To win the game of eCommerce and benefit from it, you need to start offering personalized products to your customers through a product design tool.

A well-structured website brings you more customers and makes you stand out from the crowd. Making your goods available online increases your chances of selling them to a significantly higher number of people in fact data from OptiMonster’s shows that 93.5% of global internet users have bought products online.

If you are an eCommerce store owner or you are trying to go into eCommerce, this article contains some reason why you should add product design tools to your store.

• 10 Reasons Why Product Designer Tool is Beneficial for E-commerce Store Owners
• What Are The 10 Advantages of E-commerce?
• Why is Design Important in E-commerce?
• What Are The Benefits of E-commerce to Business Owners?
• What Top 10 Features Are a Must For any E-commerce Site?
• How is E-commerce Beneficial?
• What Are The Benefits of E Shopping?
• What is Web design And What Role Does it Play in eCommerce?
• What is E-commerce Website Design?
• 5 Best E-commerce Website Design Examples
• Why E-commerce is Important in Business?
• What is The Importance of E-commerce Technology For Entrepreneurs?
• What Are The 8 Unique Features of E-commerce?
• What is The Most Important Thing in E-commerce?
• What Are Important Features of eCommerce Software?
• Why Should I Use an E-commerce Software?
• How Does E-commerce Benefit Small Firms?
• What Factors Are Important For Online Stores?
• What Are The Various Applications of E-commerce?

10 Reasons Why Product Designer Tool is Beneficial for E-commerce Store Owners

1. Increased sales

24*7/365 availability of goods and unlimited customer reach generate more sale. When you aren’t limited to the local market or to physical store capacity, you automatically sell more and can adjust your stock to your customers’ needs.

Read Also: How to Start an eCommerce Business in 2022

You can provide your services or sell goods abroad by adjusting prices to the global market.  By spending less of your budget running a store and making more capital at the same time, you can save a significant amount of money and expand your business faster.

2. Reduced operational expenses

E-commerce is the most economical way to grow your retail business. It doesn’t require high levels of initial capital and it’s very cost-effective. Most of the investment is repaid by early sales profits.

From a long-term perspective buying a domain and hosting or paying for web development and good e-commerce service is less expensive than buying or renting physical business premises. Some e-commerce platforms provide sellers with drop-shipping services, which helps cut storage and delivery expenses.

Chatbots can support you with customer enquiries and automation keeps all the inventory and finances in one place so you don’t have to spend money on additional software.

3. Increased availability of products and services

With products and services listed online, retailers have a better chance to reach out their customers and promote their businesses. Your products and services are constantly visible as e-commerce platforms offer online listings and price comparison.

Moreover, you can serve those who couldn’t find items locally and decided to turn to the internet to source the product.  As websites are visual, online stores also give you limitless opportunities to present your items in an aesthetically pleasing way and stand out from the crowd.

4. A broader range of customers

There is no doubt that e-commerce platforms help sellers reach buyers globally and sell their goods on the wider market. You’re scaling the business globally and being online means that you can sell to people all over the world. There is no limit to whom and where you reach. Broadening your business horizons not only earns you more money but helps your business grow.

5. Simplified buying process

The most convenient aspect of e-commerce is that the customer can purchase directly from you after searching for an item online, without leaving home or interacting with a salesperson. Consumers expect goods to be available instantly, e-stores answer that needs.

Because buying online doesn’t require a visit to a retail store and products can be shipped from any place in the world, consumers aren’t limited to shops in their local vicinity and spend less time shopping. That’s what makes e-commerce an attractive alternative for them. As a retailer, you need to meet them online and give them what they’re looking for.

6. Automation

E-commerce platforms offer full automation, including finance systems, inventory, shipping and customer service. That means everything is in one place and can easily be managed by one person at their convenience.

Chatbots can help you out with most enquiries and artificial intelligence provides a personal touch into this communication. These simple solutions give you more time to grow your business and keep your customers happy at the same time, and all of this without hiring additional team members.

7. Derive benefit from customer advocacy

Whisper marketing works very well online and helps spread the word about your brand globally. People depend heavily on reviews and others’ opinions.

They are more likely to buy a particular product from a particular seller if it was recommended by someone famous, someone they know or someone they can identify with. The Digital Marketing Institute shows that 49% of consumers rely on influencer recommendations and 40% have purchased goods after seeing them on social media.

8. Lower advertising costs

Customer advocacy and increased brand awareness help reduce marketing and advertising costs. As word spreads quickly on the Internet you can reach potential customers with every review of your product or opinion about your brand left on Google or other independent consumer review websites.

Moreover, product listings on e-commerce platforms make your goods visible to a potential customer. Your products can be showcased using photos, videos banners or GIFs. There is an entire set of affordable tools available for you to promote your products.

Not to mention that e-commerce platforms are very well positioned in Google and the algorithms ensure that whatever is listed on websites will be ranked highly in the search results.

9. Flexibility

According to KPMG, the main reason people buy online is that they can do it whenever they want from anywhere on the planet. This feature makes the shopping experience very easy and convenient.

It allowed e-commerce to thrive during the Pandemic when people were stuck at home unable to buy in physical stores. But it’s not just buyers who benefit from e-commerce flexibility. Solutions like service automation or AI software give retailers more freedom when selling online.

10. Analysis of consumer behaviour

Imagine being able to predict what and when will be bought from you. Imagine you can tailor your offer to each customer’s needs. Imagine you can guide your customers to buy certain products. These things aren’t entirely possible when running a physical store but can be achieved with an online store.

A variety of analytics tools and the newest AI software gives you insights into consumer buying habits and helps you to not only personalise the offer but also respond quickly to your customers’ needs and changing trends. That’s one small step towards greater sales.

What Are The 10 Advantages of E-commerce?

By enabling the customer to make a particular purchase in just a few clicks, an e-commerce website or app is an effective and affordable option that empowers you to augment your business. Let’s dive deeper into the advantages of an e-commerce website or store over traditional commerce.

1. No geographical limitation

When it comes to traditional commerce, you can only do business where you have set up your physical store. This is not the case with e-commerce websites. For them, the whole world is their playground if planned strategically. People from one corner of the world can easily order a specific product from another corner of the world with a few clicks.

2. Easy way to gain customer by search engine visibility

Traditional retail shops depend mostly on branding and relations to drive more customers to their shop but on the other hand, e-commerce drive most of its traffic from search engines. Over 30% of e-commerce traffic comes from organic searches on search engines.

This is just the traffic from organic searches and then we have advertisements, social media traffic which is the tipping point for many e-commerce businesses. By using a standalone solution like Yo!Kart for your e-commerce store, you can easily gather insights into the traffic coming from different social media platforms.

3. Lower cost/investment

One of the best reasons to open an e-commerce website is because it requires a low investment as compared to setting up a physical retail store. To cut down the prices for your e-commerce website, you can make use of the best marketing strategy involving: organic search, pay per click or social media traffic. Also, the manpower and property required to get the business up and running is much less as compared to a physical store.

4. Locate product quickly

We have all been through the hassle of locating a specific product in a huge store, running up and down the aisles and asking the person in charge to assist you. This is not the case with e-commerce stores, as the customer just has to click through intuitive navigation or just type the specific product in the search box to immediately find their requirement.

