E-commerce Website
It is a website where people can buy and sell real goods, services, and digital products via the Internet, not a fixed place. The e-commerce website allows businesses to process orders, accept payments, manage shipping and logistics and provide customer service.
It's hard to imagine everyday life without e-commerce. We order food, clothes, and furniture; we register for courses and other online services; we download books, music, and movies; and much more. E-commerce takes root and is here.
The term "e-commerce" simply means the sale of goods or services on the Internet. In its most basic form, e-commerce involves electronic money transfers and data between two or more parties. This form of business has evolved a lot since the beginning of electronic data exchange in the 1960s and online shopping in the 1990s.
In recent years, e-commerce has received a major boost from the rise of smartphones, allowing consumers to shop almost everywhere. Indeed, business experts have predicted that mobile e-commerce alone will exceed $ 284 billion by 2020.
What is an e-commerce website?
Like traditional physical stores, e-commerce websites allow consumers and businesses to buy and sell each other on specific platforms. However, the main difference between e-commerce and real commerce is that e-commerce occurs entirely through the Internet, not in a fixed location.
Types of e-commerce Sites
The scope of e-commerce is large, but the types of sites that host electronic transactions can be divided according to the parties involved.
Best known to the public, the website allows you to exchange goods or services between business and consumers, such as buying T-shirts from your favorite online store.
The platform enables electronic transactions between the two companies. For example, if you own a business that sells T-shirts, you can purchase these shirts from online wholesalers.
Business-to-management(B2B):The B2B site facilitates electronic exchange between organizations and public institutions, such as the website of the company that designed the city's web portal.
Consumer-to-consumer: Often referred to as a marketplace, the CIT-to-C site hosts the exchange of goods between two or more consumers. Examples include sites like Etsy and eBay.
Consumer vs. Business: Websites where individuals provide goods or services to companies. This can be a freelance search engine optimization expert who works with a particular industry or an influential company that pays to promote the company's products.
These types of websites allow consumers to provide information, goods or services to governments and government agencies.
Types of products sold through e-commerce
The digital component of e-commerce allows merchants to offer a wide range of products, some of which can not be sold in real places.
Physical Goods
Objects such as clothing, furniture, food, or supplies are types of products that can be stored in warehouses. Sellers can display goods on e-commerce websites so consumers can like, store, or buy them. After purchase, the company will ship the items to customers.
Services
E-commerce websites are also a popular way to sell services such as counseling, maintenance, tutoring, classes, etc. Whether you want to learn how to code websites or you're looking for an experienced trainer to help you tackle your dog's annoying barking habits, there's no shortage of support available online.
Digital Products
Digital products such as online courses, software, podcasts, music, and e-books are also becoming increasingly popular on e-commerce websites. The rise of digital products has opened new opportunities to learn skills on demand.
What should an e-commerce website do?
When selling goods and services online, there are some basic features that should be included in any e-commerce website.
Order Acceptance
If you are in the business of selling products, your e-commerce website should be able to take orders from your customers. This process can be more complicated than expected. For each order your website must:
• Collect customer data(name, address, etc.).)
• Collection of Consent to Customer's Terms of Service
• Calculate all applicable taxes
• Apply coupons or discounts
• Order and tracking number generation
• Share delivery details
• Billing Data Processing
• Access to payment gateways
Accept payment
It should be a seamless transition from your website to the payment gateway. Typically, payment gateways accept customers:
Select payment options
• Provide details such as credit card number and credit card number
• Use multi-factor authentication for secure payments
• Transportation and logistics processing
Once your website handles the ordering and payment process for customers,the next step is delivery.
As a seller, your goal is to ensure that customers receive the right products on time and in perfect condition. To support this process, you can take over shipping and logistics directly or use an external provider. No matter what method you choose,your website should be able to start the process correctly and consistently.
Your website should also have a process for accepting returned items. This process, also known as reverse logistics, is just as important as sending outbound goods.
Provide customer service
Inevitably, your customers will have to communicate with you about their order experience. You may need to modify your personal data, enter an exchange,or return defective products. On your website, these customers will contact you to contact you. To make it easier for customers to connect-for example, using a contact form or chat service-is to easily and quickly solve problems.
What statistics do you need to keep?
By tracking e-commerce metrics, you can measure success and display what's right for your customers and what you need to improve. Most e-commerce platforms have built-in data tracking,but to get really powerful metrics, you need to connect your website to an analytics platform like Google Analytics.
Website Traffic
Your website traffic is a simple measurement of the number of visitors to your website and the people who buy something while you are there. Traffic often paints a clear picture of your latest marketing effectiveness.
Bounce rate
Churn rate is the percentage of visitors who leave the site after viewing only one page or interacting with only one area of the site. If the bounce rate is high, consumers may not make any purchases, so it is important to understand why they leave. The problem may be due to marketing, pricing, website layout, or various other factors.
Visitor Conversion rate
Visitor conversions follow the percentage of website visitors who have become paid customers. Conversion rates are important because they show how effectively you can convince people to buy. If you have a low conversion rate, the customer will let you know that something is missing from your business or marketing.
Cart Conversion rate
In e-commerce, as in real stores, abandoned shopping carts are shopping carts filled and abandoned by buyers. Abandoned carts can be frustrating as sellers, but they are not always a bad sign. When searching for the right product, many buyers use their shopping cart as a wish list or placeholder.
Either way, you can let customers reactivate and buy these items from their shopping cart. You can encourage them to complete their purchase by offering discounts or patting them with promotional emails.
