E-Commerce Marketplace Blog

Category: Planning

  • Types of E Commerce Businesses

    Types of E Commerce Businesses

    E Commerce is a very broad term. What initially started as Commerce between a business and end consumer initially on internet now has encompassed multiple branches and diversifications.

    E Commerce refers to selling/buying goods either electronically (they are available as downloads) or physically (they are shipped in boxes) . It can also mean transfer of money from services such as IT services, BPO solutions, legal and even CV preparation.

    Initially, most of the E Commerce used to be performed through desktops while in new age, E Commerce is conducted on desktop, TV, laptops and most importantly on mobile devices.

    Let us have a look at various types of E Commerce types that currently exist in the world.

     

    Business To Consumers

    Business to consumers is inarguably the most known type of E Commerce business. Dell computers for example, sells its configurable computers online. The customer just needs to customize and place the order and make payment, everything online. Then the computer is shipped to the home.

    Another great example is Amazon. Amazon is one of the largest E commerce companies with millions of products and customers as well.

    But there are millions of small other companies and businesses running their business online often in competition to the giants. The companies sell niche products.

    In case of service Industry, one can think of companies such as Fiverr, Upwork, and many online education platform which provide services and not products as their main offering. The customer pays a subscription and in return they are provided with the services related to their needs.

    There are some businesses that outsource part of their business to vendors while they focus on taking orders. Such example of drop shipping, T shirt and Mug printing services fall under this category.

    Business To Business

    Commerce just does not happen between consumer and businesses. It can also happen between two businesses. A truck company for example can entertain applications for electric component manufacturing, online instead of offline. Even the process of bidding for the tender may happen online.

    Then there are bulk buyers, which supply other companies with the required raw materials. Things such as inventory level replacement, shipping dates, payments can be integrated within the two companies leading to smooth E Commerce transactions.

    Even for services, a business can buy online from the B2B arm of a company while the company also serves B2C customers. An example is Stock photography companies. While the individual customer needs only one or two images at a time, a business can make multiple image purchases from the stock photography companies.

    Consumer to Consumer

    In this type of E Commerce, the consumers talk to each other, buy and sell using a company providing listing services. The payment is handled mostly by the consumers themselves. Companies such eBay and Etsy allow consumers to directly buy from other sellers on the platform. The company providing the services thus generally neither produces anything, nor ships   anything to customers. It is left to the sellers and buyers to agree on the price and terms of shipping. The intermediatory though takes a cut of sales value or charges a fee for providing extra details such as phone number or email id of the buyers/sellers.

    Direct To Consumer

    If a company not just lists its own products but also sells it online on its own website, it is supposed to have performed the Direct To Consumer sale. It is different than Business to Consumer that here the manufacturer is directly selling products or services and is often providing even service guarantees. The manufacturer can also list products on other B2C sites such as Amazon to increase the reach but often will give you the best price and guarantees if you purchase things from their own website.

    Examples are electronic consumer good companies that manufacture and sells them through their own websites. They typically cut the middlemen and often have enough flexibility to manage the customer service requests, complaints too.

     

    Photo by Pavel Danilyuk

  • Key Components of E Commerce

    Key Components of E Commerce

    E Commerce has a number of moving parts and often the success of an E Commerce venture depends on integration of all these parts to achieve the targets either in terms of awareness or profitability.

    Some of the parts are common between E Commerce and offline business, such as products and customer service. However, there are some parts exclusive to E Commerce as business which are vital to success.

    Let us understand both the parts that form a complete E Commerce business and also contrast them with offline businesses

     

    Website

    The most important component of E Commerce business is of course that it has something that can be accessed over internet. With an offline business, you can just walk up to a store or call up your neighbourhood grocer to deliver your grocery. But the real E Commerce concept kicks in when you have a website that has a store front, a product listing page, a cart page and way to place the order. The website is designed often to help you browse and move the products to the cart just like in physical world but just online.

    Sign Ups and Login

    Sign ups and login form an important part of E Commerce ecosystem. People signing up either for ordering or just receiving your email newsletter are a stamp of approval for your website and brand. Sign ups means that people have moved one step into the sales funnel and with enough encouragement ( such as social proofs, promotions running at the time) or your brand image, they are now inclined to make a purchase.

