Tag: e-commerce business

List Of eCommerce Trends To Watch

Posted on by Bhavik Soni

E-commerce is an integral part of everyone’s life as each of us is well aware of the advantages of online shopping. Due to this pandemic in 2020, massive growth has been witnessed in eCommerce sales.

Besides this rapid shift in online shopping, it is also found that mobile and digital media consumption has also increased massively.

The e-retail sales in 2019 were $3.53 trillion, which is expected to grow to $6.54 billion by 2022-23.

Measuring the increase in online business, most of the retailers are moving towards this growing industry.

So, it is important for each business to know about the value of eCommerce and the top trends that need to be looked for in 2021.

Let’s have a look at eCommerce trends in this year that are set to outline the marketplace –

The Rise in Voice Commerce

The Rise in Voice Commerce
The Rise in Voice Commerce

Whether it is searching or buying a product from an online shop, most people are increasingly using voice assistant devices.

Devices like Alexa and Google Assistant are helping people to make their tasks easy and smart by voice search, every retailer needs to use this technology. So start optimizing your store for voice search as more than 70% of U.S. households will have their smart speakers by 2024-25.

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Once you optimize your store with Voice Search, it will fulfill consumer’s demands and you can provide them ease and convenience of shopping.

You will be stunned if we say, “It is expected that the Voice eCommerce is to reach $40 billion in revenue by the end of 2022”.

Omni Channel Selling – A New Normal

Omni Channel Selling – A New Normal
Omni Channel Selling – A New Normal

In response to a survey by Harvard Business Review, it is found that people are using multiple channels during their online shopping on various platforms. It is expected that the rate of omnichannel customers will rise in 2021 as well.

Many businesses are already aware of the customer’s behavior of using multiple channels like mobiles, tablets, desktops, etc.

To benefit your online business through Omnichannel selling, you need to optimize your website to use it on mobile phones. It will help you to boost your sales.

You can also create a mobile application or a PWA (Progressive web app) to offer a seamless Omnichannel experience to your customers.

Give the option to your customers to purchase the products in various ways like – Buy online, pick up in-store, choose home delivery, get doorstep delivery, etc.

Global Consumer Base

Global Consumer Base
Global Consumer Base

Global eCommerce is selling products across geopolitical borders. As per the recent updates, the cumulative date anticipates a 276.9% increase in worldwide e-commerce sales.

It is found that a large number of online shoppers are looking to buy outside of their country’s borders.

To increase your sales abroad, you have to analyze the outside market through platforms like online advertising or social media abroad. For this, you will need to approach Google Ads, Facebook, Instagram, and Product Listing Ads through geographic targeting.

Through this global nature of the search, the local companies can reach their international audience to sell their products.

Competition in Digital Advertising

Competition in Digital Advertising
Competition in Digital Advertising

Digital advertising has become the leading form of advertising in most of the OECD (Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development) countries.

The increased use of the internet and mobile phones has raised the level of digital advertising. Due to the developments in artificial intelligence and some other aspects, it is now possible to get the targeted audiences through low-cost digital advertising.

More companies are progressing to continue a large investment in a digital advertisement in 2021.

Mobile Payments

Mobile Payments
Mobile Payments

Mobile payments have become an easy and convenient way of digital payments for both retailers and consumers.  It is one of the topmost advanced technologies which is gradually increasing the rate of sales in e-commerce. It is now becoming an essential part of any online shopping platform to add their consumers’ online payment method.

At the time of the pandemic, people used to transact using mobile payment methods as there was a risk of getting exposed to the coronavirus.

In 2021, we can expect that more eCommerce businesses are going to accept mobile payment methods.

Videos & Interactive Content

Videos are one of the significant aspects of the online business world. 7 out of 10 people react positively after watching a well informative and appropriate video.  Across the world, 80 % of millennials use videos to decide on purchasing an online product.

Interactive videos can be used anywhere in the market like YouTube, Instagram, Facebook, etc.

Shoppable videos are the new frontier in the e-commerce world. Consumers can directly purchase the product through Pop-up or Swipe up features on videos added on various social media platforms.

The shoppable videos can be used by any kind of e-commerce space like fashion, beauty, technology brands.

It Will Be an Influencers’ Era

In 2020 it was expected that the influencer marketing industry would reach $9.7B according to Influencer Marketing Hub. The pandemic had disrupted the influencers’ marketing industry in 2020 but still, 88.5% of marketers consider influencer marketing to be valuable.

Mobile Payments
Mobile Payments

Influencers can help you to ensure the success of your product by lending their authority.

If your brand has a content problem, an influencer can market your product worldwide with their content.

