Tag: ecommerce app development company

How eCommerce Helps To Overcome Businesses From Covid-19

Posted on by Jay

The outbreak of the coronavirus disease has disrupted the lives of the people around the world. And the global cases of this pandemic have surpassed the 2 million mark.

And due to this, it has impacted many business sectors and affected the economy of many countries. This is because people are advised to maintain social distance and stay at home.

Since the official announcement from WHO declaring the COVID-19 a global pandemic, many countries have put restrictions and lockdowns.

This has left businesses to work from home, which is possible for IT and eCommerce companies. It is the only option business owners have and has put eCommerce in to pressure to maintain social distancing.

Due to its fast spread, the shops are closed down since the end of the mid-February month, which has left people to shop from eCommerce stores.

So, this has suddenly spiked the number of orders coming to eCommerce stores exponentially. The behavior of online shoppers has changed as well.

Ecommerce sectors like grocery, food, health care, and entertainment websites have seen a spike in traffic.

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“ECommerce sales have increased by 52% YOY.  Also, the number of shoppers has been increased by 8.8%. Alternatively, the travel and airline sectors along with other sectors such as apparel, sports goods, arts and crafts, toys, and other eCommerce sectors have been suffering due to this pandemic.”

eCommerce Increased Sale

Source: Statista-2020

In the time of crisis, the big question emerges is how the eCommerce sector could help to overcome all of this?

Well, we have got some tips on how business owners would overcome this crisis with minimum effects on their eCommerce business.

eCommerce, How Small Businesses Can Get Most of It?

This is the most suitable situation and has presented a great opportunity for small business owners to go digital and benefit eCommerce business.

Due to social distancing, the closure of small and large retail shops has significantly affected the revenue of their business negatively.

But with certain and wise investments, they can recall their business digitally. With a smart eCommerce Development Strategy, they can increase their sales and generate some revenue from their business.

There might be some challenges due to ongoing supply chain disruption and delays in delivery, which may affect your business reputation and customer loyalty at the very beginning stages.

But as the situation has been changing continuously, these issues can be dealt with on a rolling basis.

The eCommerce Ideas That could help businesses to overcome the impact of COVID-19

The business owners may take a few steps right away, monitor the situation from the ground, and see what’s possible.

  • Make a round-up of your inventory because the supply chain can be disrupted at any time
  • Know the rules, regulations, and laws applicable to businesses nationally and locally
  • Prepare a team for solving any queries of customers
  • Expand the supply base so that your business doesn’t have to rely on one supplier

Well, these are basic strategies to follow before switching to eCommerce. Now let’s deep dive into the selling niche. Just like;

Sell Digita/ Virtual Products

People all around the world are bound to stay at home due to the fast spread of this disease. Also, most countries have put down restrictions for people to come out, which leaves you to sell virtual digital products on your eCommerce store. And the best thing is that you don’t have to rely on the supply chain.

You can come up with ideas on how to effectively sell them. Because there is no fear of selling virtual products as there will be no in-person contact and products will get delivered online. 

Come up with ebooks, tutorials, e-classes, music classes, learning classes, etc. virtual products that sell like a charm.

Andolasoft has come-up with the idea that could help both buyer and merchant to fulfill their daily requirements such as;

Grocery App

There’s a growing demand for online grocery delivery. The grocery industry is huge by all measures and is constantly developing. Grocery delivery systems and grocery startups making on-demand delivery arrangements have been regularly popping up, and some of them have managed to become tremendously successful. The feature includes:

  • A customer creates a list of groceries and pays instantly.
  • A personal shopper gets this order and collects the groceries.
  • The shopper pays the bill via an Instacart prepaid debit card.
  • The shopper delivers these products to the customer.

Make the Pre-Order and Let’s See How it Works

Salon App

Taking advantage of customers with web app form to book appointments in the salon not only shows that you are ready for the next and the next trends, but also offers them what they need: a technology available to make life easier and easier.