    Logging back indicates that users are still willing to buy from you and want to understand if something in terms of pricing or delivery has changed.

    Online marketing and newsletter

    People may find your website from the search results on the search Engine page or if they happened to browse on social media and come across content related to your website. The important part is that this type of marketing is directly integrated into your E Commerce website and purchasing decisions can be very quick. A user seeing an impressive ad, clicks on the suggested link, where they can see the product. They then add to the cart and make the payment. This can happen in a span on minutes.

    Newsletters are another way to integrate E Commerce marketing. Newsletter helps your customers stay update with your offers and often they make purchases right after clicking on the links in newsletter.

     

    Shopping carts and Order process

    There is marked difference between an offline store and E Commerce. Even though you are not physically putting products into a cart, you are essentially ordering them still. The order process involves checkout which is like any offline store just that you are making a payment, adding address, checking discounts happening in real time on website.

    If you decide not to complete the order, the system may retain your shopping cart even if you decide to logout and close the browser. A good E Commerce system may even inform later by email that you have certain items in the system that are waiting to be processed and ordered.

    Analytics

    In an E Commerce setup, you can analyse the customer’s behaviour in real time and correlate it to their purchasing habits at a much granular level compared to offline stores.

    You can also use Search Engine Optimization to learn more about how your individual product pages are performing.

    Data analysis of user reviews and feed back from social media can help in understand more details about product issues which can help improve your overall offering.

     

    Expectation matching and Customer Service

    In terms of expectations management, E Commerce needs more work than an offline shop. E Commerce often involves viewing products and guessing their attributes to some extent. It is possible that there could be a colour mismatch or size mismatch or even features that are not visible before purchase because user ignored the associated text.

    This may lead to higher returns affecting the profitability of the store.

    Photo by Connor Lucock:

  • Pros and Cons of getting into online E Commerce business

    Pros and Cons of getting into online E Commerce business

    E Commerce is probably the most important trend in the timeline of human business endeavors. E Commerce exploded once the internet became ubiquitous and faster than before. The advent of giants such as Amazon and eBay led to a number of small businesses taking their business online.

    If you are planning to take a business online or just want to understand if you should even consider doing it, it is a good idea to understand the pros and cons of going online.

    Let us look at some of the pros of doing online business.

    You have global reach

    If you can fulfill the need, the world is your oyster now. People searching for that special product that only you can manufacture can find from beyond your country’s border. You get orders from distant places and being online just exploded your reach. You have more data to analyze about global audience and chance to explore markets that may be more profitable than your local demographic.

    You are online all the time

    That is the dream of every business, to be running even when the owner is asleep. The orders can keep flowing while you are busy with other aspects of the business. You don’t have to pay your employees to be at the store all the time. The website acts as an interface, the chatbots answer customer queries and even make sales on your behalf. The customers are browsing, checking out your products even when there is no personnel around to show the products to them.

    Your costs of operations are reduced for the hours you are open

    Of course, there are costs associated with operating an online store. However, if you are using large companies such as Amazon, Etsy or eBay to list your product, you may just add the products, set up details and forget about them. These companies will do the job of keeping the servers running and even marketing products if they fit their own criteria. You will just need to fulfill the orders. You can even outsource the product in case of the dropshipping business, where someone else will fulfill the orders on your behalf.

    Even if you run your own website, the cost of running it is far less than operating a physical store with all whistles and bells such as electricity costs, rent, hiring employees, providing physical security and dealing with store theft.

    Enhanced Data analysis and tracking

    You collect the information the moment a visitor lands on your site. You have their IP, their browser type, the mobile phone they are using, their geographic location etc. The granularity of data can help you understand customer behavior in more detail. You may find it easy to target a particular demographic based on the data collected and analyzed. This level of detailing is not possible in a physical store where the data collection is often minimized to phone number or email address.

    But not everything is hunky dory. As is everything in life, good things come with a cost and that cost cannot be avoided. There are obvious cons to selling online.

