E-commerce Role in Digital Era
In this day and age where everything is available
through a single click on the internet, buying and selling things has also
become convenient through e-commerce stores.
It has become an easy way to do shopping online without moving an inch, and
there is no lack of variety as well. The sales on e-commerce platforms have
seen a boom over the years, and stores like
Amazon have become a multi-billion business. You have tons of
e-commerce stores available online through which you can make your trade
through them. In this blog, we will go through different aspects of
e-commerce and its growing demands.
Essential Qualities of a Good E-Commerce Store :
From a business perspective, just making an
e-commerce store cannot help your cause instead you have to offer something
extra to the audience. The audience on e-commerce stores have become very
intelligent and don’t go for anything conventional. There are thousands of
e-commerce stores online if not millions, so you have to prove your worth to
the audience to make them your potential clients. Don’t be another grain of
sand in the desert rather go out of the way to facilitate your clients. You
need to lift your game in every aspect to get better traffic and business on
your e-commerce store. From the user’s perspective, the following basic
qualities should be included in a good e-commerce store:
Fast Loading:
The most basic feature that a good e-commerce
store should have is a fast loading speed. It is not rocket science to
understand that no one wants to wait, and it applies to the audience on the
e-commerce stores as well. They want to get to their destinations as soon as
possible, and a long loading time can put them off instantly. It is a given
fact that the attention span of the online audience is very less. According to
some surveys, it has been found out that a slowly opening website can make more
than half of visitors to abandon it. The design of the website
should be adapt to different browsers to facilitate loading in minimal time.
User-Friendly:
The e-commerce store should be easier to operate
for the users. It means that its operations and mechanism should be simple
rather than complicated. Try to be fancy can cost e-commerce stores
at times, because they try to incorporate complex functionalities that are hard
to grab for the clients. The result is them backing out of it and ultimately
loss the business. A rigidly working e-commerce website can
make the user loose interest and backout.
Therefore, the architecture and design of the
e-commerce website should be interactive, responsive and flexible enough. So
that the client understand different operations. Important sections of the
website like carts, products, transactions should be prominent and easily
accessible to the clients. There should be ease of navigation for the user, and
there should be room for error from the client’s. For example, if a user clicks
on a product and it goes in the cart, then there should be the option of
reversal if he changes his mind. It assures the user that if he clicks on the
wrong product, then he can still amend it.
Detailed and Prominent Product Descriptions:
A prominent and detailed project description can
help engage your user, because after all product is one thing for which most
visitors are on your website. Products can prove to be made or break for your
online business. So you should better pay a lot of attention on them. The
product should have all the specification from price range to size and
description should be easily understandable.
A detailed and accurate product description
improves your probability to increase your trade. When the user accesses your
site hoping to see product section, then he should find it in front of him
rather than searching it throughout the website. Make sure that there are no
additional functionalities and features on the website that are overshadowing
the product section.
Clear Policy:
The e-commerce website
should be a one-stop shop for the visitors. Where they can find all the
necessary information. All the rules, regulations and policies should be
mentioned on the e-commerce website. The information regarding exchanges,
returns, warranty, delivery should be given. So that the client should know the
standard operating procedure and how the things are going to work. It saves a
lot of inconvenience and awkwardness for both parties in the future.
Contact Information of E-commerce Store:
An e-commerce website without contact information
is incomplete. There should be a separate section for such details where addresses
of your social media pages, contact numbers, email address and all other
details are given. It increases the scope of your business on other platforms
as well and can boost your overall web traffic. You can also add an FAQ and
reviews section on your website. It helps you facilitate clients in any query
and is the best way to get feedback that can be useful in self-assessment.
Changing Requirements of a Modern E-Commerce Store:
Earlier, we discussed all the basic qualities of an e-commerce store.
Now, we will talk about all the requirements that are required in a modern
e-commerce store, Let’s have a look at it:
Make Your E-Commerce Mobile:
This is the era of mobile devices so that you can
make the online sale and purchase anytime anywhere. Your e-commerce store
should not only be limited to computers rather it should have a flexible design
so that it can run on any mobile device. Also, the requirements of the
interface for computers and mobile devices is slightly different. For example,
certain things are visible on a computer but cannot be seen on mobile devices
due to non-compatibility of the design. So, you should make your e-commerce
platform compatible and responsive to all devices from the desktop, to
smartphones. To make the e-commerce platforms compatible with mobile devices,
usually, the bootstrap framework is used.
Your Website should give Incentive to Clients:
In this era of digital competition, you need to
entice your clients in different ways to get the favourable outcomes. Apart from
making your website user-friendly and stuff like that, you also need to offer
client some practical benefits to the clients. Like you can give sale offers
and different packages to engage clients. To grow your online market, you also
need to take some risks initially. For example, to attract new clients, you can
give different incentives like free giveaways to a new client. This will
increase your chances of getting new clients as the word will travel and reach
out to more people increasing your e-commerce store. Try to be client-friendly
in every move you make and put yourself in client’s shoe to get a better
perspective. Be professional in approach and cater to the needs of the client
in every possible way.
Take on your Competitors:
Gone are the days when it was said that do your
own thing rather it is survival of the fittest in these times. With a huge
amount of competition in the market, you need to find ways to top others.
Analyze your most popular competitors and examine their strategies and interface.
Notice the details in the mechanism and implement whatever is lacking in your
website. Try to match up to their deals and the way they deal with the clients.
You should always keep an eye on your competition and improvise accordingly to
get better results.
Don’t Waste Time on Ads:
The popularity of Ads is fading away so is the
effectiveness. They are no more a necessary element to boost the scope of your
e-commerce store because clients have become more and more intelligent and
don’t appreciate anything that is inconvenient. No user wants to see several
Ads popping up at a time as they find it very annoying, so they have found new
ways to avoid watching them by the use of Ad blockers.
SEO is a must:
As the times have changed, the need of SEO has
also become vital because of increase in the options available to the client.
You should increase the exposure of your e-commerce store by presenting it to a
bigger audience. This can be done through the usage of different SEO techniques
like schema that can boost the ranking of your website. Your website should be
interactive and engaging so that it grabs the attention of a large number of
users.
Enhance your PR with another popular website of
your niche and get the benefit of cross-platform traffic. You can use other
mediums as well to do marketing of your e-commerce website so that more
audience can be induced. Different social media platforms like
Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, Instagram can be used to promote your
e-commerce store by giving links to the website. You can also make use
of influencers to endorse your e-commerce store through sponsored posts. Google
ads is another good option to do increase the viewers of your website.