5. Save travel time and cost

The main reason for people shifting from traditional commerce to e-commerce is because it saves travel time and cost. For a physical retail shop, the customer has to visit the outlet to purchase the item whereas for an e-commerce website or app, he can just do it with few clicks sitting on the couch. With the advent of m-commerce, it has, even more, saved the time of the customer by allowing them to purchase the products on the go.

6. Enables deal, bargain, coupons and group buying

Many of you would think that even traditional commerce offers deals, bargains, etc. But an e-commerce store makes it more convenient and easy for customers to avail them. Imagine a situation where you have coupons for groceries in one store and discount voucher for clothing in a completely different store.

Imagine the amount of hassle you would have to face to buy both these products. While in the case of online shopping, you can purchase anything with just a few clicks and avail both the coupon and discount voucher on the same platform.

7. Abundance of information

When you go to a shopping store, the only information you see is that written on the product and the price of the product. In an e-commerce store, additional information is easily available to the customer in just a click. Mostly this information is entered into the system by individual vendors which require no extra effort or cost of the e-commerce owner.

8. Remains open all the time

Another major factor why the customer has shifted from traditional commerce to e-commerce websites is that they can shop at odd timings too. E-commerce store timings are 24*7*365. An e-commerce website has no obligation which is why they can remain open all the time. The sellers benefit from it as they gain more and more orders and for the customer, around the clock store is much more convenient.

9. Create an e-commerce store for niche products

There are often niche products which are difficult to find in the physical world. Some things do not have a market in the physical world or even if they have, it’s very scarce. In the online sphere, all you have to do is type the specific product in a search engine and you will find a list of websites that sell the product. For instance: Spare parts of the equipment are very hard to find in the physical world but comparatively easier in the online world.

10. Creates targeted communication

To create a targeted communication, the only thing you require is the email address and personal information/ habits of the potential customer. To gather this information, creating a registration page and enabling cookies on your website is important.

Once you get a hold of the habits of the customers, you can send across relevant messages. This information also helps in recommending products on the e-commerce website. Some e-commerce websites also send emails with products you may like to buy.

Why is Design Important in E-commerce?

In the world of web, user experience mostly rely on how well they can get the information they are looking for. Keeping this in the world of eCommerce is what that makes an increase in your business sales will likely give an idea how to design your eCommerce website to generate more sales. Understanding what a customer wants and how they feel while browsing your online store is the key of website design process.

We don’t say website design is restricted to only the overall look, but how a customer feel and what experience they gain while browsing your eCommerce store.

Brand Awareness

Brand awareness is what takes your business ahead in competition. This is what takes your customers to start purchasing from your store. Every online store should have a consistence look and feel that what attracts the customers.

After all, your website look is what reflects how your business is and how serious you are about your products. It is mirror of your company no matter what way you are presenting yourself- online or offline.

Throughout the website, if customer experience the same look that helps them in identifying the right products what they wish clearly establish user experience. Design your website so that each elements complement your website logo very well including the right selection of images, colors, text, layouts and features that reflects the right brand identify.

Creating First Impression

Study shows the website overall look and feel contributes 94% to mark first impression. At the same time, if the website is accommodated with poor interface or lack of user-friendliness, then it faces rejection and mistrust of shoppers. When a shopper land on your website, then the website design and navigation what appears to be major contributed factor to make first impression of your brand.

Implementing the right design conveys type of products you offer or how serious you are. Present your website the best way you can as this is only the foremost way to grab customer attention.

Impact on Bouncing Rate

Bounce rates is frightening for your business. It is the session at which the shopper has left your website without navigating your website further. Several factors contribute to it, a major concern lies with poor website design. Great design is what that informs customer about the products.

They informs the customer they visit the right place to get the products they are looking for. If anytime they feel difficulty in finding the product or products are not expected according to customer search, then they may immediately leave.

Few crucial elements contributing to customer first impression is the business name, products sold, business type, location, brands quality and so on. If these factors are ignored during website designing, then the customer will now wait for second moment to stay back.

Influence of Website Conversion

A single metric that determines your website success is the conversion rates. Shopping online can sometimes be daunting if having poor designing interface. A great website design what create your business first impression and convince the customer to buy the products. Offer user friendly website to make easier for the visitor to find what they look for.

Implement conversion centric design elements that initiates user actions. Provide complete product information with the right set of images embedding with ideal dimension, size and resolution. Give them freedom to zoom and look to every detail s of image. Try all the tactics to make their visit into purchase.

Website Security

Another important aspects of website design which is often neglected is website security. If essential security measures are not followed then it would be prone to spammers, hackers and identity thieves. Customer share their financial information and perform transaction online. If they feel insecure while transacting online, then they may decide to leave.

Make sure you secure your site with HTTPS and implement the right security features at your website to assure the customer data is safe. Ask your web designers to consider all important security factors while designing website.  

Testing and Auditing

Website components are several and it’s important that everything works fine. Keep testing your website to identify pitfalls and rectify the errors. You may even work with Google Analytics tool to find the potential areas of your website to perform audit and testing. Numerous opportunities are available while designing website to improve the user experience.

What Are The Benefits of E-commerce to Business Owners?

The internet might be the single most important facet of modern society. It plays a primary role in everything from political discourse and higher education to the way we conduct ourselves and our businesses. It’s no wonder, then, that switching to an e-commerce model comes with significant advantages.

1. E-commerce eliminates the need for physical stores and allows businesses to expand their customer base. On top of eliminating the possibility of long lines, e-commerce sites offer a huge advantage to both shoppers and stores that aren’t located in major urban areas.

Even if you are located in a big city, e-commerce opens up new markets, allowing you to develop a new business model geared toward your expanding consumer base. Many businesses have found particular success in developing good e-commerce Search Engine Optimization, which drives more traffic to the site.

2. Your business can also save money on rent, utilities, maintenance, and other costs associated with physical stores. Your e-commerce store can essentially remain open 24/7 without hiring employees to watch over the store and protect items. 

Since you aren’t confined to a set amount of shelf space, there is no limit to the number of items that can be sold online, and your store’s stock can expand exponentially. Physical products will still have to be stored somewhere, but storage spaces are often cheaper than retail spaces, and you won’t have to worry about factors like foot traffic and parking spaces.

3. Digital products can be sold online with little-to-no overhead cost. Thanks to e-commerce, consumers can purchase music, videos, or books instantaneously. Stores can now sell unlimited copies of these digital items, without having to worry about where they’ll store the inventory.

4. E-commerce also allows your business to scale up easier than physical retailers. When a brick-and-mortar store grows, it needs to consider how it will serve more customers in the same small space. More employees are needed to expedite check-outs, more of the floor gets dedicated to forming lines, shoppers feel more crowded as customer base and inventory grows.

Of course, logistics always get tougher as a business grows, no matter how the business operates. With the right choice of a third-party logistics provider, however, e-commerce companies can manage this growth without worrying about the physical store aspects.

5. Keeping in contact with customers is often easier for e-commerce businesses. Since the e-commerce merchant captures contact information in the form of email, sending out both automated and customized emails is simple.

Let customers know about a sale, promote a new product, or just check in with customers for a personal touch—all with minimal effort. Additionally, web tools like cookies allow for superior store customization and consumer behavior analysis.

6. The benefits consumers enjoy are shared by e-commerce companies when it comes to the supply chain. Consumers like online shopping because they don’t have to deal with cash, worry about schedules, or wait in long lines.