    Faceless ordering leads to poor interactions and personal connections

    Yes, you are aware of the customer’s geographic location and other attributes, but you can never replace the value of a customer that you know personally. A good shop owner knows their customers often by name and understands their buying patterns and motivations to buy something. The relationship leads to lifetime customers who come to them for repeat purchases and even for suggestions. Online doesn’t establish such connections easily and thus cannot replace the value of personal connections

    Product fitment problems

    Can you ever imagine going to a clothing store and just buying an item of clothing by reading the size label. You won’t, like, ever do that. But online, you are often forced to make an educated guess about if the product is really going to fit your needs.  The site selling the product may have policies that a return is not allowed.

    As a store owner, this could be a problem as customer expectations are hard to foresee and it is always a guess work even for you to correctly resolve fitment issues.

    Security and data protection issues

    Well, you may ask, if there are no storefronts, why do you need security. It is because you are custodian of the customer data and often that data is sensitive. You wouldn’t want the world to know what any customer has ordered. The expose of such data may lead to loss of reputation, hurt brand reputation and open you up to lawsuits. And the data stays in the world forever, ready to be used time and again by hackers.

     

    Photo by Jan van der Wolf

  • Challenges in Logistic for a Small Business E Commerce project

    Challenges in Logistic for a Small Business E Commerce project

    Small E Commerce ventures often have multiple challenges that cause hurdle in running the business smoothly. One of the prime challenges is logistics. The logistics involves procuring raw materials and then shipping the finished good to the product. The company that running the E Commerce business is the sole customer check point and is responsible for smooth delivery of the product. However, due to multiple challenges, the delivery of the product is delayed.

    Let us look at few of the challenges faced by a small-scale E Commerce venture.

    Last mile connectivity

    In a number of countries, last mile delivery is probably one of the most challenging aspects of E Commerce. During the last mile delivery, i.e. to the home address of the customers, there could be multiple roadblocks to delivery.

    For example, a customer may not be available at the time of delivery. The address may not be complete or correct. The customer location may be farther than expected. The weather may play truant. It may not be possible to leave the package at the door due to possible theft of the package.

    In case of international shipping, customer may be asked to pay extra to the customs. In the worst case, they might not have permission to import a particular product into their country.

    Customers may not be understanding enough about the issues leading to overall bad feedback about the services in general.

    Inventory management

    Small businesses are often low on resources. That means one can only have limited stocks of the relevant items. It might take some time between stock depletion and then further replenishment. It depends on a number of factors, primary one being the availability of raw material and in time shipping to the E Commerce vendor.

    When there is no stock, the product shows out of stock status in E Commerce website. If that goes on for a long time, the customer may be tempted to look for other websites to buy the product. It leads to loss of hard-won customer loyalty and can lead to customer turnover. The inventory of top products needs to be stocked all the time.

    However, too much of stock also has its own set of problems. If the stock is perishable like food or flowers, it needs to move before expiry date. If for any reason the stock lies unsold, then the cost of the spoilage has to be borne by the business.

     

     Multiple vendors/ systems

    A small business usually sources its products from a single vendor. However, the complexity of logistic increases if there are multiple vendors. There could be issues with software systems that are too primitive to handle complexity. Often small businesses depend upon spreadsheets to keep a track of inbound delivery, production and outbound goods movement. This is very error prone. And with more vendors it gets more difficult to keep all the things working.

    Ever Increasing Transportation and material costs

    The inflation around the world is up in recent times. It has caused an uptick in both manpower and material costs. The constant wars around the world does not help with the oil prices.

    Due to this, the cost to deliver the goods increased rapidly for small business E Commerce companies. If the transportation charges are too high, the customer does not want to buy or make repeated purchases that frequently.

    Excessive returns

    The fundamental problem with E Commerce business is that it is impossible for a customer to try and then buy. Often the order is based on the appearance of the product’s picture on the E Commerce portal, and any misunderstanding may result in dissatisfaction with the delivered product.

    In retail for example, issues could range from colour, size, fabric, fit etc. In that case the logistics need to work to pick up the return requested by the customer.

    In a few cases, customers frequently return the products leading to high return costs for the E Commerce business.

     

    Photo by Marcin Jozwiak

  • Top wordpress plugins for e com business

    Top wordpress plugins for e com business

    WordPress is a world-famous project for managing your content. It has been dominating the internet for quite some time. With its advanced functionality and ease of extension, no doubt WordPress is a very popular software. Also, a primary feature is that it is open sourced and free to use. What more can one ask for?