In 2021, we will witness a large number of content creators and influencers selling the product and services of all varied kinds.  There will be a rise and prominence of commerce-led influencer marketing to drive a relatable conversion.

I’ve worked with the team at Andolasoft on multiple websites. They are professional, responsive, & easy to work with. I’ve had great experiences & would recommend their services to anyone.

Ruthie Miller, Sr. Mktg. Specialist

Salesforce, Houston, Texas

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So, here’s how to take advantage of an influencer to increase your product sales –

  • Find out the influencers of your niche and get them to help you out to create content for your e-commerce business.
  • You can help influencers to increase their audience and in return, they will also help you out in your promotional activities.
  • Set them free to choose the platforms where they can market your product.

Conclusion

Be ready with all these trends in 2021 to boost your brand’s performance and value.

It will be important to know the potential of your product and add-ons to attract the audience.

Brands need to optimize their website and app as per customer reviews. It will be helpful to build a strong customer relationship with the brand.

The Most Common Challenges Faced By Small eCommerce Businesses

Posted on by Jay

For a small eCommerce business, the eCommerce store is the primary retail growth engine for their business. The fast growth of eCommerce witnessed over the last 10 years. And it is expected to claim 17% of the industry by the end of the year 2022.

The pandemic has led to major growth in e-commerce business. Many offline businesses have shifted towards the E-commerce platform after observing a major downfall in the offline business.

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Back in the early days, you could easily sell anything and earn lots of money. The competition was very less, technology was not affordable at that time. But now everything has changed. 

(Source: Sales layer blog)

Amazon has become an important competitor for everyone. As China is expanding its business, that makes technology easily accessible for everyone.

This growth has also risen several eCommerce challenges as well. With this meteoric growth and demand for online business, running eCommerce is not easy, especially for small businesses.

It was estimated that 95% of business transactions is likely to be taking place online. So this is the right time for most retailers to overcome the barriers of ecommerce. 

As per the survey of NetSolution, 81% of the majority of shoppers begin their shopping journey with a normal online search. So, it is essential to make your online marketplace highly responsive to please the customers’ shopping experience.

Until 2020, the TTV (Total Transaction Value) in the digital eCommerce segment has been reported with a worth of 3.7M USD. And it is expected to hit 5M USD in 2023.

Total Transaction Value

Source: Net Solution

However, to make a stand out in this crowded marketplace, the eCommerce startups must address the core challenges of these niche businesses.

What is the biggest challenges for most e-commerce business?

Entrepreneurs across the globe face a lot of challenges of eCommerce while adapting to the digital commerce business. Here I have listed the most common eCommerce issues and their solutions while working towards building a successful eCommerce business.

1. Capitalization Of Data

The expansion of the eCommerce function to become a part of the holistic brand solution is the first and crucial eCommerce challenge.

To facilitate this, businesses are working hard to build efficient data-enabled eCommerce solutions that help them right from shipping to store management, new Key Performance Integrals (KPIs), beyond conversion rates, and the Average Order Values (AOV).

It is better to capture the systematic data rather than experimenting based on assumed market trends. The entrepreneurs who have realized the impact of the data on their day to day performance is a long-term business decision.

2. Customers’ Exploding Expectations

Retailers all over the world are continuously trying to build their reputation and a sharp brand image with the promise of a great experience.

In an era where experience matters the most and tech giants like Amazon are taking the online buying process to the proverbial ‘next level’ with anticipatory shipping methods, it is very difficult to meet customer expectations.

Thus, competing with these giant eCommerce Companies and fulfilling the never-ending customer demands is a huge challenge in today’s eCommerce business.

3. Agility Challenge

Agility is the capability of a business to introduce eCommerce development, advancements, and deploy digital content, react to seasonal changes, etc. rapidly.

Agility drives immediate digital eCommerce fulfillment and development. It is identified as one of the most important initiatives to adopt in the modern eCommerce business.

The agile eCommerce transformation is at the heart of the digital business, and scaling is essential for making it successful.

A large number of companies including startup businesses find it difficult to move or change quickly as per the needs of customers and seasonal demand.

It is usually because they can’t integrate new eCommerce technologies efficiently with their existing eCommerce applications. As end result penetration into the market gets harder.

4. Personalization Approach

eCommerce personalization is one of the key factors for a good customer shopping experience. Through personalization, retailers provide the customers with a personalized experience without noticing it.

In this procedure, retailers need to develop a one-to-one relationship with the customers. And it turns into a major challenge in front of eCommerce developers.

eCommerce business leaders must focus on developing a one-on-one relationship with their customers. And it needed to strengthen its developing tools and capabilities for a better, reach, and visibility amongst the consumers.