Those benefits also apply to entire supply chains interlinked with business-to-business e-commerce systems. Procurement becomes faster, transparent, and there’s no need to handle currency notes or cash. The result is cheaper, easier transactions with fewer opportunities for accounting errors.

7. Finally, e-commerce allows your business to track logistics, which is key to a successful e-commerce company. Having everything digitized makes it easier to automatically collect data and crunch numbers. While you can benefit from knowing what’s selling best, you can also afford to take more risks on low-volume goods.

The conventional retail strategy focuses on stocking fast-moving goods, but the economics of e-commerce permits slow-moving and even obsolete products to be included in the catalog. Storage is less expensive, and displaying the product is as easy as adding another item page to your site.

What Top 10 Features Are a Must For any E-commerce Site?

A good eCommerce website will offer all the means to the customer and the merchant to help them get involved in a fruitful transaction. Here are the top 10 features for an eCommerce website which you should look out for:

1. Shopping Cart

This is an integral part of any eCommerce store, the shopping cart. This is where your end consumers store their products to continue with the checkout process. A flexible cart allows both the guest user and registered user to checkout. In comparison, the guest checkout does not require the user to sign up on the site, hence making the process faster.

2. Payment Gateway Integrations

A good eCommerce website gives you the option of integrating with diverse payment gateways by not limiting your choices to a selected few. It is an integral feature of eCommerce websites that can make or break the customer experience. Shiprocket 360 comes with pre-approved payment gateways that you can easily integrate with your online store.

3. Order Management

A wholesome order management panel simplifies the merchants’ task to get the deed information regarding buyer cancellation, refunds, COD order verification, exchange order status update, and more. The panel helps the merchant manage his order fulfillment and oversee the completion of the same.

4. Security

This feature is one of the most important feature as it ensures that no crucial data such as credit card information is saved and for all prepaid shipments the checkout is carried out through a secure payment gateway. The passwords are hashed and not stored in a readable format. All web pages should be protected by SSL. The servers are secure and protected using state of the art services.

5. Scalable Infrastructure

Your hosting infrastructure should be able to scale as you get more and more traffic. A higher latency leads to drops in transaction rates and leads to loss of marketing dollars. CDN should be used to improve the website’s performance and to manage the products online. It also provides excellent uptime, ensuring that the website is readily available everywhere and at any time.

6. Mobile Compatibility

Great eCommerce websites usually offer three types of solutions for mobile compatibility. First is ensuring that the mobile view is responsive and properly accommodated according to the device. The WAP is a mobile-specific template which optimizes the website in size and generates less loading time.

API’s for building mobile apps is essential since everyone now likes to browse via phones. It is one of the most relevant features of eCommerce websites as it drives engagement and visits on a relatively large channel.

7. Reports and Analytics

The reports should be available as exports which contain detailed information regarding the orders, customer database, and product reports in terms of catalogue. It is quite useful for analyzing the growth of the business. The websites should be pre-integrated with marketing tools and analytics to better market the brand and read reports about the performance of the store.

8. Logistics integration

Integrating logistics services allows not only seamless shipping but also ensures that the merchant and the consumer get real time courier updates along with order tracking capability. This allows the user to manage shipments from the same panel instead of approaching the courier partners separately.

Shiprocket is a platform that can help you with shipping across 26000+ pin codes, at the cheapest rates starting from Rs. 22/500g. The best part is that Shiprocket has integrations with 17+ courier partners. This gives you a wider pin code reach as compared to shipping with a single courier partner.

Also, you can manage undelivered orders from an automated NDR panel that you find in the app. Furthermore, you get a customizable tracking page that gives the buyer a chance to give their feedback on undelivered orders and also take quick action on them.

9. Communications and Regular Updates

Provisions to send and receive timely notifications regarding your orders are available on the panel. This way a merchant can keep his customers informed about the status of the order and receive the same via the system.

10. Content Management Systems

Content Management System is used to manage the website content such as, Logo, banner, Footer links, Policies,  and Products from the back end itself.

How is E-commerce Beneficial?

Top of the list of advantages of eCommerce is the low financial cost, but other pros include selling internationally, retargeting customers, personalization of the buying experience, etc. These benefits of eCommerce will help you determine if starting an online store is right for you.

1. Low Financial Cost

One of the ecommerce benefits is that it has a lower startup cost. Physical retail stores have to pay up to thousands of dollars to rent one of their store locations. They also have several upfront costs such as store signs, store design, buying inventory, sales equipment, and more.

And let’s not forget, the store owner  also has to hire staff to work and run each location. They may also need to hire security staff depending on the product value in the store.

However, for an eCommerce dropshipping store, startup costs are estimated at $418and eCommerce stores only pay $3192 a year on Shopify at most for virtual ‘rent’. Shopify also includes an easy to use platform, hosting, free Shopify themes, great apps like Oberlo, and lots of other great perks. 

Depending on what type of eCommerce business you run, you may only need to hire employees when you grow to a certain level. As your online store is online, these employees can work remotely, making it easier to find staff that will suit your company.If you choose to dropship online, you won’t need to buy bulk inventory saving you a lot of money. 

Branding is also cheaper with eCommerce. Your store logo is often more affordable than a store sign. And graphic designers (yes, even the best ones), often cost less than what an offline paint job will cost you. Your business expenses are generally much lower., which is one of the most attractive benefits for new entrepreneurs.

2. 24/7 Potential Income

Another advantage of eCommerce is that online stores are always open for business. With Facebook ads, you can attract someone at 11 p.m. or 4 a.m. in any part of the world. In contrast, Most physical location stores are operational between 9 a.m. to 9 p.m., giving you a competitive edge. By being available at all hours, you can attract people who would normally pick up a product in stores if the outlet were open.

Think about your audience who don’t work normal hours or who are too busy to pop into a shop to buy something. An eCommerce store allows you to attract those who may have odd work schedules or who don’t have time to shop in-person. 

What about customers who order at night? Well, you don’t need to have employees working a night shift to accommodate their requests. All you need to do is automate your ordering systems so that customers receive a confirmation email when they place their order to give them peace of mind.

And there’s one more benefit of opening an online store over a brick and mortar shop: you’ll never need to hire a security guard!

3. Sell Internationally

Next on the list of eCommerce benefits is that a new brand can easily sell to customers worldwide. You can discover your audience whether they’re in the U.K., South America, or neighboring countries. If you choose to dropship from AliExpress, many products offer affordable ePacket shipping or free shipping. This allows you to price and ship your products competitively to a worldwide audience.

Selling worldwide is a great feat as it helps you build your brand a lot faster, broadens your marketplace exponentially, and allows you to see profit long before your local competitors. Plus, with our international shipping tips, you might be able to avoid many of the headaches associated with shipping products across borders.  

4. Easy to Showcase Bestsellers

Ecommerce benefits like displaying best-sellers make it easier to show off products to your customers. While you can design a brick and mortar store to sway people to buy certain products, compared to going through different aisles and shelves, it’s easier for a customer to find the best-sellers in an online store.

The reason why you want customers to buy your best-sellers is that they’re proven. Other customers have already bought them and are happy with their purchase. If you want to showcase new products to customers, you can include them in your upsell, email marketing, or retargeting ads. With an eCommerce store, you can include great product photography and product descriptions to sway the customer’s choice.  