And with no certainty about the length of the quarantine period, your customers would not wish to go a long time without their timely haircuts and beauty treatments. You can capitalize on this by providing on-demand salon services to your customers through a salon app.

The features are included:

  • Pre-Reservations
  • Quick Glance at the Services Available
  • Special Offers
  • Style Libraries
  • Haircut of the Week
  • Appointment Reminders
  • Updo of the Week

Make the Pre-Order and Let’s See How it Works

Come up with a cost-effective shipping method.

People are mostly staying at home, and most of the people have little money to spend on important items. So, allow people to order products online and pick it up from the store.

This way they don’t have to pay much for shipping charges and save their money to spend on important items.

Also, you need to manage your orders during this situation. And to do that you have to heavily rely on the supply chain to ship orders with proper management of logistics. Therefore, ordering online and picking up in-store models works best in this scenario.

Try to Revive the Supply Chain for Your Business:

In these hard times, the supply chain is getting disrupted due to the restrictions and lockdowns put up by most countries.

To revive and restore the supply chain is very important, so alleviate the seriousness of the problem before it gets worse for your business.

Get in touch with manufacturing units and try to expand their operations if possible. And on the other hand, try to build up fulfillment units.

The manufacturing of the goods will take up the most time. But fulfilling orders can be achieved faster, which helps to mitigate the surge of demand.

Sell Human Survival Products

The unfortunate events have unfolded itself, which is threatening the survival of the human race. To help curb the issue, sell essential items that are important for the survival of humans.

Products like grocery, food items, and healthcare items are a necessity in the wake of a global pandemic.

Sell those products at minimum profit margins on your eCommerce store. Because in these trying times people are stranded without much money to spend and without any job to work. And they have little money to spend only on essential items.

So, it will be beneficial for your business as well as the people of your country, if you sell those essential items.

Pro-Tip: 

If your eCommerce store is on Magento, then set up a multi-store website with the help of Magento 2 extensions.

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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Thus, your current operations do not get affected by this new eCommerce venture. So, all in all, selling these items will keep profits coming in for your online business.

Conclusion

The COVID-19 has affected many people around the globe and disrupted their lives for several weeks now. And there will be after-effects of the same when all of these things are over.

But one thing we can do is to help each other out during this pandemic.

Small businesses are the worst affected by the spread of COVID-19. But you can take the necessary steps to lessen the blow on your business.

Being transparent, optimistic, and positive will help your eCommerce business and the people around you.

Want to launch your eCommerce store? Let’s Discuss!

Smart Guidelines for Planning a Perfect Website for E-commerce Businesses

Posted on by Jignesh Vaghasiya

These days people are finding online shopping very comfortable. They shop and place orders on these sites then they receive the order after some days according to location. This process of buying products and useful items has become an essential part of life.

However, it becomes vital for the site owner to lead and circulate their site rules properly so that people find their site affectionate and surprising.

The trend of E-commerce business is rising day by day, and it has become one of the profitable companies in the world. If you are thinking of producing an online E-commerce site for your customers, then it is one of the best ideas for any business planner.

Therefore, it becomes crucial to decide how to plan a website structure for essential growth?

Planning for E-commerce website

Every owner needs to design the perfect site for customers because customers nowadays require a lot more from online business planners.

It may seem to many business planners that building an online business is challenging; however, it is not much difficult task; you just need to keep some ideas in kind before selling online products.

There is a great importance of website planning because it will help you to understand the necessities of the E-commerce business and customer’s requirements.

Various planners do not have any knowledge; however, you should not worry about anything because below given facts will help you to build your online E-commerce website.

You first have to prepare a proper website planning checklist because it will help you to know about the e-commerce site requirements.

You all know that every business needs new tools and technologies to lead the proper growth of the company.

Thus, you should include website planning features in such a way that the technology involved in the e-commerce site should be new and familiar for customer usage.