It only can be made possible with the integration of the latest eCommerce technologies, smart coding into current e-commerce frameworks to automate the entire customer journey.

Additionally, the AI eCommerce tool, machine learning approach, cross-platform data sharing also can harness the purpose of services.

5. Being Consistent

Consistency is the most critical element for a successful omnichannel shopping experience.

Customers use multiple platforms to search for items before making a decision which bounds businesses to provide seamless purchasing encounters through every product or service offered by them.

But analyzing and understanding customer interactions across all touchpoints and using it to build a consistent and seamless customer experience is one of the major eCommerce challenges for retailers.

6. Facing Competition

The internet offers everyone an equal platform and hence an equal opportunity. This makes the environment extremely competitive, with possibly hundreds of other businesses offering the same products or services as you and to the same target audience.

Even the most niche brands have to fight hard to carve a place for themselves. And every segment in the eCommerce space is set to get increasingly congested and competitive over the years.

A homegrown startup has to keep pace with a multinational giant and vice-versa. And every enterprise is continuously experimenting to come up with an innovative eCommerce business solution to gain an edge.

7. Data Security

The uptake of eCommerce also brings along associated eCommerce challenges – security threat being one of the most critical of them.

There is a looming threat of hackers and fraudsters attacking the host server and not just stealing confidential data but also infecting with viruses. Breach of credit and debit card details has become common news, and such lapses directly affect the trust of a consumer.

Phishing is yet another threat where hackers pose as businesses and ask for sensitive information from their customers.

Several users are increasingly concerned about the eCommerce websites’ capability to effectively shield their personal identity as well as the security of the transaction details.

8. Technology Partnerships

Technological partnerships are becoming increasingly popular in the eCommerce domain. When businesses join hands with a company to bring their idea to life, there is a lot at stake.

The end product can turn out to be a success not by focusing merely on the tech or processes but also giving precedence to trust, transparency, and communication between the partners.

Many businesses gravitate towards choosing a partner based on costs without setting the right expectations or understanding their work scope.

These gaps lead to a disastrous collaboration and eventually, the end product. With access to an enormous pool of talent and technology, outsourcing eCommerce development in itself can prove to be extremely beneficial if done right.

9. Customer Retention

Even some of the biggest players in the eCommerce segment struggle to retain their customer base.

The reason for customer-centric eCommerce challenges can be attributed to many factors such as :

  • the evolving expectation of the consumer
  • the presence of several similar options
  • failure to provide a pleasant shopping experience
  • and sometimes even the offers
  • discounts on the other platforms.

Customer loyalty is indeed a determining aspect in a business’s success, and even a minor glitch from the retailer can entirely ruin the brand reputation for a consumer.

Many businesses fail to understand that trying to retain a user is about investing in building a steady and rewarding relationship with them over time and employing every channel of communication to materialize it.

10. Relevant Leads

For eCommerce businesses, drawing good traffic may be achievable through promotions and other marketing efforts, but getting the relevant leads remains a huge challenge. No wonder the average eCommerce conversion rates are often minimal.

A report points out how only 2.57 percent of eCommerce website visits have been converted into purchases in the US.

The efforts invested in qualifying the visitor into a user can be futile if the right audience is not accessing the website. Several times brands fail to communicate the right message about their product or service and hence are unable to engage the interested audience.

11. Getting the right customers:

The online shoppers don’t shop in the same way as they were doing earlier. They use amazon to get their products, not only through google. They check lots of recommendations from social media. 

By using the smartphones, they easily get product reviews unlike in the stores and then buy it using all the available payment methods. Many things have changed including the way they accept the content and hold the communication through online. One major challenge of e-commerce is that consumers get distracted through social media and other technology.

The retailer needs to focus on their audience and how to attract them efficiently without hampering the marketing budget.

 Most businesses when going online face some of these challenges but with a strong marketing strategy and advanced technology, will help you to build a long lasting business with your customers.

I’ve worked with the team at Andolasoft on multiple websites. They are professional, responsive, & easy to work with. I’ve had great experiences & would recommend their services to anyone.

Ruthie Miller, Sr. Mktg. Specialist

Salesforce, Houston, Texas

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 You can get lots of opportunities of e-commerce business, where your business can easily reach out to your customers all through online methods.

Final Thoughts

To overcome these eCommerce challenges, businesses should operate as modern omnichannel retailers. They should focus on turning data into insights, knowledge, and ways for market leadership.

Inspiring shoppers and driving loyalty with personalization at scale can work in their favor and can help support their brand, business model, and international expansion.

