mission statement defines your company’s purpose, including the problems you solve and for whom (a.k.a. your target audience). A clear mission is your guiding star as you develop your brand identity.

• Value proposition. Your unique value proposition highlights what makes your product or service stand out, ideally giving you a competitive advantage. For example, you might target eco-conscious consumers by selling refurbished kitchen appliances.

• Brand story. Who are the people behind your business and why did you start it? Your brand story can help you reach customers on a personal level and define your brand personality.

For more on the benefits of branding and how to develop your strategy, check out our complete guide to branding your business.

7 types of branding for ecommerce companies

Branding done haphazardly can be a liability in a competitive landscape, but consistent branding can increase brand recognition and drive growth. Here are seven forms of online branding to consider when developing a branding strategy:

1. Company branding

Company branding—or corporate branding, if you’re talking major global brands—is about creating a cohesive brand identity across your physical and digital presence. This includes consistent logos, color schemes, typefaces, and other visual elements, as well as a uniform voice and tone in web copy, print ads, social media channels, and email campaigns. It also reflects your company culture and values—ensuring everything from product design to hiring practices aligns with your core mission.

Fluff, an Australian makeup brand, offers reusable compacts and minimal disposable packaging. Its sleek, minimalist website reflects this mission by showcasing plastic-free compacts and a personal, honest blog.

Brand strategy is particularly important for stores that don’t focus on one product line and must instead cultivate an overarching aesthetic or promise shoppers exceptional customer service. These companies cultivate a unique identity across digital and in-person touchpoints (the latter of which is known as retail branding) to establish emotional connections with shoppers no matter where they engage.

For example, Loot Crate’s subscription boxes—filled with a variety of exclusive pop-culture items like collectibles, apparel, and accessories—change every month. However, its fun, fan-centered branding strategy maintains a consistent and recognizable identity for returning customers.

2. Product branding

Product branding applies a distinct identity to a specific product or service. You can use product branding to give your offering its own personality through design, packaging, and product page copy. If you have one product or a main product line, then its online and offline branding are likely very similar to your overarching brand identity. In many cases, your broader branding efforts naturally extend to product design, packaging, and marketing; for instance, Grind’s website design mirrors the packaging for its coffee pods.

Sometimes, a new product warrants its own sub-brand—especially if it appeals to a different audience, uses distinctive materials, has a different production process, or is a limited-edition special. You can create a product brand for this unique offering while still ensuring it aligns with your brand identity and target audience.

For example, Hiut Denim Co. uses bold red and minimal copy on its main homepage to emphasize its main product offering: made-to-order jeans.

Head over to its Déjà Blue page and you’re immersed in a deep denim-blue wash, setting a different tone and further emphasizing that this special lifetime buyback program prioritizes sustainability.

3. Service branding

Service branding is any branding designed for selling a service, which includes the quality of the customer interactions and their brand experience. This is often trickier than product branding because services typically are intangible, lacking physical packaging and product photos designed to catch someone’s eye. 

But brand voice can still come through in other aspects of your marketing efforts and visual identity. For example, even though Airbnb has no physical product or tangible packaging, the brand uses visual storytelling and a reliable user experience to convert a sense of reliability and wanderlust.

Take a look at how Nonna Live offers virtual cooking classes that highlight authentic Italian dishes. Its unique value proposition is the chance to learn directly from real Italian grandmothers. Its name, logo, and marketing immediately convey its authentic, heartfelt brand promise. 

4. Ingredient branding

An offshoot of product branding, ingredient branding turns a special component into a key product selling point. Instead of showing off your final product, you focus on what goes into it. This could be a food ingredient—like Taza’s stone-ground cacao beans—or a special material—like Oceanfoam’s algae-based foam rollers and exercise mats. 

Ingredient branding clearly highlights a company’s unique value through one standout element. It makes it easy to communicate your brand’s essence in everything from social posts to web banners.

One downside to note: Constantly promoting the same ingredient can get repetitive. Pair your ingredient branding with a broader message that supports a well-rounded brand personality.

5. Personal branding

Personal branding promotes an individual rather than a company or product. It’s common among celebrities, politicians, and influencers, but it also thrives in ecommerce when followers from social media platforms become customers.

For some, the personal brand comes first. Take Sonja Detrinidad, a TikTok creator and runner of the ecommerce plant store Partly Sunny Projects, as an example. Her TikTok content blends behind-the-scenes views of her business with personal anecdotes, enabling her to authentically connect with her followers and build customer loyalty at the same time. “I’m a woman in my 50s and in menopause,” Sonja says on an episode of the Shopify Masters podcast. “I don’t have the energy to put on a facade of somebody that I’m not.”

6. Collaborative branding

Who doesn’t love an exciting collab? Collaborative branding—when two brands join forces to create a single product, line, or service—can expand your audience and become more than the sum of the parts. It’s a strategic partnership that draws on each company’s reputation to boost visibility and reach. While sometimes tricky to coordinate, a well-balanced co-branding strategy can create something special. 

Take Grind’s collaboration with the artist Sophy Hillington. The product container’s bold black background, vibrant accents, and maximalist illustrations starkly contrast with the brand’s usual light pink minimalism. Yet, the familiar product shape and typography keep it grounded in the brand’s core identity. By photographing the product alongside its signature branded coffee bags, Grind subtly reintroduces its signature pink, creating a perfect marriage where both partners shine.

7. Rebranding

Rebranding can range from a simple name change to an entirely new visual identity. Companies rebrand to attract new target groups, align more closely with their mission, or refresh their image. Even a successful brand might rebrand to stay relevant and stand out. A wholesale rebrand is a significant undertaking, requiring the entire corporation to align with the new branding strategy. But it’s often the right move if you need a competitive edge or want to become a more recognizable brand. 

MìLà, the street food restaurant, started out with the name Xiaochi—but the owners wanted a brand identity that better reflected its growing direct-to-consumer (DTC) business. Additionally, its products were now being shipped worldwide and offered way more than just street-food style items. The founders thought the new name, MìLà (meaning honey and spice) better represented the flavors and experience of their food lineup. They rebranded everything—the website, product packaging, social channels—with the new name, while maintaining its familiar visual identity to ease the transition for existing customers.