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Online stores are no longer a purchase option for specific consumers; they are fast becoming the most convenient and efficient means of providing goods to people while guaranteeing the viability of businesses. But to participate in new markets and serve large clientele with unique shopping experiences, you must:
- Know and apply e-Commerce trends
- Have a well-designed, functional, and eye-catching website
- Take care of the back-end processes
- Have a solid digital platform that supports the e-business and its operations management
- Increase efficiency and reduce shipping costs
This article elaborates upon each of these aspects to help you strengthen your e-Commerce business and prepare you for success in 2022.
Know and Apply eCommerce Trends
At least seven out of 10 people use the internet as their primary purchasing channel, which is more than enough reason for you to know what will work for eCommerce in 2022. These are the trends you should consider:
- Accept payments in cryptocurrencies and use other blockchain technologies
- Increase direct contact with customers through tools such as video assistance or WhatsApp
- Promote voice searches
- Streamline shipments and boost quick commerce
- Design aggressive campaigns for the peak season
- Apply marketing strategies such as “Sensory Marketing”
- Take initiatives to explain to consumers what your business is, how you work and why your products and services are the best in terms of quality.
- Promote sustainable consumerism demanded by new consumers, for whom the environment is a concern. Show responsibility and commit to as many social causes as possible.
- Apply the re-commerce model—one of the most prominent trends of 2022 for resale, reverse trade, or purchase of second-hand products.
The Website
The website of a digital business must have the following elements for its success:
Good Design
Remember that your website is the equivalent of your physical store and must represent your identity and purpose.
Catalog
The distribution and display of your products need special attention, especially for customers buying from your site for the first time. Make sure the descriptions and features are clear and detailed and keep processes, pricing, and availability up to date. This must be accompanied by good-quality images.
Shopping Cart
Always keep it visible and easy to identify. Make sure it is easy for your consumers to use.
Payment Methods and Security
Offer an intuitive, short, verified, and reliable payment route to further guarantee the closing of your sales.
Search Engine Optimization
Make sure your website has a relevant ranking in search engines, which can be ensured if the content meets basic requirements such as length, use of keywords, proper site programming, and more. Always remember that internet searches are one of the primary sources of website traffic.
Adaptability of the Website on Different Devices
Mobility is decisive for any eCommerce business. Make sure your consumers can easily purchase your products from any electronic device, including PCs, tablets, or mobile phones. Remember that visibility on all types of screens is essential. Your site must be genuinely “responsive” throughout the purchase process besides being adaptable to screen size.
Customization
Customize as much as you can as personalization is the easiest way to make a customer feel unique and essential.
Ratings and Reviews
Make sure you know what your customers think about their shopping experiences. Only then will you know what you can improve upon.
Share Feature
Allowing your consumers to share products is a decisive advantage absent from many eCommerce websites designs. Enable the feature for your customers to share products with helpful and practical short links.
Customer Support
Ensure the quality of communication with your consumers once they have purchased your products.
User Experience
Many UX features seem insignificant because they are small. However, they are highly relevant to your results and do not take much time to design and include in your website.
Hear From Industry Experts
Read the latest tips, research, best practices, and insights from our community of expert B2B service providers.
Take Care of the Back-End Processes
Considering that 85% of Internet users who do not find a product in less than two minutes leave the site and 60% never return, you will understand that e-business is only viable if the customer perceives it as safe, reliable, and comfortable.
You must optimize the back-end processes using a multi-channel sales software. Try to optimize the service as below:
- Assess the supply chain flow and identify weaknesses to reduce delivery times.
- Protect your customers’ personal information using data encryption or other security techniques.
- Control inventory accurately to deliver on sales promises. Eliminate manual processing and outdated inventory synchronization methods.
By improving your back-end operations, you will make your website easier to use, increase customer loyalty, better manage your business, and indeed increase sales.
Digital Platforms
A business with eCommerce operations faces significant challenges beyond sales strategies and proper website design. In addition, security, inventory, and logistics issues must be addressed.
Order management, inventory management, and the fulfillment process must be supported by intelligent and automated solutions that eliminate human errors, omissions, and manual logistics coordination limitations.
Regardless of whether it is a B2B or B2C marketplace, shopping carts, or Amazon FBA or FBM, it is necessary to guarantee the same quality customer experience. This will be the deciding factor in making your eCommerce business a success or a failure.