In this highly competitive world, entrepreneurs need to use smart digital retail practices to address the eCommerce challenges facing online businesses with the right set of tools.

Finally, all of this must be backed up by strong digital leadership, providing clarity and support with the right resources to help you become a market leader.

On the edge of developing your eCommerce Application? Talk to our expert!

How To Boost eCommerce Sale During Covid19 Pandemic

Posted on by Jay

Since the last few years, COVID-19 has made the most unexpected impacts worldwide. As of December, 2021, COVID-19 has affected millions of people worldwide with many deaths.

As with the New variants of Covid-19, the Omicron variant is emerging again, creating a major impact on millions of lives and to the economic sector.

As for the impact on the global business, we can’t say the industry like eCommerce is experiencing the complete fallout. The online sale has taken the hit but it is not completely down.

It’s clear that moving forward, choosing between online sales and brick-and-mortar stores won’t be the answer — instead, “offering a compelling Omni channel experience…is a requirement for survival,” says McKinsey analysts.

The drastic E-commerce growth amid movement restrictions induced by Covid-19 has increased the online Retail sales from 16% to 27.6% in 2021.

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According to a report by UNCTAD, online retail sales have grown in many countries, with the Republic of korea holding a large number of  shares at 25.9% by 2021, up from 20.8% the year before.

This pandemic has spread to over 100+ countries now. But as an eCommerce vendor, it is also time to deliver to their customer despite the circumstances.

Actually, it is very important to handle every step along the way with safety as paramount.

Despite this “post- Covid” era, the situation is constantly changing. With retail and E-commerce business has begun to observe behavioural shifts in the shopping habits , along with many new behavioural shifts observed in the shopping habits.

Online Shopping Increases By Demographic:

A report by BigCommerce has shown that in the Covid-19  various gender and age-groups have adopted E-commerce in varying degrees.

According to a survey it was observed that in the UK and US, 96% of millennials and GenZ are worried about the pandemic which has affected the economy. The widespread worry was  observed that this age group differentiate their behaviours  more noticeably in comparison to other generations.

Agility PR has reported that 30% of millennials has done more Online shopping during pandemic. In contrast 20% of Gen X, 24% of Gen Z and 8% of Baby boomers. 

More data has shown that 24% of boomers and 34% of GenZ have seen Covid-19 has created an impact on the items they are purchasing, compared to nearly half of millennials. These effects might include the cutting back on spending, carrying certain items  and spending less on the experiences.

There is also much disparity observed between genders, with 24% of men found to be online shopping in the pandemic, in comparison to 18% of women. Also, one third of men, in comparison to 25% of women, said that Covid-19 has created more impact on how much they spend on products.

Here I have drafted some safety measures that you should adopt to make your selling experience more effective.

Sanitize Every Place That You Work

For the safety measures, you need to do this at shipment centres, inventories, warehouses, and all the workspaces of your organisation where works are made out. This is the top priority for included people, especially those in the eCommerce sector, considering the far-reaching geographical capabilities of the industry.

Here are some precaution checkpoints of sanitization that you can undertake:

  • Screening the warehouse personnel regularly
  • Instant sanitization of the warehouse
  • Minimizing the working resources and maintain the social distance
  • maintain heavy caution on entry and exit points
  • An emergency phone line to contact the hospital or police station, if required
  • Maintain the manual register for all visitors
  • Contactless delivery

By setting as an example India with1.3 billion people shut down, the World Health Organisation (WHO) said “India’s COVID fight could make or break the global war. WHO said India has a tremendous capacity to deal with the pandemic as it has experience of eradicating smallpox and polio”.

With the contactless initiative, customers can ask the delivery guy to leave their order package in a secure location, from where the end-user can pick it up.

“It can go a long way in containing the spread of COVID-19 and protects both your courier partner and the end customer.”

Winners On The E-Commerce Shift:

Big commerce has reported that month over month, the food and beverage has increased. The impact of E-commerce on emerging markets has grown to 18.8% and also shows a big growth in the downloads of  mobile applications. It has allowed people to hire personal shoppers to prepare and also in some cases they deliver the goods.

The rise of E-commerce popularity was observed as many of us were quarantined  at home, usinging Netflix, Disney+ and all the gaming subscribers has observed growth at an unprecedented rate in Q1 2021.

Provide Training On Sanitization

In these testing times, the biggest threat to society is perhaps, ignorance.

Ignorance, perhaps this is the biggest threat to society. It is so important that each and every single person is well informed about the basics to fight effectively.

Government officials of many countries have adopted epidemic training and awareness procedures for staying safe.