Individual steps to organize a proper e-commerce site

Many e-commerce site business planners ask that how to plan a website structure for the best result? Surely, you are going to know the best steps that can help in designing a focused website efficiently.

Let’s discuss some of the listed points that have given below:

The objective of the e-commerce site:

You should never forget the primary goal of your site. You should concentrate on e-commerce product selling and purchasing modes. It will help you in designing a perfect plan for the website.

You should know on which platform you want to consider your website plan because the platform can lead to the correct direction of business growth with time.

Teamwork:

You should start managing the best team that can help you in maintaining a website planning checklist. Every e-commerce site needs a large number of operators because it helps in controlling the whole system of the site properly.

One person can focus on the delivery part, others can concentrate on purchasing a part, and left ones can focus on the website working procedure such as order placements.

Requirements of an audience:

It becomes one of the crucial website planning steps because the growth and productivity of your site belong to the users. More people start using your site more; you grow among other businesses.

Mainly, the audience should understand your site features correctly, and they can efficiently operate those features at any time.

Update versions:

It becomes very crucial for e-commerce business planners that they should keep updating their site after some time. It will help in attracting more users towards the site because they will find more exciting features on the website to go through while purchasing.

It is the importance of website planning that leads the business planner in the correct direction of the growth.

Smart features:

Every business leader needs to plan a perfect site with a large number of features. The website planning checklist must contain this fact that your website should look more attractive to the viewers.

You should include a proper cart box on the site so that people can easily add new items in the box and select the usable items later on. You should try to include every product with natural pictures and videos on the website.

The website should have proper graphic features and various animated designs.

Quality of the product:

Now, the business works on the quality of the products you provide to your customers. Your e-commerce site can grow efficiently, but you have to satisfy the customer needs by offering a smart quality of a product.

You should also provide them special discounts and offers because in this way they will rely more on your site and purchase more goods from your online site rather than from the market place.

Strategy with profit:

You can quickly start gaining advantage with the specially designed website by including the online payment method. It becomes essential to choose every smart technology with the perfect website planning steps in an e-commerce site for the best results.

The online payment method can help you to get ensured about the payment, and you can quickly receive money on time without facing any hurdles.

Also, set the delivery date for the customer because it helps in knowing about the delivery date of the item. Thus it becomes necessary to choose the best delivery team that can help in packaging and delivering the products to your loyal customers.

Conclusion

The e-commerce website planning is not much exhausting work, but it requires proper knowledge and customer satisfaction points. You should build an appropriate site for online business in which users can easily manage their shopping items and place orders.

They can also place their favorite things in the cart so that they can buy them, later on, when comfortable. The importance of website planning also includes that you should update the version of your site after some months so that users find it interesting to use.

You should also include offers and discounts for customers. It will undoubtedly lead to loyal customers, and the productivity of your business increases gradually.

Don’t stop just start planning your smart e-commerce site with amazing and profitable features.

How to Recognize a True Partner Among Web Development Agencies?

Posted on by Jay

Looking for the right website development agency can be very difficult. Although there are some handy tips when searching for the right eCommerce web development agency, one of the most underrated questions is: How to recognize an agency that wants to be a partner?

Let’s explain why this question is essential.

There are two types of agencies in the world. First is the one that tries to do the job you agreed upon. The second wants to go beyond that.

An agency that wants to be your partner wants to think about results that are above their “scope of work.” In simple words, they are always having in mind your broader business objective. Having that common goal allows for a deeper connection between an agency and the client that results in the best possible outcome.

How to recognize that agency?

In this post, you can find useful information on how you can recognize an eCommerce website agency that wants to become your business partner.

How to Recognize a True Partner Among Web Development Agencies?

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How about you? What is your approach to conversations about eCommerce development costs? Would you like to share some of your tricks of the trade?

Let’s learn from each other, and we may even influence the way some of our future clients approach us.

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.