    Do you know that you can run your own E Commerce Project from a WordPress installation? Not only this there are extensions (known as plugins in WordPress) that can connect with other useful utility sites such as MailChimp and payment vendors to set up complete E Commerce suite.

    Let us examine a few of these plugins that can help you with E Commerce journey.

    WooCommerce

    WooCommerce is a plugin that extends your WordPress installation into a full-fledged E Commerce Solution. WooCommerce is designed and developed by the same company that developed WordPress, so be rest assured that you are getting the same power of open source and freedom that comes with it.

    You will get a full store front design that you can customize for your requirements. The theme store is full of themes that you can use for your own needs.

    In addition to the themes, you get well tested shopping cart system that as per their documentation helps convert more shoppers. They also provide integration with multiple payment vendors, taxation calculation and shipping options a breeze.

    Because it is hosted on your own server, you own the data and it is not shared with any other entity until you explicitly provide permission to do so.

    Like any other open system, you can interact with WooCommerce using their APIs and extend it using hooks.

    In addition, if you have the required skills, you can even contribute to the development of WooCommerce product.

    MailChimp for WooCommerce

    What is E Commerce business without marketing? A great tool that I personally used for my own business was MailChimp. It is a great way to automate your Campaign processes.

    You may need to send email when a user signs up or buys a product from your website.

    You may also need to automate your campaign processes as to what happens on a periodic basis with your existing contacts or customers. Do you send them promotional offers, or do you just like to send them tips related to your product usage. OR would like to find how much they are satisfied with your product that they have purchased. All these things are automated using MailChimp website.

    However, wouldn’t it be better if you could do this from your WooCommerce based website? That is where MailChimp plugin comes in.

    Using the plugin, you can automate processes related to signups. You can show them sign up popups that directly add them to a Mailchimp account. Check out more features at their plugin page

    SureCart

    SureCart is also a WordPress plugin that even though it provides an E Commerce function, outsources intensive operations such as tax calculations and payment processing on its own server rather than your own.

    The idea is that your server may not be able to handle excess loads during peak times and performance because the database may not be optimized. It is because often scaling of E Commerce solutions comes with additional problems of database management and server performance during peak times, for which you do not want to spend time and resources.

    Also, it is a common problem in any WordPress based system that some plugins interfere with each other because of the way they have been coded and cause breakdown in the site.

    SureCart plugin avoids the above issues because your E Commerce system will use infrastructure provided with the SureCart cloud solutions.

     

    Photo by Markus Winkler:

     

  • Tips to make your E Commerce site mobile friendly

    Tips to make your E Commerce site mobile friendly

    Mobile is the place where most of the content is now being consumed. What it means for your  E Commerce business is that a lot of signups and purchase decisions are going to made while the user watches their mobile while lying on the bed or watching videos on it.

    You may not be able to use the design that you use for your Desktop based E commerce website on mobile. Yes, with responsive design , you can definitely make the needed changes but mobile themes are to be carefully thought as themes designed for another device different in league from desktops.

    Here , I list a few things, I have personally felt that can be done to mobile themes which make the users not click away.

    Yes, use the responsive design

    It is possible that your target audience does not use the same resolution as your desktop. Maybe they are surfing your site from a tablet, a laptop with different resolution or simply a mobile. Without using a responsive design, which takes into account these parameters, you would see non responsive website, often overflowing the screen space and the buttons and links gone haywire.

    The idea is to define the size buckets based on the trends in the screen categories and refine your theme’s styles based on common minimum features for that bucket.

    That means you will have to let go of some of your buttons that you see on a large screen and often club them together under a menu box. Also you will need to ensure that there are no horizontal scroll bars that take the screens out of the screen area.

    Optimize your images

    It is quite a possibility that your viewer is not only using a mobile to view your website but also they are on a patchy connection because they are sitting in a remote corner where internet services are slow.

    In that case, you may not want to serve them the images that are so large that loading your website becomes only an endless wait forever.

    So the images not only have to be optimized for screen resolutions but also for the fact that they have relatively less size to be easily transferred on a mobile device on a bad connection.