5. Personalized Online Experience

Website personalization can help enhance the online shopping experience. One of the biggest online business advantages is that you get to create personalized landing pages for different audiences. This can entice them to buy from you without much extra work on your part.

It is not like customers coming into a physical store who you need to nurture from the first minute. You can do all the hard work before you launch a campaign and then relax once you start marketing to your customer base.

You can also personalize the experience you provide through your email marketing campaigns. Try segmenting your email lists based on purchases made, location, or even how much money a customer spent.

Another recommendation is to retarget customers who visited your online store, showing them an ad for a product they added to their cart and forgot about. If your online business has a login feature, you can have a welcome message appear such as ‘Welcome back (name).’

Product bundles can help the customer buy more for a better price, increasing the average order value. You can also personalize upsells based on what the customer has looked at or what you think they might like based on their purchase behavior.

6. Affordable Employees

One of the benefits of eCommerce is that hiring employees is affordable and, as mentioned before, you can hire from anywhere in the world. You can choose to outsource work to virtual assistants in countries where the cost of living is much lower. 

You’ll need fewer employees in an online business than in a retail location. A huge advantage of online businesses is you don’t need to hire employees at launch. You can start and run an eCommerce business all by yourself. Only when you start to grow or when you have the capital should you start to build a team.

7. Easier to Encourage Impulse Buy

Another eCommerce benefit is that you can capitalize on impulse buying as online shoppers are more inclined to partake in this. If you have attractive product photography, with vibrant color or human emotion, you can create ads that drive impulse buys. 

You can also execute a range of scarcity tactics such as countdown timers or showcasing limited quantities to encourage people to buy. Additionally, if you have a new or limited-edition item in your inventory, consider testing it out for impulse buys to see how people respond.

As impulse shoppers tend to be more social and image-concerned, they may buy for an opportunity to boast that they got the latest product before anyone else. 

8. Easy to Retarget or Remarket to Customer

It’s easy to create retargeting ads to reach out to customers in your area when running an online business, making it one of the most profitable ecommerce benefits. You can create a Facebook Pixel to display ads to your potential customers in their Facebook feeds. You can use the Shoelace Shopify app to retarget the people who visit your store but don’t buy.

With ecommerce stores, you can retarget people who add products to their cart butabandon and don’t buy, or those who visit a blog post and never buy. You can collect email addresses easily with an effective pop-up or lead magnet and continue marketing to your customers after they leave your site.

9. Customers Get a Less Invasive Experience

Some people dread walking into a brick and mortar store as they’re forced to interact with the store’s employees. Whether learning about a sales promotion or being asked questions throughout the shopping experience, certain customers may prefer online shopping as it can be a little less invasive, making it one of the best benefits of ecommerce. 

If a customer wants to contact the store owner, they can click on a live chat feature, email, or send a Facebook message. The store owner, in turn, can train the customer service staff to answer queries effectively. When the staff is not around, they can use a Facebook chatbot to point customers towards FAQs and other self-help resources.

10. Gain Access to Customer Data Easily

One of the best ecommerce advantages is that you can easily gain access to data for analysis on your customer. Most people feel uncomfortable giving away email addresses or postal codes to physical retailers. In ecommerce, you can get your customer’s name, mailing address, email address, and phone number. That means you have at least three different ways to communicate and build a relationship with them. 

You can even have them fill out marketing surveys, share their birth date with you, and more. If you ask them to create an account, you can obtain even more information to better serve them. If your customers are based within Europe, be careful of GDPR regulations when contacting them.

What Are The Benefits of E Shopping?

The Internet has revolutionized the way we shop. Because of the numerous advantages and benefits, more and more people these days prefer buying things online over the conventional method of going into stores.

What are some reasons that many people love online shopping and why is it so popular? Below are my top ten reasons for shopping online.

1. Convenience. Convenience is the biggest perk. Where else can you comfortably shop at midnight while in your pajamas? There are no lines to wait in or cashiers to track down to help you with your purchases, and you can do your shopping in minutes. Online shops give us the opportunity to shop 24/7, and also reward us with a ‘no pollution’ shopping experience.

There is no better place to buy informational products like e-books, which are available to you instantly, as soon as the payment goes through. Downloadable items purchased online eliminate the need for any kind of physical material at all, as well, which helps the environment!

2. Better prices. Cheap deals and better prices are available online, because products come to you direct from the manufacturer or seller without involving middlemen. Plus, it’s easier to compare prices and find a better deal. Many online sites offer discount coupons and rebates, as well.

Not only are prices better, but you can save on tax as well, since online shops are only required to collect a sales tax if they have a physical location in your state. Factor in the saved expense of gas and parking and you have saved yourself a lot of money!

3. More variety. The choices online are amazing. You can find almost any brand or item you’re looking for. You can get in on the latest international trends without spending money on airfare. You can shop from retailers in other parts of the state, country, or even world instead of being limited to your own geography.

A far greater selection of colors and sizes than you will find locally are at your disposal. Plus, the stock is much more plentiful, so you’ll always be able to find your size and color. Some online shops even accept orders for out-of-stock items and ship when they come in.

4. You can send gifts more easily. Sending gifts to relatives and friends is easy, no matter where they are. All the packaging and shipping is done for you. Oftentimes, they’ll even gift wrap it for you! Now, there is no need to make distance an excuse for not sending a gift on occasions like birthdays, weddings, anniversaries, Valentine’s Day, Mother’s Day, Father’s Day, and so forth.

5. More control. Many times, when we opt for conventional shopping, we tend to spend a lot more than planned and end up buying items that aren’t exactly what we wanted (but we can’t find anything better in the store). Online, you don’t have to let the store’s inventory dictate what you buy, and you can get exactly what you want and need.

6. Easy price comparisons. Comparing and researching products and their prices is so much easier online. If you’re shopping for appliances, for example, you can find consumer reviews and product comparisons for all the options on the market, with links to the best prices. We can research firsthand experience, ratings, and reviews for most products and retailers.

7. No crowds. If you are like me, you hate crowds when you’re shopping. Especially during holidays, festivals, or on weekends, they can be such a huge headache. Also, being crushed in the crowds of shoppers sometimes makes us feel rushed or hurried. You don’t have to battle for a parking place. All of these problems can be avoided when you shop online.

8. No pressure. Oftentimes when we’re out shopping, we end up buying things that we don’t really need, all because shopkeepers pressure us or use their selling skills to compel us to make these purchases.

9. You can buy used or damaged items at lower prices. The marketplace on the Internet gives us access to listings of old or damaged items at rock bottom prices. Also, if we want to buy antiques, there’s no better place to find great ones.

10. Discreet purchases are easier. Some things are better done in the privacy of your home. Online shops are best for discreet purchases for things like adult toys, sexy lingerie, and so on. This enables me to purchase undergarments and lingerie without embarrassment or any paranoia that there are people watching or judging me.

What is Web design And What Role Does it Play in eCommerce?

Attractive web design has all the time played an important role in successful online sales and marketing. Well designed website by your company helps to communicate the message efficiently to the target audience. Website is foremost interface between the consumers and seller. A high-quality design is an important to communicate and get your point easily.