Increase Efficiency and Reduce Shipping Costs
The following patterns of complaints and claims from online consumers are repeated:
- Delays
- Confusions in delivery
- Complete misinformation regarding the status of orders
- Great difficulty in making a return
- Insecurity while purchasing
The new reality, filled with unusual demand peaks, has revealed a significant lack of processes and technologies that guarantee the operational continuity of online businesses, which should focus on strengthening demand planning and demand fulfillment.
The only viable solution is to implement a technological solution with “super-powers” that can support every aspect from shipping management to inventory management and ensure a seamless integration with your eCommerce strategy so that you can avoid the following:
eCommerce Disconnected from Demand Planning and Demand Fulfillment
Many businesses continue to operate based on their founders’ intuition or experience about customer demand since they do not have the capital or the appropriate tool to optimize management.
Purchase orders, payment to suppliers, receipt of merchandise, and manually managed storage will inevitably result in overstock, decreased cash flow, space problems due to products that are not rotating, shortages of the merchandise sold the most, and so on.
A solution that connects the information of your SAP Business One with your online store will ensure the administration and monitoring of your orders flexibly and will maintain an inventory in tune to comply with the fulfillment process and the arrival of the products to the logistics centers from Amazon, Walmart, Target, Mercado Libre, etc., avoiding fines or rejections for non-compliance, all from the same single panel.
Overselling
It is obvious that when an online business is present on several platforms, its chances of sales increase. However, under manual logistics, you must constantly update the stocks in every sales platform without fail. For instance, you figure out that you have 200 units of a product and sell 100 on Amazon.
Let us suppose you do not update the availability on the rest of the platforms. In that case, you run the risk of overselling, running out of stock of the requested product, failing to fulfill your sales promises, and resulting in a dissatisfied customer who probably will not purchase your product in the future.
One connector in your eCommerce operations ensures perfectly aligned products and stocks across multiple platforms, reducing the risk of overselling. Remember that keeping sales promises is essential for the business to last over time.
Shipping Products Without Many Options
The requirements of your customers vary considerably. The ideal solution would be to offer a carrier option in which you have control of the shipment to inform your customers about the status of purchases at any point even if the order does not arrive at its destination on time; for instance, it will allow you to evaluate the quality of the services.
On the other hand, it does not always cost the same to ship products to one zip code or another if you distribute them nationwide. When this process is administered manually, you must enter the portal of each carrier, and indicate product dimensions, distance, and other conditions to determine the best option.
While informing your customers and controlling your shipments, you must keep a track of the carrier, the dates, the tracking number, and all the related details available. The operations become worse if you manage multiple warehouses!
However, these problems are solved if you enhance the order management system with a connector for your e-Commerce operations capable of integrating with the most prestigious carriers in the market, providing multiple cost options for each shipment, generating complete traceability, and maintaining constant follow-ups of all your orders automatically.
Not Having the Sales of Your eCommerce Connected with the After-Sales Service
Sometimes a product may not reach its destination, arrive in poor condition, or the customer may receive something that he did not purchase. Whether your eCommerce operations are carried out manually or not, the need to manage returns, apply reverse logistics and reverse payments exists. You must attend to it with the same level of quality with which you work on a new sale.
However, being aware of what happens in every operation, tracking the products you sent, reversing money, and so on, can become a complex process and a huge issue unless you have a technological solution with which you can implement this in an easy, timely, and automated manner, based on the information of the purchase orders downloaded from your SAP Business One.
The Perfect Solution for an Infallible eCommerce
It does not matter if you are a wholesaler or a manufacturer, or if it is a B2B, B2C, or DTC. As the owner of an e-Commerce, you must guarantee control over the four aspects described above, and the only viable option is to connect your SAP Business One with your eCommerce (be it one or more than one).
It is not very difficult to find a way to do it. Search for a system integration provider with a platform that powers SAP Business One so you can seamlessly connect your eCommerce-based sales with your inventory and distribution systems. You can quickly and inexpensively synchronize your eCommerce operations with your business management system and:
- Manage all the accounting integrated into the logistics chain
- Plan for when and how much to issue a purchase order for procurement
- Receive, store, and dispatch products in a controlled manner
- Keep integrated products, codes, photos, customer prices, and sales orders
- Go through the entire dispatch process
- Control bank reconciliation and increase cash flow
- Have multiple stores working with a single inventory updated in real-time