Online shopping has grown into a tremendous industry in the last two years. To become a successful online shopping business for the year 2013, online shopping business owners should adopt to the new technologies and create an interactive shopping experience to their consumers. Top 10 success factors to create an interactive online shopping experience and get more sales online for any online shopping business is as follows:
1. Market research
Market research helps you to find out the positive strategies to take your business to the next level. By doing Market research we can reduce the other expensive costs and can track & understand the customer needs. It helps to figure out the targeted customers and also helps to find the current market trend to establish the new dimension in your eCommerce business.
2. Brand name
Brand name act as a powerful factor in eCommerce business. Reach your brand name to all people by using multiple available channels like Facebook, twitter, Pinterest, search engines, Tumblr and Youtube etc,. Think different and do different before your competitors does it. Make your self highlighted in the crowd by ensuring high quality of product listing and good services.
3. User friendly
Navigation and design of the website should attract the visitors. Most of the visitors will feel troubled to use the site while choosing product and adding quantity specifically in the transaction part, online businesses should avoid these mistakes. Give notification after the payment process, so that the customers will feel a safe transaction. Reduce the steps, use one page checkout module so that customers can feel very comfortable and confident to make the purchase without any hassle.
4. Use latest technology and trends to promote
Nowadays technology is moving rapidly, make use of the latest elegant technologies to promote your business.
- Build responsive theme, to fit to any kind of screens like tablets, mobile and different size of monitors.
- Build mobile apps like web app, Native app, Hybrid app to attract more smartphone userās.
- Build social media applications and attract social media users – Nowadays social media users are widely increasing, so build interactive social media applications to engage social media users.
- Build Smart TV apps and convert Television viewers into your customers.
5. Multi-channel shopping platform
Integrate all the available shopping platforms with your existing store to build an interactive store. For example, if someone visits your online store using a Android mobile phone, we can recommend them to download the application from Google Play Store to have a better experience. Integrate your customer testimonial with the clients social media accounts so that it will be highly interactive and eye catching for your new customers to know more about your store.
6. Common challenges in eCommerce
Many professionals say that it is never easy to run a shop online. Yes, it is true that every business has the challenges to overcome and grow up in their respective industry. MercuryMinds has seen many successful eCommerce business clients in the past 6 years, who have fought harder to take their business to the next level past the challenges. Below listed are the necessary steps to overcome some of the common Digital commerce business challenges:
- Unique products – Have an agreement with the vendors to list unique products in your online store.
- Use SSL certificate in your site to enhance your customer trust.
- Donāt make any delay in the delivery
- Solve the customer feedback issues on time
7. Grab customers attention
Grab the customers attention to buy their needs continuously in your website by giving unique deals, offers and coupons based on seasonal requirements. Promote the deals and offers in multiple channels. Follow your customers regularly through social medias and grab their attention to share the deals with their friends.
8. Server and Security
Many online shopping businesses suffer at this point because of low technical knowledge towards the server that hosts your website. Online businesses should be highly aware of this to avoid any flaw in their business. The checklist for eCommerce security and server related tasks are as follows:
- Make sure that your web hosting server never crashes.
- Customer details should be maintained safe, specifically credit card, debit card, net banking information, etc,. Hackers can sneak the details andĀ informationĀ from online so ensure with high security standards.
- Ensure that data security when providing feeds to third parties.
- Need to install SSL to ensure customer data encrypt and send through a secure tunnel.
- Close unwanted ports in your web hosting server to avoid intrusions.
- Use intrusion detection software in your server to identify the Malware and other hacking related activities.
- Set security policies within the company and teach the respective people to follow the policies to avoid loss of data.
9. Search Engine Optimization
Search engine plays a major role to have a successful eCommerce business. According to the current trend Search engines consider unique designs and social impressions to rank better in search results. Search engines provide various options to promote products through Google merchant centers, Google checkout, PPC, local business center, Google wallet and many other tools. Check out the web marketing analysis solution provided by MercuryMinds Technologies to get more information on promoting your business online.
10. Reporting
Its highly necessary to generate useful reports to know the performance of your online store. Some of the necessary metrics to be measured are as follows:
- Track abandon rates
- Report on pages where customers mostly abort in your online store
- Report on detailed visitors including new vs returning
- Report on organic search, site search and referral traffic to identify the success of your marketing/promotional campaigns
- Competitor analysis and monitoring report
Are you looking to build a successful eCommerce store online? MercuryMinds is always happy to help you. Being in Digital Commerce business for over 6 years, MercuryMinds has a strong team of skilled and experienced IT experts & 300+ clients across the world. Our services include Design and development, Support & Maintenance, Business Consulting, Outsourcing and Technology Partnership.
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