If your e store is present all the products are well planned you feel like staying, shopping and purchasing. If you come to an e-store that has not attractive design and the creation are not organized well then chances are just like the retail store. you will turn around and walk out. You skip that website and search another site.

So it is important to create good quality product and highlight it well. It is essential to build an Magento E-commerce Development design is appealing and trust worthy to the new client. It is main aspect to show case your product with e- commerce website.

Create it easy to tell what products you sell

How you keep the good color and style it gets noticed. Small font sizes or back ground colors can make your copy difficult to read. On your side too much copy or text are scare to new visitors. So keep it simple, short and to the point. Considered customers needs and wants from your website.

To make the shopping cart visible

It is important the basket is visible on every page of the website because online shoppers can purchase the product and add a product on it.

Don’t add the delivery charges at the end of the side

Make sure on the product page the delivery option are clear although avoid it. Because many customer would like to identify what is delivery charges.
Provide fast product preview

With adding quick product preview to your category, too much product and search pages or longer version of the pictures are loading the page. It is important to get quick preview so they search and get the product easily.

• You can include or remove the unwanted product and categories of product.
• organize the product, list of price and other detail
• Upload pictures or videos for each product, so it is easy to select the product
• You can view the detailed sales and product related codes
• You can provide the opportunity to compare the product.
• Consumer can see their order history and older status
• Use navigation system so it is easy to find the information as the customer looking for.
• Remember if the products are out of stock make it clear
• Don’t give registration, give it optional otherwise the people will leave it the site and search other site.
• Present customer review it is helpful to increase your sales

A professionally design website is important to your E- business. A Website design should be unique; its design should be efficient, branded to your business and present well. Efficiently designed website is the primary aspect to create new website or updating current website.

What is E-commerce Website Design?

An eCommerce platform is a software application that lets you set up an online store and manage its marketing, sales, and operations.

There are 3 main types of eCommerce platforms on the market:

• Open source.
• SaaS.
• Headless commerce.

Each of them provides you with a toolkit for creating an online store: page builder, checkout page, payment gateway integrations, and more. The difference between those eCommerce platforms lies in the levels of:

• Customization.
• Performance.
• In-built feature set.

SaaS platforms offer out-of-the-box eCommerce store design experience. You can design a store using a drag-and-drop visual editor in several hours. But the tradeoff is limited customization and incapacity to add custom features.

Open source platforms are like a blank canvas that with enough time and effort can be turned into any sort of eCommerce website. But you are creating everything from scratch. That means heaving a coder and a designer on call.

You can choose between headless commerce and Open SaaS platforms such as BigCommerce, SaaS platforms like Shopify (does have a headless commerce offering, but has rigid API call per second limits), SaaS website builders like Squarespace and Wix, and open source platforms like Magento (doesn’t have a native theme editor) and WooCommerce (technically an eCommerce plugin).

Such eCommerce solutions don’t limit your design capabilities so that you can create beautiful and unique websites. And you don’t need to build core commerce functionality from the ground up.

5 Best E-commerce Website Design Examples

Now that you know how ecommerce web design differs for B2B websites, let’s circle back to B2C commerce.

Let’s examine the examples!

1. Larq.

LARQ uses crisp product images and animations to make us truly excited about something as simple as drinking water. Through spot-on copywriting, color-block product features, and interactive plastic waste calculator, the reusable water bottle retailer persuades us to join their Bottle Movement and explore more of their stylish products.

Adding multi-regional capabilities (using BigCommerce) was another pivotal moment. According to LARQ, within 3 months, their conversions increased by 80%.

2. Burrow.

Modular furniture retailer Burrow, skipped words in favor of a home page video to demonstrate their main value proposition — assembling new furniture can be fun, quick, and tool-less. Using a mix of product and lifestyle pics, Burrow makes it easy to picture their latest designs in your home, customize them for the right fit, and order in several clicks.

3. Revelry.

Revelry knows that swatches are the shortcut to any bride’s wallet when it comes to the bridesmaids’ dresses. As well as free sample delivery and at-home try-ons for the entire party. Both options have a prominent spot on the e-tailer’s homepage, along with excellent category navigation, prompting to discover different dress styles, materials, and colors.

4. Skullcandy.

We rave about Skullcandy pretty often, but it’s hard to do better than this with an ecommerce store. They expertly offset bright colors with a signature black website design to create that sleek, lux feeling.

Products are easy to discover, review in great detail on video, and then read on the specs. Though their primary market is audio, browsing Skullcandy’s website is a delightful sensory experience due to their expert use of visuals, material design elements, and video.

5. Solo stove.

Solo Stove website is an admirable example of how to use iconography in ecommerce. The fire pit manufacturer made custom icons for each product category to better convey what they are selling and highlight some of the main product specs.

How-to product videos, illustrations, and FAQ sections help bring across their main point further — their products are durable, easy-to-use, and well worth the price as the reviewers will tell.

Why E-commerce is Important in Business?

E-commerce plays a significant role in the marketplace, both nationally and internationally. With more people making purchases online rather than at traditional retail stores, it is becoming a fast-growing area of business and one to strongly consider as you plan your own career.

E-commerce, also known as “electronic commerce,” is the buying and selling of goods or services electronically on the internet. It can also refer to other online activities like online auctions, ticketing and banking. E-commerce is an essential part of many businesses that rely on the sale of physical products or services online.

E-commerce is a huge part of the economy and is vital to businesses that sell their products or services online. E-commerce gives businesses the ability to reach more customers than traditional retail. With so many people making their purchases online, it is the fastest-growing retail market.

Statistics show that 96% of Americans with access to the internet have made a purchase online. E-commerce offers consumers a more convenient way to shop for the products or services they need without having to visit a retailer’s physical location to make a purchase.

What is The Importance of E-commerce Technology For Entrepreneurs?

Increased Business Reach

One of the most significant advantages of eCommerce is that it takes your business to people where it’s not possible for you to be present physically. By having an online store, you can sell your products/services to different locations from a single location. Moreover, if you opt for shipping solutions like Shiprocket, you will be able to ship across 29000+ pin codes in the country.

So, while operating at a single location, you can serve customers all across the country. And not just country but the globe as well, as with Shiprocket, you can ship your products to 220* countries as well.

Increased Business Revenue

As your business reach widens, your customer base would grow, which will directly impact the number of sales. Thus, it will boost your revenue. With increased revenue, you can increase your product line, or invest more in marketing to capture more audience.

Search Engine Traffic

Reaching out to an audience by sending emails, contacting via phone, or pushing marketing messages can be a tiresome task. But, thanks to the search engine traffic, attracting people to the store has become much more comfortable. Through the means of an eCommerce business, you can land well in the search engines and start receiving recurring traffic to your store.

Slowly, with the best eCommerce practices, you can convert these to a steady flow of customers for your business. You just need to make the website SEO-friendly to appear in the searches and attract more traffic.

Low Operational Cost

One of the benefits of having an online store is that you don’t have to build physical stores at all the locations where you want to sell your products/services, a single eStore would do that for you. This will keep your business operational cost on the lower side. So, while you have access to customers from all across the country, your operational cost is kept at a minimum.

Online Reputation Building

As a small offline business, when your customers appreciate your products/services, it’s tough for you to take advantage of those appreciations to influence new customers. But, with an online presence of your business, your customers can share their appreciation over social media profiles of your business.