6 Trends And Future Of eCommerce In Upcoming Years

Posted on by Naman Modi

Keeping an eye on the eCommerce trends should be a hobby since the year is coming to an end, and the business partners want future growth in eCommerce.

Several future eCommerce trends that retailers should pay attention to are the eCommerce techniques. In they need positive growth in their organization are discussed in this article.

Online-Offline Linkages:Online-offline linkages

Both the online and offline shopping options are believed to be the key trends that are believed in shaping future eCommerce regarding how businesses can increase their sales.

Borrowing from the online giant market, Amazon, the process of coming up with physical stores, allows people to interact with the products that may have come across or ordered online.

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Similarly, the retail businesses have noted the importance of offering their digital experiences to younger customers as they seem to spend most of their time online and social media, making purchase decisions.

Thus, it is very logical predicting the eCommerce landscape of 2020 to be either a physical or digital presence.

Multi-Channel Engagement and Buying:

Having many people spend their time on social media, retail businesses have the opportunity of communicating and engaging with their target audiences through various channels.

For example, one may come across a picture of a friend carrying a trendy handbag on Instagram or any social media hurdle.

It will be obvious for the person to inquire about the brand of the bag, its cost, and of course, where she bought it.

After acquiring this information, the person will surely log into the brand’s website or other pages that are selling to make their purchase.

Therefore, multi-channel engagement can be said to be one of the eCommerce future trends that have already begun yielding fruits for retailers.

The multi-channel trend is good news for all businesses as the research clearly shows that most shoppers spend more than those individuals who restrict shopping to a certain channel.

However, it is wrong to rule out that the drivers of eCommerce in the future have changed their availability, utility to the personalized product.

Native Social-Selling

About 18.2% of people say they are comfortable transacting through the social media pages of the prevalent brands.

Although it is still a niche where buying and selling can take place, this group of early adopters will only grow in the near future.

“For example, Instagram has more than a billion active users who spend most of their time on the site messaging and doing other stuff but only get interested in shopping whenever they find something that catches their eye or rather recommended by the influencers.”

Famous Apps & We

The same case is happening to the Facebook brands where their shops on Facebook attract heavy traffic with an increasing number of buyers if they have unique goods.

In the near future, the large brands with a global presence are not going to ignore the native-selling since their target audience will be doing the bulk of the product they admire on social media platforms.

Markedly, it will be an interesting development since eCommerce space will no longer be liable to restricted to the online businesses’ well-known brands as they are probably going to set up their brands on social media.

Automated Operations

None of the future trends will get fruits until their business get automation of their prevalent processes.

That is, ranging from inventory management, invoicing, billing, delivery, and even handling refunds and returns of the firms.

This is because, like in the multi-channel, eCommerce will only be possible if the retailer has general information concerning the stock levels for their various products at the time of shipping.

If there will be an automated inventory, then it will be safe, fast, and customer satisfying since there will be no need for mastering every particular product.

Lack of this information in the app and the websites will continue accepting new orders for their products without customer’s knowledge.

Research shows that enhancing customer satisfaction is a vital factor in influencing loyalty and repeat purchases in the future of eCommerce.

In case deliveries are at any time-delayed or orders are canceled, then the reputation will take a hit.

Mobile CommerceMobile commerce

Almost everyone owns a smartphone, and there is rapid penetration of the same, even in the developing countries for middle-class persons.

The mobile commerce emerging trend results from the rise of using smartphones, which shows mobile commerce in the near future will hit a higher note.

However, retailers and customers have been taking full advantage of their smartphones, but now it important the phones are made being mobile-friendly.

Hence the purchases are simplified. In essence, many people are not going to navigate multiple fill-in forms and pages before completing any transaction.

With that in mind, eCommerce will be required to start looking beyond America and its markets in the coming years.

This is because of the emerging economies like in China, North Africa, and South Asia, where smartphone penetration is the rise but still below global expectations.

