Challenges That B2C Ecommerce Businesses Must Overcome in 2017

If you are one of the ecommerce business owners who think that there is no need to provide an exceptional and exclusive shopping experience to your customers; you need to wake up. Customers are the nucleus of ecommerce universe. And right from researching about the brand to ordering it online, they are keen on making the most out of omnichannel experience. It goes without saying that people love to use new gadgets and various shopping options being provided to them by the retailers.

Through this article, we intend to acquaint you with some of the challenges ecommerce store owners must overcome if they want to boost their sales and attain success in today’s highly competitive market. We will also provide you with some ecommerce development solutions and how you can improve the value of your brand.

The Navigators of Online Retail 2017

The year 2017 is all about challenging the old, mundane and stereotype business models. Businesses that have gone beyond conventional models have achieved much more success as compared to others. Number of Millennials is growing in the US and the generation is utilizing mobile and wearable technologies to the fullest. Such technologies have given birth to other customer-friendly channels. Moreover, a new innovation is introduced daily, pushing retail businesses to meet with the expectation of customers who one-of-a-kind need experience while fidgeting around with their devices.

People that indulge into shopping while surfing on their devices are known as connected spenders. A Harvard Business review has revealed that the connected spenders contribute to 19% of global population. And this percentage is likely to grow by 37% by the year 2025. So if you want to be one of the frontrunners in alluring your target audience, you need to render some ultra-modern services and build the reliability for your brand.

Millennials – Spearheading the Consumer Movement

As compared to other connected spenders, Millennials spend much more and are leading the consumer movement. They are quite different compared to the former generation as they expect a customized look and feel to the products, indulge into last minute shopping, want same day delivery and seek instant customer support. And to the core of these buying habits, lies the word “convenience”.

So if you want the high percentage of consumers to buy from you, you need to innovate as much as you can and enhance the buying experience by addressing all the pain points. While choosing e-commerce web solutions for your brand, make sure you speak with the professionals and create a website that offers a good buying experience for your customers.

Rendering mobile oriented experiences

Quite clearly, desktop usage has become a passé and mobiles have taken over. It’s time for retailers to create new opportunities by adapting mobile commerce solutions and win the hearts of their customer base. Vendors can partner with reliable fintechs and provide single-tap payment options to the customers. They can also come up with special discounts and mobile-exclusive offers from time to time so that the number of customers buying through mobile devices phone goes up. For the retailers who are unaware, the mobile payment volume is expected to reach $274 billion by the year 2021.

However, there are certain cyber security concerns when it comes to making mobile payments which need to be dealt with. Ecommerce business owners should integrate only those solutions that are reliable and credible. Some if these mobile wallets are Samsung Pay, Apple Pay and Google Pay. These companies have secured pins and fingerprint verification so that scams can be kept at bay.

Embracing digital currencies

The term ‘Bitcoin’ is a very well known form of digital currency and isn’t new to hear these days. Right now, it might be difficult to decipher how it works but some years down the line, it might become one of the most majorly accepted ways of payment by millennials. Once bitcoin, and the technology it works on (blockchain) is understood, it might get accepted by ecommerce platforms who intend to cater to a particular audience.

Voice Ordering through Virtual Assistants

Imagine not having to even touch or tap a device in order to shop for the required product! When Amazon’s Alexa was introduced in November 2014, it created quite a stir in the market. The voice operated virtual assistants are always ready to serve and can order for what customers want in no time. Looking into this fad, internet retail brands have to be alert and reachable for their customers as and when they want.

Although, marketing professionals know how to attract potential customers, don’t be surprised if retailers partner with Amazon, Google and Apple to create voice oriented and algorithmic marketing campaigns to promote their brand.

How can ecommerce business owners keep up with the trends?

It might get overwhelming and challenging for the ecommerce brands to cope with the ever-changing demands and trends. But the first and the most crucial step that you must take as a retailer is to study the behavior of customers and connected spenders. A detailed study involving buyers’ shopping patterns will provide you with an understanding of what leads them to buy, what results into abandoned ecommerce shopping carts and what factors influence their purchase decisions.

In a nutshell, today’s ecommerce asks you to strike a perfect balance between digital payments, artificial intelligence, mobile application development, cybersecurity and other aspects. If you want to make this a possibility, you should get in touch with a professional and hardworking ecommerce web design & development team. Hiring marketing professionals, who implement technological collaborations, establish valuable customer relationships and drive the change for your brand is also a good idea. What are your thoughts on innovations that influence the field of ecommerce? How open are you to adapt to these changes? Feel free to share with us.

Is Personalized Shopping Forthcoming Generation Trend?

“Online shopping” are the words that can excite millions of users as well as scare many. As we all know there are pros and cons of every aspect and so is the case with eCommerce applications. But, in this case the myriad of benefits overshadow comes its scary side. Majority of the world’s population, surrounded by technology all the time, uses smart ways to live life. Online shopping is a smart way to spend money as per their desires, they believe! They are absolutely correct. Modern age shopaholics refer to eCommerce website for product quality and price. They can get better deal for the products as compared to brick and mortar shops.

They get better deal, better price, superfine quality and home delivery. Don’t you think these benefits are enough for one who wishes to buy a product from another country? Well, we all are aware of the scenario in which eCommerce web solutions are replacing bricks and mortar stores gradually.

Personalized Shopping Experience is New eCommerce Tactic!

