6 Factors to Consider When Starting E-Commerce Business

According to the E-commerce and statistics, E-commerce sales in the US stood at 304.1 billion dollars in 2014 and it will reach 491.5 billion dollars by 2018. E-commerce businesses are growing at 23% every year. All these statistics reflect towards bright future of E-commerce businesses. In this article, we will look at some of the key factors you need to take into account before starting your E-commerce business.

User Experience

Put yourself in shoes of a user and think from a user perspective. An E-commerce business is selling products, which users cannot touch, see and smell. You can make up for this deficiency by offering free shipping and discounts. eCommerce website developers should make the check out process as simple as possible to deliver a better user experience. A bad user experience will not only force a customer to abandon your E-commerce site but they will go to a competitor website. Moreover, a dissatisfied customer will share their experiences with around 10 people, which is not good news for a budding E-commerce business.

Mobile Commerce

According to the Goldman Sach predictions, global E-commerce sales made through mobile devices will grow to 638 billion dollars by 2018. According to Neilson, 95% of tablet shoppers and 72% smartphone shoppers make a purchase using their mobile device at home. Another stat suggests that mobile E-commerce, most commonly known as mobile commerce (M-Commerce) will account for almost 30% of global E-commerce sales by 2018. With mobile devices becoming an integral part of our daily lives, more and more people use them for shopping as well. A mobile version of your E-commerce website or a dedicated mobile app is a must-have in today’s mobile centric world.

Transparent Terms and Conditions

Do you read the terms and conditions before purchasing a particular product? If your answer is no, then you are not alone. We all have been guilty at some point and faced consequences. Have you ever thought why we do not read the terms and conditions? Some of you might consider time constraint as an issue. The fact is that these terms and condition documents are laced with technical terms that go well beyond the comprehension of a common person. Make it easy to read and understand for the buyer and mention every detail in terms and condition document to ensure transparency.

Security of Transactions

Security of E-commerce transaction is a long-standing problem for E-commerce store. Due to this, buyers are reluctant to use their credit cards for buying products online. Almost 51% of the buyers could not complete the purchase process on mobile devices because they are not comfortable given out their credit card details as shown by this article. Although, things have improved quite a bit but there is still work to be done to ensure the foolproof security of transactions done on E-commerce stores. With increase in number of cyber attacks and security breaches, E-commerce businesses will have to focus more on ensuring safety of their user’s private and confidential information.

Social Media Marketing and SEO

Have you ever thought about using social media marketing and SEO to promote your E-commerce business? If not, then do think along these lines because statistics shows that 84% online shoppers refer to at least one social media site for recommendations before shopping online. A survey conducted by PowerReview showed that 35% shoppers used Google to search for products and 52% of them clicked on Google shopping results. Consumers are more informed than ever before. They read reviews about products on multiple websites before making a purchase. All these stats reflect the importance of SEO and social media marketing for your E-commerce business.

Customer Support

Starting an E-commerce business and do not have a customer support? That is not possible. Customer support has become the differentiating factor among different E-commerce stores. If you want a competitive advantage over your competitors than you must deliver a customer support like none of your competitors do. Imagine you bought a product from an E-commerce store and you get a faulty product. Whom would you call? It is the customer support, right. Make sure that you resolve customer problems and answer their questions promptly to satisfy them. For that, you need a good customer support team. Nothing angers a customer more than not getting a timely response from customer support.

Conclusion

The competition in the E-commerce domain is heating up and if you are planning to be the next Ebay or Amazon, then you should pay extra attention to the aforementioned factors when establishing your E-commerce business. If you know about any other critical factor that can influence your E-commerce business in a big way, then feel free to share it with us in comments section below.

Brand strategist & digital marketing Expert by profession & blogger by passion, currently associated with seo company in canada.