The internet has become a trend for people to use these days. Social networking sites such as Facebook and Twitter have made it easier for people around the globe to keep in touch with their family members and friends without having to meet them in person. Same way the e-commerce sites such as Amazon and eBay have changed the way people shop.
Although the e-commerce industry has undergone a lot of changes since it first started in 1994, the basic principles never changed. There has been a sudden increase in the demand for e-commerce sites since the internet became a rage across the world.
Definition
E-commerce or electronic commerce, refers to the buying and selling of products or services over electronic systems such as the internet. E-commernce draws on such technologies as electronic funds transfer, supply chain management, internet marketing, online transaction processing, electronic data interchange (EDI), inventory management systems, and automated data collection systems. Modern electronic commerce typically uses the World Wide Web at least at one point in the transaction's life-cycle, although it may encompass a wider range of technologies as well.
E-commerce that takes place between businesses is referred to as business-to-business or B2B. B2B can be open to all interested parties or limited to specific and pre-qualified participants. E-commerce that takes place between businesses and consumer is referred to as business-to-consumer or B2C. E-commerce is generally considered to be the sales aspect of e-business. It also consists of the exchange of data to facilitate the financing and payment aspects of business transactions.
Strategies
Like other types of businesses, when the e-commerce industry started to boom, many new players entered the field tightening the competition. With the competition getting heavier, some e-commerce websites started to give various offers and discounts to stay above their competitors. Though most of them were genuine, there were some who charged very high shipping costs to balance the discounts they offered. Most of the times these sites would not have returning customers, which in turn means after a specific period of time, those sites would simply run out of customers. This shows that one cannot use such tricks to gain the market.
To gain the market and reach the top position, one will have to do a lot of hard work. The first thing that needs attention is to have a very user friendly website. There are a lot of things that an e-commerce website must have to make it a very user friendly. Some of them are listed below:
- The site must have a simple and elegant look. Customers won't like to browse through a very complicated site.
- It must have a proper grouping of products so that a customer can compare two products before deciding on which one to buy.
- There must be a search feature in the website so that the customer can find the product they are looking without time delay.
- There must be a ready to help customer service team available 24/7 to help the customer resolve their issues.
- Registration process should be made short and simple as possible.
- Proper customer feedback page must be maintained. New customers would look for the feedback page before they start with the shopping process.
- Highlight special discounts and special offers so the customers would get instantly attracted to it.
Here are some of the latest trends to help an e-commerce site to stay above the other competitors:
- A simple inbound business calling solution can help your customers interact with your customer service team at that instant itself and get the problem resolved. This can help reduce the cart abandonment rates as well as increase the revenue by increasing the total sales.
- Another latest addition to the list is the Live Link Video. It is an interactive video from which your customers can directly make purchase by clicking on the item that they require from the video. This would make the shopping far more simpler and less time consuming.
- Most of the times the main reason for people leaving a shopping process incomplete are the lack of proper guidance. That is where you can be different from the other e-commerce sites by having a live chat widget installed on your site.
- A proper help desk will help you and customer have a healthy relationship during the process of shopping.
- If you are able to feature your site and product rates on product comparison sites, it can help in increasing your site's visibility. Competitive pricing would mean an increase in sale.
- If you are able to provide a feeling of security for the customers that would help in reducing the cart abandonment rate by a huge amount. A VeriSign logo on your website would make the customers feel more at home and also they would even refer your site to their friends and family.
- Another simple and attractive way to attract new customers to your e-commerce site is to upload videos of products on your site.
These are some of the trends being followed by the e-commerce websites these days to help them stay at the top of the competition.