These reviews are publically available for everyone to see and this helps you to influence your new users to get converted to customers. However, for this to happen, you need to have your business accounts on Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, and other such social media platforms.

Flexible Timings

As you would be running your business online, you can remain open for new orders and your customers 24×7, which is not feasible in the case of an offline brick and mortar store. So, by going online, you can receive orders 24X7 and never let any opportunity slip away from you.

Reviews

Word of mouth is still one of the most popular marketing methods that can help any brand go viral overnight. While in a retail environment it is difficult to get customer reviews, it is much comfortable and hassle-free online. You can ask customers for reviews online and build credibility by publishing these on social media platforms and other sales channels.

Ease of Product Tracking

Tracking a product online can be one of the most significant advantages of an eCommerce business. You can quickly know the status of your inventory especially when you hand it over to the fulfillment company. This way you can see where the product is and when will it reach your customer.

Alternatively, you can also track products that will soon run out of stock in your inventory and stock more inventory as per the requirements.

Automated Product Delivery Solutions Available

One of the concerns of an online business could be about managing and handling the delivery of the products to their customers who are living in different parts of the world. For them, the good news is that there are various eCommerce logistics and shipping platforms available today that can deliver any product in any part of the world from anywhere as per the requirement.

What Are The 8 Unique Features of E-commerce?

1. Ubiquity- A traditional business market is a physical place, access to treatment utilizing document circulation. For example, clothes and shoes are usually directed to encourage customers to go somewhere to buy. E-commerce is ubiquitous meaning that it can be everywhere. E-commerce is the worlds reduce cognitive energy required to complete the task.

2. Global Reach– E-commerce allows business transactions on the cross country bound can be more convenient and more effective as compared with traditional commerce. On the e-commerce businesses, the potential market scale is roughly equivalent to the network the size of the world’s population.

3. Universal Standards– E-commerce technologies are an unusual feature, is the technical standard of the Internet, so to carry out the technical standard of e-commerce is shared by all countries around the world standard. Standard can greatly affect the market entry cost and considering the cost of the goods on the market. The standard can make technology business existing become more easily, which can reduce the cost, the technique of indirect costs, besides, can set the electronic commerce website 100$ per month.

4. Information richness: Advertising and branding are an important part of commerce. E-commerce can deliver video, audio, animation, billboards, signs, etc. However, it’s about as rich as television technology.

5. Interactivity- Twentieth Century electronic commerce business technology is called interactive, so they allow for two-way communication between businesses and consumers.

6. Information Density- The density of information the Internet has greatly improved, as long as the total amount and all markets, consumers, and businesses quality information. The electronic commerce technology, reduce information collection, storage, communication, and processing cost. At the same time, accuracy and timeliness of the information technology increase greatly, information is more useful, more important than ever.

7. Customization: E-commerce technology allows for Customization. Business can be adjusted for a name, a person’s interests and past purchase message objects and marketing message to a specific individual. The technology also allows for custom. Merchants can change the product or service based on user preferences or previous behavior.

8. Social technology: When you want to sell a product, you can put the information about your product on a social media site. You just copy and paste the link of the page with the description of the product. But here you need to copy the link to publish it on a social media site. You won’t find a button on the website where you can share a product on a social media site. 

What is The Most Important Thing in E-commerce?

The most important aspect of a great e-commerce website is its usability and functionality, according to a survey of more than 1,000 US adults from SUMO Heavy. Responsive site speed is also important, while visual content gets the nod over written content, per the survey’s results.

The findings bring to mind separate research released last year, in which Limelight Networks similarly found that consumers value performance over content in the website experience.

Separately, recently-released survey results from UPS and comScore indicate that the most important elements of an e-commerce site are:

• The ability to read a peer review (good or bad) before making a purchase (73%);
• The ease of being able to find, search and sort/filter products on the retailer’s site (70%); and
• The ability to zoom in on product images (70%).

Interestingly, while the ability to see product images is critical for mobile shoppers, low quality images aren’t a leading reason why respondents to the SUMO Heavy survey say they’d leave an e-commerce site. Instead, broken links or frequent error pages (80.7%) were the top-cited reason to leave a shopping site, perhaps as consumers tend to distrust websites with errors and mistakes.

More than 7 in 10 respondents also said they would leave a site they were shopping on due to slow or unresponsive site speed (73.9%). Data released by Radware suggests that among the top 100 e-commerce sites by site visits, more take upwards of 10 seconds to load than take less than 3 seconds (14% and 12%, respectively).

A complicated checkout process also will lead to more than 7 in 10 respondents abandoning the site they’re shopping on, per the SUMO Heavy survey. According to the UPS and comScore study, important options at checkout include:

• Free returns shipping (73% of online shoppers identifying as important);
• The provision of estimated delivery date and shipping costs early in the process (63%); and
• Guaranteed delivery date (48%).

Overall, 92% of online shoppers surveyed by UPS had abandoned an online shopping cart, up from 81% in 2012.

What Are Important Features of eCommerce Software?

To be able to realize its purpose, eCommerce software is designed with a wide range of features and functions that streamline and support the many aspects involved in online selling. Here are the common features of eCommerce software:

Automation. The checkout process, including accurate computation of pricing, taxes, shipping rates, and handling costs are automated to give customers an immediate idea of how much they’ll be paying on items they select for purchase.

Website builder. If you don’t have an existing website, eCommerce software can help you build one from the ground up. It provides design templates for you to quickly create a professional-looking website and storefront based on your preferences without the need to hire commercial designers.

Central database. You get a centralized location for easy storing, access, and retrieval of product information, customer data, accounting transactions, product listings, browsing histories, and payment and shipping status.

Search function. Sophisticated search functions make it simple for shoppers to find the items or products they’re looking for. eCommerce platforms are capable of listing, categorizing, and updating new products together with descriptions, pictures, and feature lists.

Integration. Most eCommerce solutions are able to integrate with various business apps and third-party platforms and services to allow you to handle various tasks – accounting, email marketing, order fulfillment, and payment processing – within a single system.

Marketing tools. You can use your eCommerce software to enhance your website’s marketing, promotion, and branding. You can utilize an array of tools to come up with targeted campaigns, SEO optimization strategies, and branding/image reinforcement.

Analytics and reporting. eCommerce software can help you to analyze and identify trends and patterns that affect customer buying habits, providing with you insights and stats on customer demographics, keywords, and clickstreams. You’ll get to know what is working or not, and craft strategies to improve revenues.

Why Should I Use an E-commerce Software?

Why use eCommerce software? Because it has plenty of benefits for your business. Here are the advantages using of eCommerce software.

Quickly start your online business. Most eCommerce software comes with easy to use online store builders with pre-built templates and an assortment of themes to help you build your store quickly. We’re talking here of minutes, not hours, if you’re familiar with drag-and-drop functions where you just put your store elements into place, add product images, put in descriptions and prices, set up your shopping cart, and you’re basically good to go.

Your store is always open. One of the biggest business advantages of using eCommerce software is that it keeps your online store open, 24 hours a day, 7 days a week. Your business hours are not limited by physical location or the working schedule of your staff. Since everything is automated, you are not required to continually monitor your online store through your dashboard.

You can sell to anyone, anywhere. In relation to the above, which allows you to sell anytime, you can sell to everyone from any location in the world. You have a global market for your products, unhindered by time, geography, and boundaries. You harness the internet’s connectivity to sell to anyone, wherever they may be.