Getting personalized shopping experience is what every shopper expects from eCommerce giants. Getting too personal with the customers will definitely annoy them. Online stores track customer’s browsing history and sell crucial customer data to the third party. They make the worst use of it by annoying the customers to a great extent.

Buyer like getting store discounts, real-time deals, complimentary items, compare price of the products prior to adding it to their shopping cart. Around 60% of the customers like personalized shopping but majority of them hates getting too personal. But, this percentage ratio may vary for different countries.

Customers avoid visiting online stores tracking their locations, feedbacks for their personal choices. They can even believe to what the store tells not to buy, due to some reasons. For instance an online medical store owner may ask their customers to avoid some drugs that may harm their health and the millennial do consider this as personalized suggestion. They are recommended the items that suit their taste, budget and are beneficial.

Is Personalized Approach Better than Generalized?

Well, if we start comparing both the approaches, we would find more reasons why companies are getting personalized. They use emails to send customers, who are specific about the deals, discounts or recommendation.

Who would not like the attention? Modern eCommerce business marketer uses this fact to improve business strategies. For all the attention seeker online buyers, personalized approach boosts their shopping experiences.

Whereas, this might not be the case with generalized shopping experience where store owners treat every customer equally. They use a generalized marketing strategy that might not work well in the eCommerce era where getting personal means more business!

Verdicts

Personalized shopping experience can be the next eCommerce trend that is set to change the online shopping phase completely. Buyer’s choice and affordability would be the most crucial aspects, eCommerce marketers need to focus in near future.

Tips to Block Hackers Accessing your Online Store!

“Hacking” is the malpractice that the entire world of eCommerce field is scared of. The biggest shopping destination i.e. online market is in the need of reliable security standards to avoid frauds and offensive practices affecting eCommerce websites’ rep. Online shopping trend was developed due to the ease and efficiency offered by online stores to the shopping process. But what if, they are “hacked”? What about all the crucial details of the customers stored in the website database?

Hackers do not care whether it is an eCommerce websites or a blogging site while stealing essential and sensitive details like customer and business data. Ecommerce web solution providers need to take extra care of the security standards infused in the website.

Protecting eCommerce website is smartness more than an art! I have listed few tips that would help saving the website getting hacked or fraud.

Avoid Saving Unnecessary Data

All eCommerce website would ask for sensitive credit/debit card details while a customer makes the payment in the checkout process, but not all of them save all the details received from the customers. It is better not to save the details that are not required whenever a customer returns to the store. Details like expiry date of the credit/debit card, registered name, CVV number etc. must not be stored.

Saving the unnecessary customer data that is not required is strictly prohibited by PCI standards. It might be inconvenient for the customers, as they need to repeat the data filling process. Explain them the reason of not saving their data. Saving crucial details increases the chances of data theft. “If you don’t have any secrets within you, no can reveal it even”!

Test Your Online Store

Ecommerce websites are required to test their security standards on a regular basis. It is one of the most crucial prerequisites of a successful ecommerce website. This will keep the hackers away by making your web store highly secure. It is important for online stores to adhere to PCI DSS compliance prior to initiate retailing.

There are possibilities that modern hackers might have infused vulnerability through advertisements or third party content. Consult ethical hacker to check the website and identify harmful elements, if any. Integrate security apps in your online store that helps scanning and identifying malfunctioning of the web store that might harm customer’s essential details.

Use a Secure eCommerce Platform

Ecommerce platform, used for the online identity of your business, is very crucial. Today, the trend of using open source eCommerce platforms is ignited by the web development companies. But, professional developers need to consider the intense requirements of the eCommerce website and choose the development platform accordingly.

Magento is the leading eCommerce development platform used by millions of web developers around the world. It can easily be configured with the SSL. This platform is highly secure and takes care of various factors affecting the security of the website.

Upgrade the System

Keeping the system up-to-date is the best method to keep the system away from becoming a victim to cyber-theft . As soon as the updated version is released, web development companies ensure the eCommerce websites get upgraded for better performance. Online stores using the latest version of the web development platform, reduce the risk of developing security loopholes. No matter which platform you choose, it needs to be regularly updated!

SSL (Secure Socket Layer) of the eCommerce website reduces the hacking risk. Thus, its upgradation is mandatory for discarding the hacking possibilities.

Encrypt the Website Data

It is significant to clear up or encrypt all the communication done through eCommerce website as hackers might get the crucial details from the transaction related communication. Of course no one would like their conversations getting public. Emails, chat or any other communicational means should be encrypted to maintain privacy.

Even the passwords prior to storing in the database should undergo the encryption process. Encrypt the hard disk of the system to avoid the data loss when the storage devices are misplaced or stolen.

Train Your Employees and Customers

Being an eCommerce business owner, educating your employees and your customers is the best practice to save your online store from security malpractices. Train your employees for the worst situation that can happen along with the security measures that saves user data. Make your customers aware about various possible methods used by hackers to capture intense details like credit card details, passwords etc. and save them from becoming cyber victims. Teach them to differentiate a suspicious behavior against the friendly one.

Incorporate security laws and policies to avoid the situations such as website being hacked or data being affected through unauthorized factors.

Modern customers consider cyber security as the highest priority in the eCommerce websites. Online stores lacking security standards aren’t considered reliable. No online business owner would get happy if his business revenue generation is affected due to insecure online system and cyber theft. A robust security ecosystem can save online store owners by increasing their store popularity over the internet!