For retailers who are in a position to develop mobile apps can be easily downloaded and used without using too much bandwidth in finding themselves a significant advantage where the internet connections are slow or of limited ranges.

Social Media eCommerceSocial media commerce

Many eCommerce analysts believe that online shopping and social media as a natural fit.

They argue that most people spend most of their time on Facebook and Twitter, browsing different products, and asking for recommendations.

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

Recently, businesses and customer research show that this shift in the behavior of consumers is taking hold, especially the youths who are considered as the primary target audience in the future of eCommerce.

Many young people have begun using social media to find products and other services that fulfill their needs.

As well they seek to get feedback from individuals within their online circles who might have used the same product before.

Conclusion

For a prosperous future of eCommerce, businesses will have to work with the technology and data firms.

As well the social media platforms will need to ensure the information is always safeguarded for the transaction to take place.

We featured as Top Magento Developers at eCommerceCompanies.

Data leakage is common nowadays which has become a norm for social media hurdles leading to customers remaining top extra cautious with their information online.

How Technology is Empowering eCommerce Business?

Posted on by os_admin

eCommerce has been developing at the speed of light in the recent decade. Thousands of researchers, analysts, and marketers have been studying the holy grail of information – that’s a customer with a smartphone – and defining the strategies for more targeted and personalized marketing and products.

Today, many eCommerce businesses have tons of customer data needed to advance in the online marketplace. With data, as well as data analysis and intelligence tools and platforms, being readily available

They know exactly what their target customers need and want. For example, Amazon’s product recommendation engine generates 35 percent of the company’s net income of $10.07 billion.

In fact, those who have mastered customer research not only know your needs and preferences but also what you’ll need in the future.

This incredible opportunity, along with many other ones, was, of course, enabled by state-of-the-art eCommerce solutions that companies only dreamed about 10 years ago.

So what exactly drives eCommerce businesses’ obsession with data? What are the technologies that give them the competitive advantage they need to stand out in a multi-billion online marketplace?

  • Machine Learning Algorithms to Generate Personalized Product or Service Recommendations

The vast majority of online shoppers – 87 percent – start product searches online. Chances are you’re a part of this, too, if you rely on your smartphone to find new products. It makes perfect sense, as the experience of others can help to make a good choice.

Function of Beauty, an American fashion brand offering personalized hair-care, wants to take product research one step further. A customer looking for hair products such as shampoos and conditioners for their specific hair type doesn’t need to browse numerous websites and menu categories.

Instead, they can take a quiz on a brand’s website and receive a personalized recommendation.

Function of BeautySource: Screenshot, Functionofbeauty(.)com

This was made possible by a machine learning algorithm. A customer can choose their hair type, scent, size of a bottle, and provide other preferences.

The results provided by a quiz taker are fed into the algorithm that pulls from hundreds of ingredients to generate a truly unique set of hair care products. In fact, it’s able to offer up to 12 million custom combinations.

Inc. reports that the quiz has been already taken by more than 1.5 million times. This is truly a great example of how machine learning can help to increase the personalization and relevance of products as well as advanced customer relationships.

Algorithms like these can be used to generate custom products, services, and recommendations, and therefore, will continue to drive eCommerce businesses’ effort to maximize relevancy for customers.

  • Chatbots to Improve the Overall Online Shopping Experience

Chatbots are one of the hottest topics in eCommerce right now.

These apps can mimic human online behavior such as conversations with pre-written questions and answers, so they have a lot of applications in the area.

In fact, here’s what eCommerce businesses expect from using them, as described in the 2018 State of Chatbots report.

ChatBot ReportSource: The 2018 State of Chatbots report

Already, a countless number of businesses have developed their own chatbots to help customers.

The range of their applications, as you can see, is pretty impressive, so it’s safe to claim that any eCommerce business can benefit from using one.