You save time, money, and resources. When you calculate your expenses, you will find that it costs you less operating an online store than running a brick-and-mortar store where you’ll have to rent expensive space in a prime location, employ sales staff, and pay for utilities, among others. Paying monthly for an affordable eCommerce platform that takes care of your online store reduces expenses and maximizes profits.

You can sell as many products. Unlike a traditional retail outlet which has limited storage space to fit all your products, an online store has no physical space to constrict the number of products that you can carry, display, and sell.

Since more people are shopping online nowadays, this allows you to sell more, offering products organized in catalog web pages that can easily be searched and viewed by customers. This also results in shorter selling cycles, providing you maximum returns at minimum investment.

Easy online payment and shipping. eCommerce software and shopping cart platforms are equipped to process online payments, either as a built-in feature or integrated with a payment gateway service, allowing for safe and secure online transactions. The software can also be connected seamlessly with 3PL or order fulfillment service providers that can offer your customers their preferred delivery and shipping options.

Built-in marketing tools. Many eCommerce software are loaded with powerful marketing tools and SEO features to help your store rank higher in search engine results and attract potential customers. There are also built-in analytics and statistical tools that can provide you with real-time analytical data, helping you to come up with targeted marketing campaigns, special deals and offers, as well as make improvements to your product mix or promotion.

You can provide quality online customer service. eCommerce software gives you the means to provide your customers with the best online shopping experience— from easy product selection, order, and checkout, to convenient online payment, shipping, and delivery—everything is designed through automation to make it as simple as possible for customers to buy at your store, and get the best service they can expect.

We can go on with several other benefits or advantages, but the above are enough to firm up your understanding and appreciation of the many positive things and the competitive edge that eCommerce software can bring to your online business.

How Does E-commerce Benefit Small Firms?

Initially many small business owners only waded into the waters of web commerce, but the scenario has gradually changed now. Small businesses have realized the importance of eCommerce. They know that while for consumers the benefits of shopping online are plentiful, for retailers, eCommerce advantages are equally abundant.

This is precisely the reason that many small businesses are now running their online stores in addition to having a physical storefront. eCommerce websites are providing small businesses a comprehensive range of benefits. The key ones are listed below.

1. Low Operational Costs

Among all the eCommerce benefits to small business, this one is the most crucial. Running an online store involves less money compared to running a brick and mortar shop. That is because in a physical store, owners have to invest in purchasing business premises. Store location is a key factor; hence preference to get a space in a posh area with the targeted audience shoots up the cost.

On the contrary online stores do not come with location and any other overhead costs. They require very little capital outlay. Hiring even the best eCommerce website development company involves a moderate investment and does not takes up the cost as high as purchasing a physical store. The profit made from selling to customers online easily compensates the cost of designing and developing the e-store.

There is a lot of additional savings made as unlike physical stores where staff is required to handle inventory, checkout, payments and delivery, eCommerce automates the entire operational process.

So overall, opening up an online store is a lot more economical and reasonable for small and medium-sized business owners who grapple to operate and grow with limited finances. They do not have to invest in the physical store, insurance or infrastructure but just need a well-designed website to sell products and services.

2. Increased Revenue

This comes second in the list of all eCommerce advantages. Physical stores, no matter how popular are limited by the geographical area, but with an online store, the whole world becomes the playground.

Small business owners do not have to solely depend on foot traffic and can sell their products and services across the world. They can capture new audiences which they wouldn’t be able to reach otherwise. This drives conversions and sales and the small business experiences a new level of growth.

Not to forget that unlike brick and mortar stores, e-stores are open 24*7/365. So basically the business never shuts down and customers can purchase products whenever and wherever they want. This round-the-clock availability dramatically increases sales. Moreover, this advantage precisely explains why eCommerce is important for businesses, particularly the small and medium sized ones.

3. Greater Customer Acquisition

Traditionally retail relied on branding and customer relationships. However things have drastically changed with online retail where potential buyers search for products and services online and land up in eCommerce websites they’ve never heard of. Search engines drive massive amounts of traffic to e-stores that result in more number of customer acquisition.

In addition to more sales, this process helps in boosting brand awareness. Small businesses do not have to constantly push out marketing messages, trying to attract people to the store. They just need to develop pages that can be indexed by search engine crawlers and paired with customers’ online search queries. This is one of the best ways to attract the target audience. Consistent SEO efforts ensure recurring monthly traffic that can be easily converted into a steady flow of incoming sales.

4. Social Recommendation

Impressed with the quality of products and services along with the overall shopping experience, majority of consumers voice their opinions and recommend e-stores to their friends on Facebook, Twitter, Pinterest, LinkedIn, Instagram, and more. This is an added advantage for the small businesses who provide better products and services than the big guys but fail to get customers because they are unknown.

Tremendous word of mouth recommendation over social media fosters customers to choose small business online stores over mega-marts. In this way small businesses who till now were way behind their larger counterparts are able to lock down the buyers with superior quality product and service offerings and personalized shopping experiences delivered through eCommerce solutions.

5. Customer Buying Analytics

In a usual mom-and-pop shop it is impossible to study customer buying habits. Small businesses have to build customer persona based on vague assumptions and perceptions than actual data. Needless to say, these insights are not that effective and hardly help in improving sales and marketing strategies.

Online stores empower small businesses to keep a constant eye on customers’ buying habits and interests. Questions like below are precisely answered:

• Which are the most popular products?
• When do customers buy the most?
• What kind of discounts, deals and offers motivate customers to buy?

Based on these crucial insights, small businesses tailor their offerings and offer personalized experience to match customers’ requirements. They satisfy customers needs consistently, sell more efficiently and build long-lasting relationships with them.

Not to forget that Google Analytics is there which provides more additional information on visitor tracking and statistics. SMBs utilize this and find out:

• How are customers finding about the eCommerce service?
• Which geographical regions do the visitors belong to?
• Which sections are visited most in the website?
• What is the merchandise browsing patterns?

6. Online Presence

Customers prefer eCommerce solutions and expect businesses to be available online. Small businesses who have dedicated online storefronts stay strongly in the competition and prevent their audience from flocking toward the competitors to make online purchase.

7. Full advantage of Customer Advocacy

Irrespective of how popular a small business is, it is not able to take full advantage of its loyal customers. Even though customers endorse the store, it all happens verbally. Sales through word of mouth recommendation depends on what extent and how frequently is the store endorsed.

In an e-tail store – word of mouth recommendation is much easy and more effective! Customer reviews and testimonials are right there in the website placed in the most visible position. New visitors as they come in get influenced by these testimonials, reviews and product ratings. Trust is immediately built and not much persuasion is required about the quality of products and services.

8. Larger Marketing ROI

Just like sales, the marketing activities of physical stores are limited by geographical boundaries. However, with an online store, the whole world becomes the target audience. Small business owners do not have to solely depend on the local people to see their marketing messages and come to the store. They can advertise their product and service offerings worldwide and bring in domestic and international customers.

Old marketing tactics give way to newer ones such as email marketing. While in physical stores, it is impossible to get email addresses of every customer/visitor, online stores realize this easily. In all likelihood, SMBs obtain email addresses of all their customers and visitors. Using the customer browsing and buying behavior, they send targeted marketing messages.

