To Win at Ecommerce, You Must Understand It

Once upon a time, Ecommerce was a brand new thing. It was strange. People didn’t trust it. People would wonder how it could possibly catch on. After all, what’s wrong with simply going to a store and handing over some cash? Isn’t it quicker to get the item that way? And besides, how you can you trust the people you’re sending money to? Isn’t the Internet full of viruses and hackers? And isn’t the millennium bug going to happen sometime soon anyway?
Long story short: very few people could have guessed just how far Ecommerce would come. And right now, Ecommerce is a staggering size. It’s showing no sign of slowing down. If you want to succeed in the industry, then understanding this business is utterly essential.
How Ecommerce got to where it is
It’s an industry that comfortably made millions a year throughout the early 2000s. Coming up to the 2010s, it was making billions. And, in 2012, Ecommerce became the latest trillion-dollar market. If you look at the data, you’ll see that this rise is actually quite sudden. Going from millions to billions to trillions in a matter of five years isn’t something that happens to every industry. So what changed in the 2010s? And how is this all advancing now.
 
Increased online security
The Internet used to be some sort of boogeyman. Remember my earlier reference to people thinking the Internet was full of viruses and hackers? To the extent that it was completely unsafe? That’s pretty much exactly how people thought. But the fact is that online security has come a long way indeed. It’s only been getting stronger.
Mobile security has also played a key role in all of this. Even as Internet shopping was taking off, people still felt squeamish about making purchases on their mobiles. But the checkout process has been made pretty darn secure. Specially developed apps by the biggest Ecommerce companies have seen to that!
More advanced development techniques
If you think about it, companies have a lot of work cut out for them when you consider mobile technology. It’s both a blessing and a curse. The spread of mobile technology has meant that more people than ever can make purchases more frequently than ever. As long as there’s an Internet connection where you’re going, you can make a safe purchase. But in order for this to happen, the Ecommerce company has to have developed their service for mobile use.
This has actually meant developing another infrastructure and front-end website. In addition to the ‘regular’ desktop one they’d used for years, they have to have a mobile version. Their website has to be changed tremendously in order to fit in with these advancing trends. One of the reasons Ecommerce has taken off in the face of these challenges is thanks to an increase in the number of tech development services.
Greater personalization
There’s one word that jumps to a lot of people’s mind when they think of the Internet. Content. You may have thought of cat videos. But what are cat videos? Content. You may have thought of social justice articles and gaming blogs. And what drives those? Content. Content has been a big concern since the World Wide Web began picking up steam with audiences. What this means is that people are flooded with content these days. Check your Facebook stream. Are you seeing the daily going-ons of your friends? Or are you just seeing your friends share content they found?
One of the problems this created was that there was too much for Ecommerce. If shopping websites had followed content trends to the letter? You would be visiting one of these websites now and be overwhelmed. You’d have new items, adverts, deals, everything thrown at you. But if you visit one of these sites, you’ll find that everything that pops up has been catered to you. How? Internet browsers collect so much information that is communicated to an Ecommerce server. These sites know what you’re interested in, based on your online activity. This personalization has been key to the boom of Ecommerce in the face of content overloads.
Applying wisdom to succeed in Ecommerce
If you’re running an ecommerce business, then you’re in an extremely competitive industry! Ecommerce customers can be very hard to please. Here are some of the things you need to focus on if you want to keep customers happy – and get even more of them!
Never set unrealistic expectations
Don’t let the customer expect something that you’re not going to be able to give them. Honestly, it’s a million times better to underpromise. Let’s say, for example, that you’ll deliver an item in a week when you actually expect it to arrive in three or four days. This is much better than the other way round! When you keep people waiting for even a day longer than they expected, they will not be happy bunnies. As you must know from personal experience, people get very impatient when it comes to waiting for a package to arrive.
There is an obvious problem with underpromising, of course. The problem is that you risk presenting the customer with an unattractive proposition. If they see that your website promises delivery in seven days, while another company offers a delivery time of four days? They don’t know for sure which one will actually arrive first. But you’ve given them good reason to believe it won’t be you! It’s a tricky balancing act, that’s for sure. But you know what else we can be sure of If you promise something that you can’t deliver, then that will have the most damaging outcome of all.
Keeping them loyal
Doing your best to keep your customers loyal to your brand can be an expensive and time-consuming business. But you know what’s an even more expensive and time-consuming business? Getting those customers in the first place! Customer retention is always cheaper than customer acquisition – never forget that!
 
With this in mind, you should consider a loyalty program of some kind. This can be an explicit program that customers are informed of and can sign up to after meeting certain prerequisites. It could also take the form of unadvertised relaxing of policies and cut costs for repeat customers. Think about the kind of stores you frequent. They become your go-to for whatever product you can think of. Thousand of people out there automatically go to Amazon because they’ve been using them for a decade or so. That’s the kind of loyalty you want to foster.
Be careful what platform you use
If you’re extremely well-versed in web development and ecommerce business practices? Then the temptation is there to build the website completely from scratch. To set up your own database, your own content management system – the lot. This would mean that you have ultimate control over every single little thing on your website. But this simply isn’t how most ecommerce businesses are run. The fact is that it can be much more cost-effective to work with a commercial framework, especially if you’re just starting out. You also need to consider web design. If you don’t have design facilities, then for all Ecommerce web design contact Digitalico. Content management systems and Ecommerce platforms can only do so much if your design isn’t up to the task.
One of the great things about using a particular framework is that it can open you up to a lot of marketing opportunities. Let’s say you go with a framework like Magento. Magento is the most popular ecommerce platform in the world, and for very good reason. They’re also owned and maintained by eBay. Simply on that kind of information, people are going to be more willing to work with your company. But there are also agencies that specialize in assisting you with particular platforms.
Make review creation a simple process
Customer reviews are an odd and sensitive thing in the world of ecommerce. It’s actually pretty easy to understand why some businesses are reluctant to host them. I’m not talking about the reviews of your website, although you should be putting some focus into that too. I’m talking about the customer reviews of the products on your website. Very few items in any ecommerce business sell on the basis of images and the copy. People will often look at the customer reviews to see how others responded to their purchase.
But, as anyone who’s ever explored Amazon knows, customer reviews can be extremely tricky things. People can leave damning reviews of a product despite openly never having used the product. They may leave one-star reviews because they didn’t like the service they received when they ordered the item. Of course, it’s worked the other way round, too. People have been discovered to have left glowing reviews for products because they were paid to do so. So you want to be able to regulate the reviews in some fashion. But you also need it to be an easy process – otherwise, people are less likely to review it at all!
With all of this wisdom – and, of course, with well-priced products – you’re in with a much stronger chance of success in the world of Ecommerce.