Every budding entrepreneur and expert market player nowadays is found discussing E-Commerce ventures in a quest to increase their sales and enhance their market reach; the question arises what is basic e-commerce all about? In simple words buying and selling products, goods, and services using the internet is e-commerce. E-commerce works using internet marketing, mobile commerce, automatic data collection, processing transactions online, and many others. E-commerce marketing relies on the web for at least one part of the transaction cycle, like taking orders online or receiving online payments, or general customer services. Purchasing apps from the Google Play Store, iTunes, or buying books from Amazon are examples of e-commerce transactions. E-commerce has three key areas: online auctions, online retail, and electronic market space. It all started in the 70s when in the year 1979, Michael Aldrich demonstrated the first-ever Online Shopping system. It was followed by other ventures like online bookselling, digital supermarkets, digital exchanges, and many more.
The E-commerce market has since flourished leaps and bounds, but the year 2020 in peculiar witnessed some strange events that changed E-commerce; the immense growth the online retail sector experienced due to the COVID-19 pandemic gave e-commerce a whole new perspective. Businesses were forced to e-commerce to survive and absorb the absurd effects of the economic setback they had to experience due to the pandemic. Marketing has been the focus of businesses for ages; they come up with new ways to secure more business in the form of sales by employing tactics like discounts, promotional pricing, etc.; same is the case with the e-commerce environment, but here things work differently and need another set of competencies altogether.
What is E-Commerce Marketing?
Creating and launching awareness campaigns online about the good, product, or service while attracting customers and generating sales on your online store is e-commerce marketing. E-commerce marketing campaigns employ tools like social media campaigns, search engine optimization, and digital content about the business or product to create an attractive multi-channel strategy that draws online users’ attention towards your store. Examples of e-commerce marketing platforms are Shopify, 3dcart, Volusion, BigCommerce, etc. E-commerce marketing focuses on discovery, engagement, and retention of the online customer base.
E-Commerce Marketing Strategies
Like the conventional marketing strategies that businesses use to increase their market share, e-commerce has a set of marketing strategies,
1. SEO (Search Engine Optimization)
According to e-commerce experts, SEO is one of the topmost practical tools that can take e-commerce marketing to a whole new level. The essential purpose of SEO in an e-commerce environment is that potential customers find your stores easily in the online marketplace. SEO is the only factor on which your online customer traffic solely depends. SEO works based on the keywords and phrases that potential online customers use to search for a product and store by optimizing the search results. Suppose the description of the product matches the description used by a seller. In that case, the product offered by that seller shall be displayed to the customer, increasing the chances of a sale for that specific online vendor.
2. Define and Specify Product Description
A detailed production description specifying all the salient features of a good, product, or service makes that product attractive for the potential buyer; the clearer the product description is, the higher the chances of it getting sold. The same is the case while operating in the e-commerce environment; a well-described product with all its features, variants, and size sets explained adequately has a higher chance of a sale. Always make a clear and detailed description of the products available for purchase online, mention details of the size set the product is available in, include customer reviews of the product to increase the transparency level, request customers to submit their reviews online. These measures make a specific online offering much more attractive for potential shoppers using e-commerce platforms to satisfy their shopping needs.
3. Display precise shipping cost
Unlike any other physical business, online shopping is all about clarity of the transaction; in the e-commerce environment, unlike physical shopping, a buyer might be sitting in another part of the world intending to purchase from an online store, and the physical warehouse for that store is in a different part of the world altogether. In such a scenario, the exact shipping cost for an individual product or the online shopping basket must be mentioned clearly; it has been proven to be a fruitful option if multiple shipping options are made available targeting different price points. In the e-commerce environment, unlike physical shopping, the final product price from a customer’s perspective relies heavily on the shipping costs charged by the store.
4. Payment Options
A transaction is not complete; it has to end with a payment of some sort. In the case of both physical and e-commerce markets, paying in cash, debit card, credit card, etc., is essential to close a purchase transaction. Payment options accepted by the e-commerce store should be clearly stated, e.g., type of debit/credit cards accepted does the store accept digital currency as a payment option, is there a COD (cash on delivery) facility available for the shoppers, etc. Such a strategy help boost customer trust in the store, and they are less reluctant to input their punch in their card details while making a payment against their shopping.
5. Social media and retargeting
Social media plays a crucial role in shaping any e-commerce marketing campaign; it has been observed that the stronger the online social media campaign of a business is, the higher are the chances for that business to attract more customers and increase its sales volume. Sometimes it happens that a person with an intent to buy a particular product add that product to the online cart but leaves the online store without buying and surprisingly get to see the identical item advertised on another website, this activity at the part of the online store is known as retargeting strategy. In a quest to send a reminder to that specific person on another site, the customer visits e-commerce business tends to market their products on several websites to gain more traffic on this particular site or online store.
Conclusion
E-commerce has converted the world we know today into a global marketplace. It is altogether a different space to work in; other tools to increase their business reach are entirely different from the conventional physical market tools. Weweb offers clients customized services to manage and shape their e-commerce business and e-commerce marketing campaigns at affordable and competitive rates.
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