This includes;

  • how to wash your hands
  • how to wear a mask
  • how to stay away from infected surfaces
  • how to deliver using contactless delivery

Collaborate With Shipping Aggregators

The most advantageous outcome of partnering with a shipping partner is to reduce the workload of your internal team and make sure a clean, hygienic shipping process end-to-end.

There are many vendors using this workflow, so you will be able to choose an alternate courier partner without wasting any time.

Keep Customer Support Paramount

To ensure customer satisfaction and general peace amongst customers, make sure that customer support is available round the clock.

Customer service at whim can make sure that the customer and the seller are constantly in touch.

Okay. These are the safety measure for online vendors to ensure the safety of packing to deliver the goods to end-users.

But can we see this lockdown period as an opportunity to boost your eCommerce sale?

As people are willing to stay at their homes these days and they need their daily life stuff also.

So, the answer is YES!

Strategies To Boost Online Sales

It is very obvious that the consumers are spending more time on the internet as they are social distancing and IT professionals are working from home.

So, our recommendation would be to consider your online presence of the online store. This depends on the eCommerce platform you use. Various eCommerce platforms have different limitations.

Example; The core features of Magento, WordPress, are pretty much search engine friendly.

If everything is OKAY.. then revisit your marketing spend and improve the effectiveness of your virtual communications.

1. Reach Out To Your High-Value Customers

Analytica says, “20% of your customers contribute 80% of your total revenue”. Considering this you need to prioritize the high-value customers ensuring their lifetime loyalty.

eCommerce Stats
Source: Squarespace

Applications like Wakeupsales, (cloud-based Salesforce Automation tool) act like the customer relationship solution and contacting platform all in one.

Through this, your marketing staff can stay in touch with the prioritized high-value customers remotely.

So, you can send personalized recommendations that include links to purchase online.

2. Adapt Your Marketing Messaging

During this sensitive period, you also need to rethink your marketing strategy.

However, brands should be cautious of pivoting too far away from their core brand messaging, or worse yet, coming off as opportunistic.

Below are some examples of brands that made simple adjustments to their messaging to “read the cultural room” while remaining authentic.

3. Create “Social Experiences” On Social Media

Staying home means surfing the internet and social media. So the brand needs to get creative about how they leverage their social media presence.

The brand can create problem-solving social media campaigns to gain more reach of your brand or product.

Also, consider the campaign must make aware of your brand and how your brand gets to solve the daily life requirement.

This helps to acquire loyal customers.

4. Offer Free Shipping Or Local Pickup And Delivery

Shipping cost is always a barrier for online users. So if possible, you can consider offering free shipping.

There is another option available “curbside pickup”.

This term of delivery is actually, a customer ordered a product online and can pick it up fro your local store.

It decreases the hassle of the delivery process. And for customers, it also cut the waiting time.

Still, you need to integrate the whole setup on your eCommerce website. This is not a big development process. You can integrate this delivery set up by hiring an eCommerce developer remotely.

5. Extend Your Return And Exchange Policy

“Extending your return and exchange policy in acknowledgment of the current climate could alleviate buyer doubt and incentivize online sales.”

So, changing the return policy can bring some sighs to your customers. As on the lockdown period, the delivery time and pick up time could be delayed. So, extending the return period could help to gain some loyal customers too.

6. Use Retargeting Ads To Reach Your Customers

Paid advertising can help you to reach such people which you cannot go with organic campaigns. And doing it smartly would help you to regain such visitors who were at your store before.

Technically, we called this a Retargeting campaign.

I’ve worked with the team at Andolasoft on multiple websites. They are professional, responsive, & easy to work with. I’ve had great experiences & would recommend their services to anyone.

Ruthie Miller, Sr. Mktg. Specialist

Salesforce, Houston, Texas

LEARN MORE

Through it, your ads or product can be displayed to those users who visited your website recently.

The various ads managers like Facebook, Google, etc have the algorithm to perform such methods.

Conclusion:

Developing and delivering the fruitful content display will always have the high-end stuff for your eCommerce website too.

So, before adopting all these methods and strategies, you need to ‘consider your existing website performance and capabilities.

When we come to the point of COVID-19, there is no ETA on when this crisis is going to end. But it is heartwarming to see all people coming together to fight this pandemic.

As the new Covid Variant, Omicron is growing gradually, therefore it is important to take all the necessary steps and grow your business gradually. Develop your E-commerce application now with Andolasoft. 

Our experts, App developers, will guide you with this path, by developing your desired eCommerce Application.

We at Andolasoft also urged the merchant to follow the guideline and secure every touchpoint.

Is your eCommerce site fully integrated to fight this situation? Let’s Discuss.