Due to the pandemic outbreak, the e-commerce industry has witnessed increasing new consumers and online activities. Today, several businesses had to shut down their physical storefronts and place their employees on leave for their security. Today, purchasing online has become crucial for a few consumers, mainly when they belong to the “at-risk” groups. They need to preserve their health and the health of their employees in the business. It is despite when the customers require food, shelter, and cleaning products.
However, if you aren’t invested in the e-commerce domain already, it is essential to find ways to survive the economic downswing created by the pandemic. According to the latest report by Catalyst Digital, the current strategies employed by most e-commerce businesses aren’t working and are resulting in them witnessing reduced revenue. Close to 66% of the consumers select a product depending on their convenience, highlighting the trend. Analytics and data today are the top e-commerce service.
The case of elph ceramics
Let’s delve into the case of elph ceramics. Since their business expanded, their inventory management process was very irksome. It was more so when they started selling products both on their online and physical stores. The previous POS system didn’t get updated automatically when the exchanges, sales, and returns didn’t get processed.
As a part of its solution, elph ceramics selected Shopify as its online selling platform and simultaneously used Shopify POS to operate their physical store. By merging the sales channels from their one back office, they could manage the inventory and update the product data all through the sales channels with complete ease. And because most data get centralized, the probable consumers could view precise inventory quantities while they were shopping online. At the same time, keeping track of customer data was easy with a few clicks at checkout. This has made elph ceramics witness a retention rate of almost 30% and their consumer database has also increased.
The way things are with the e-commerce industry
Currently, customer behavior has modified with the changing circumstances. Recently, the Kinsta blog assessed the customer behavior metrics. It evaluated the e-commerce market size where the chart got topped by the United States and then followed by China. The list also included names like Spain and South Korea that had their domains to rule on. The report highlighted the scope of the target areas and marketing for expanding in various countries.
Read also: What companies are in the consumer services field?
Cross-platforming has gained prominence
It will not be sufficient to have one website. It’s essential to work on the SEO part for the conventional search engines and move beyond that. However, the prospects and customers use several platforms for buying products. It comprises retailer websites, social media, and your website as well.
Here you can look at Amazon with caution. Several customers purchase products on Amazon and the advantages are an increased rate of consumer acquisition and the reach of individuals learning about your brand. And even when you are not selling on the Amazon website, it could get interesting in the real-time information. The drawbacks include not having any control over the fees and processes that cut through the revenue stream. You should take the necessary actions to secure yourself and arrive at an informed decision.
Today, social media accounts are a necessity. The marketing agencies have the scope for optimizing online sales and managing the consumer journey. And with very less scopes for traveling or browsing the stores in the mall, the consumers have switched to their computers and mobile phones to arrive at an informed decision. Today, it’s crucial to possess a staff who is able to manage the posts and the essential promotions. When you operate a platform management business for any other e-commerce store, it’s your scope to grow.
Data means commerce
Customer profiling has become complex and comfortable at the same time. Consumers now need to choose certain regulations about the information that they offer. Also, the businesses aren’t able to send emails that will get counted as spam, more so when they get reported.
It is possible to utilize the available information to enhance the consumer experience and keep loyal shoppers online. Today, people wish to get rewards for their shopping behavior along with witnessing convenience while buying something. It’s possible to maximize e-commerce sales when you cater to both.
The moment you have ample customer data, it’s possible to design the service, campaign, and product revolving around the target. It could be psychographic, demographic, or algorithmic. And it’s possible to track shipping and other orders while opting in for particular CTAs (Calls to action) with any abandoned cart emails.
A managed buying journey
The consumer journey when purchasing a product includes both offline and online activity. An increasing number bought their mobile devices, but the offline activity encouraged them later. And during the pandemic outbreak, you require offline activity forms which are secure for the customer, employees, and the seller. One instance is leveraging the interest in cooking products. Since many people had to stay at home catering to the stay-at-home orders, they decided to get into baking and cooking and there was an increase in the sale of cooking products. And that made many people receive coupons and recipes in the mail as well.
The consumer experience managed for health
Along with the stay-at-home orders as well as quarantine limitations, today the physical stores had to shut down. And the physical stores that reopened often wanted consumers to wear their face masks to comply with the rules and provide them with hand sanitizer.
However, the online stores didn’t have any limitations. And while the act of shipping should be safe for the people involved while a customer product delivery, the potential for conflict is less.
No experts can say for certain when the effects of the pandemic will get resolved and life will return to balance. However, today there is scope for business owners to carry on with their business, making use of e-commerce frontiers.