What Factors Are Important For Online Stores?

As an entrepreneur, getting into eCommerce is a significant step towards growing a business and increasing profits. For those who are just starting a business, eCommerce can potentially be the foundation of a profitable company. Whichever you are, know that eCommerce is not simply putting up your products online and hoping for the best.

There is a good bit of strategy that goes into making it work.  Understanding how eCommerce can affect a business is crucial in making it a success.

1. Regulation of product pricing

It’s natural for customers to compare prices between brands. It’s expected of entrepreneurs, as well, to be aware of how much competitors are charging for their goods. Fortunately, there are different tools available to easily see and compare prices of competing eCommerce websites, such as DataCrops and Import.io.

Various pricing strategies are employed to get the sweet spot in attractiveness and earnings, depending on the market and the kind of products being priced. For instance, one of the most common pricing strategies is keystone pricing, which is basically the doubling of wholesale price.

That usually works, but consider additional factors so the price is just right, not too high or too low. There is also discount pricing, psychological pricing, competitive pricing, value-based pricing, and so on.

2. Maintaining high quality products

For a long time, people had the notion that products from eCommerce sites were inferior quality when compared to products from physical stores. While much of that myth no longer exists these days, there is still a lot that must be done to convince customers that your products are comparable in quality as those found in malls and other stores.

Make sure you procure your products from well-known and trusted suppliers of high quality goods as well.

Your must uphold your standards consistently across the board. If you ever ship a subpar product to a customer, it will definitely be a blow to your business even if you have a return/replacement policy in place. Overall customer satisfaction is crucial to the business’ continued survival, and bad product quality can break your business down.

Keep System feedback transparent to the changes in input, and corrective action must be taken as soon as possible. This is a continuing process as there are always other ways to improve.

3. Improving store accessibility

The design of your eCommerce website (online store) must accommodate all types of customers. The online store is your main tool of communicating and transacting with them. It must be able to relay information fast and concisely to evoke the trustworthiness of your business to your customers.

Accessibility is of utmost importance as it helps your business be within reach to all sorts of customers; i.e. people of different cultures, people with disabilities, etc.  Being able to have your online store set to other languages can potentially widen your customer base, as long as they are a significant part of your audience. It may also be accessible to people with visual disabilities like color blindness and impaired vision, by using high-contrast visual theme and a larger font size for text.

There are also things you can do to make the online store viewed better by mobile devices, such as using responsive design and optimizing your images so they can load faster. The more you improve your website’s accessibility, the more people can potentially view it.

4. Making a wonderful first impression

Users know if they like a website or not by just a glance, and that first impression usually lasts. Making a good first impression is imperative in getting more customers in your online store. Make the best, eye-catching design possible, in order to entice people into coming in and making use of your eCommerce website.

Good web design has principles you can follow that will help you convince people to take a look at what you have. It should not be too loud nor too barren.  Everything on it should be easy to understand, yet maintains its own personality.

5. Securing your shipments

One of the main concerns with eCommerce for both entrepreneurs and consumers is the issue of security. With personal and financial information being handled online, there is always the potential for eCommerce websites being compromised and customer data stolen for nefarious purposes. This is especially true for credit card information that gets entered in online every single day.

Make use of SSL to secure your customers’ online shopping experience. SSL ensures that transactions and data are encrypted so that there is less of a chance for them to be compromised. Two-factor authentication is also a good way to further secure your online store, and adding other verification methods (without making it too hard for your customers) should help as well.

6. Taking advantage of m-commerce

The mobile user base has grown exponentially over the last few years, thereby the need for online stores to become mobile commerce ready has become virtually mandatory at this point. If your online store is not optimized for mobile devices, then you are missing out on a lot of business.

Some of the things that make an online store optimized for m-commerce are things like responsive design with easy-to-use navigation menus, solid mobile search features, and easy checkout and payment, all done over mobile. You don’t need to have a mobile app to do it, just have your website optimized for mobile if possible.

What Are The Various Applications of E-commerce?

E-commerce applications is a bit misleading terminology, as it leads to two possible perceptions: one, where it refers to the use of e-commerce as a medium of marketing; retail and wholesale; auctioning; e-banking; booking and so on.

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The second idea one gets is that of a software application like Amazon, eBay, Groupon, etc. It may be a web application or mobile application (now popularly known as m-commerce applications). Mobile e-commerce applications are nothing but an extension of e-commerce. Mobile app ideas are the driving force behind every successful business app, be it an Uber-like taxi app or a DoorDash like a food delivery app.

1. Retail and Wholesale

E-retailing or online retailing refers to the transaction of goods and services through online stores from businesses to consumers. It is achieved through means such as virtual shopping carts and e-catalogs. The applications of e-commerce in this sector is numerous.

2. Finance

Finance and e-commerce is more connected today than ever. Banks and stock markets use e-commerce significantly in their operation. Online banking provides provisions such as balance check, bill payment, money transfer, etc. Online stock trading enables people to carry out trading electronically by giving information about stocks such as performance reports, analysis, charts, etc. through websites.

3. Manufacturing

In manufacturing, e-commerce forms a medium for companies to execute the electronic exchange. Combined buying and selling, sharing market status, inventory check information, etc. enables groups of companies to fluidly carry out their operations. 

4. Auctioning

Applying e-commerce to auctions takes it to a more significant level where people can participate without any geographical boundaries. That leads to more participation, more negotiation, and helps to make auctions successful.

5. Marketing

Marketing activities such as pricing, product features, and building customer relationships can be strengthened using e-commerce to provide users an enhanced and customized shopping experience. Digital marketing strategies have become a significant way to promote businesses.

6. Online Shopping

The shopping preferences of people have undergone a massive change in the last few years. “Go online” has become a mantra for all businesses to succeed. Online shopping is comfortable, convenient, and at most times, cost effective. The prosperity of online shopping apps such as Flipkart, Amazon are proof of this.

7. Mobile and Web Applications

Popularly called mobile commerce or m-commerce applications, this is a subset of retail e-commerce. Mobile or web application development has become a staple for brands to showcase their business capabilities. The consumer carries out purchases through mobile or web applications that are optimized for the retailer. These applications also ensure payment security through safe e-payment methods.

8. Online Booking

Travel and tourism is a thriving industry today, and online booking is an eCommerce application that is growing as a result of it. Online booking helps people book travel essential services like train/flight tickets, hotel rooms, tourism packages, transportation services, etc. It makes travel very convenient and easy for people as everything can be set from the tip of the fingers.

9. Online Publishing

Digital magazines and e-books are slowly replacing traditional printed books. It has several advantages such as portability, lightweight, accessible from everywhere, etc. They are also environment friendly as they help in reducing paper and saving trees. Due to these reasons, online publishing or e-publishing has been seeing a rise in popularity.

10. E-banking

E-banking or internet banking is an e-commerce application that has simplified time-consuming and complex banking processes for people. It enables bank users to perform transactions easily online without having to wait in long queues in banks. Every major bank has its own online application today to provide virtual banking services to its customers. 

Conclusion

If you’re looking to get into eCommerce, there is certainly no better time than now. With a public that has been getting more and more familiar with the use of eCommerce to avail of various products and services, we are going to see more amazing things through eCommerce for both entrepreneurs and consumers.