Let’s consider an example of a chatbot making a difference. A well-known U.S. electronics retailer Best Buy, for example, has an impressive Messenger chatbot that helps customers with:

    • Finding products based on such criteria as price range, manufacturer, OS type, laptop type, and common applications (gaming, studying, etc.)
    • Connecting to a customer support operator from an appropriate service department (this is determined by the answers given by the customer to the chatbot)
    • Locating stores across the U.S., Canada, and Mexico
    • Getting support like in-home consultations and other service-related inquiries.

Impressive, right? And all of this is available in one place. But the best thing that a lot of customers really appreciate is that they can get almost instant replies to their requests thanks to the chatbot technology.

ChatBot

Chatbots like Best Buy’s can really improve the overall customer experience by increasing personalization and relevance of communication with brands.

Perhaps unsurprisingly, more and more people feel comfortable using them; in fact, one U.S. study found that 62 percent of online shoppers said they liked using a chatbot to communicate with a brand.

  • Hybrid eCommerce App Development

Apps continue to be a significant sales channel for eCommerce businesses around the world. In recent years, many companies have chosen to build hybrid apps, which combine the elements of web applications and native apps.

This means they’re built on CSS, HTML, or JavaScript, but use a device’s browser engine to render the HTML or JavaScript code locally.

This allows for more functions that aren’t accessible in native apps, such as local storage and accelerometer. Moreover, making an app hybrid also means that it:

    • Gets downloaded to a device
    • Functions regardless if the device is connected to the Internet
    • Integrates with the devices’ file system to allow local storage
    • Provides better access to dynamic online content
    • Integrates with web services.

The first obvious advantage of hybrid apps that many customers appreciate is offline availability. If made possible by the developers, all of their features can work without an Internet connection.

For businesses looking to build an app, these advantages of hybrid mobile app development should be considered:

    • Your app will work both online and offline
    • Launching updates and patches will be easier for your web development team
    • You’ll build the app faster, so if time to market is a priority, hybrid apps are a great choice
    • You’ll reduce the costs because there’s no need to build multiple versions of a native app for different platforms (Android and iOS, etc.)

  • Innovative Experiences with 3D Imaging, Augmented Reality (AR), and Virtual Reality (VR)

Attracting customers to product pages is one of the biggest goals in eCommerce. Product imagery and video play a deciding role in conversions; in fact, the State of Video Marketing 2019 report found that up to 96 percent of online shoppers say they’ve watched an explainer video to learn more about a product or service. 

No surprise a lot of eCommerce brands have been learning how to improve product imagery and product pages as a whole.

Technology is the answer here, too, as it can help to advance customer experience with product pages with innovative imagery and video delivered by AR and VR.

Yes, we as customers were once quite happy with conventional product images. We’re not anymore, so businesses have to use technology to win over us. 

Using the above-mentioned technologies is indeed a great way to create an immersive, 360-degree shopping experience for online shoppers.

For example, a U.S.-based travel bags and accessories seller Samsonite is one of the companies leading the revolution of product imagery with 3D visualizations to improve customer experience.

3D ProductSource: Samsonite 3D Product Viewer, Samsonite(.)com

“It is important for our customers to have the opportunity to examine the goods in detail, and 3D visualization allows us to bridge the gap between online shopping and brick-and-mortar stores,” Business Wire quoted Jay Nigreli, VP of eCommerce at Samsonite, as saying. 

Indeed, customers visiting eCommerce websites that offer this experience have a great chance to get a better sense of a product’s materials, shape, and dimensions.

The technologies could be especially relevant for companies selling small products like jewelry, so we expect them to adopt 3D, AR, and VR in the future. 

Exciting Times Ahead

Without a doubt, the next several years will be transformational for eCommerce technology. As technology continues to redefine the rules of customer engagement, many new approaches, as well as exciting possibilities, emerge to help businesses stand out from the ever-increasing competition.

The points you’ve just read are among the biggest technology trends impacting eCommerce at the moment, and it’s clear that they will become more widely adopted, as more and more businesses are looking for opportunities to gain competitive advantage.