    Cut down on non-essential items

    Yes, you would like to keep all the bells and whistle items that you have on a desktop screen on mobile as well. Unfortunately, they are a big distraction to the mobile user. The digital assistant that keeps cropping up and cannot be closed easily and takes 5-10% of the screen is a big no-no. The user will be distracted to focus on the assistant because it has annoyingly crept in while they do not look at the main offering.

    Also , you would like to cram in as much details as possible in the mobile screen as well but remember there is only so much before the user gives up on the product.

    I have seen the sites where the offers keep popping up on the screen and they cover about 80% of viewing area. They are a distraction and should be minimized on a mobile screen.

    Keep the focus on the main item, reduce the clutter. Try to give your message in words or videos that easy to digest and doesn’t take forever to read.

    Testing on variety of devices

    Normally we tend to think of the devices that are in our vicinity and we feel good when it works. But remember there are operating systems and then there are many screens running them. Also there are screens with different resolutions.

    This makes it difficult to test for all kinds of devices . But there are specific tools and websites that help you test your website as much as possible.

    One example would be Chrome Extension for mobile simulator that imitates multiple devices.

    One tip is to find out the most used devices on the vendor website and test for them. Automation in testing may need some budgeting but generally pays in the end with a good usable website /

     

    Photo by Sanket Mishra:

  • Top E Commerce Business ideas for your Small Business

    Top E Commerce Business ideas for your Small Business

    So, you have decided to venture into E Commerce field to make money. E Commerce is one of the profitable yet also a competitive space. With newer technologies ever coming into E Commerce space, the opportunities are expanding too. However, this all may lead to confusion as to where to start. Here, we have compiled list of items which you can use to learn more about your preferred choice of E Commerce venture.

    Print on Demand

    The idea of Print on Demand is simple. You are a designer and want to sell T Shirts, Mugs, Key Chains with your designs. However, you do not wish to add a service where you also need to physically print the product and ship it to the customer. There are services to do that are called as Print on Demand.

    Some services even allow you to create designs using Generative AI tools, while also giving you an option for your customers to print and ship products to them.

    These print on demand services also may provide integration into your own E Commerce software so that upon ordering of the product, the product is processed by the On Demand vendor. Later, the same vendor ships the order to your customer.

    Digital Products

    Digital Products are mostly software products such as manuals, books, letter formats, software. They do not exist in physical world when compared to physical products such as automobiles, laptops, shoes. However, physical products may be sold using hardware carriers such as USB, CDs, and dedicated hardware. The world of digital products is large.

    There are plenty of items you can sell as digital products either on your own website or if you don’t want the hassles of maintaining it, on a well-known publisher such as Etsy. The advantage of digital products is that once they created, they can be sold without any large overheads of physical handling. However, this advantage may also cause problems such as digital piracy.

    You can create digital products like eBooks, games, courses, arts, and many others.

    Affiliate Marketing

    Affiliate Marketing has been one of the ways to start small and slowly scale up larger revenues. Affiliate Marketing describes promoting someone else’s product using your digital property. You may utilize your own website, your YouTube channel, or other social media channels presence to attract audiences and then at some point in time promote the product that either you are using or you feel would provide value to them.

    Affiliate marketing usually involves sharing links provided by the product or service companies that intend to promote their product using your property. Then a special code is attached to the URL, making it trackable that the visitor to their website originated from your property. Based on the agreement, you may receive a commission either if the visitor signs up to become an opportunity for the company or if they make a purchase.

    Affiliate marketing is challenging work as it involves creating content and building an authority before some companies allow you to promote their products. However, sometimes a sales page too is sufficient to send traffic to the product company. That though needs to be market well enough so that the visitor is enticed to buy the product.

    Personalized Products

    If you have a flair for designing products that are hand crafted can appeal to your customers on an individual level, you can be successful in selling them. Personalized products include perfumes, candles, greeting cards with messages, videos with birthday messages. There are endless number of things you can create and sell.

    Personalized products if market and packaged well, can expect a premium over generic product. To create a personalized product, you will need to deeply understand your user market and create campaigns to understand their motivations for buying your personalized product.

    By focusing on their needs, you can sell your products much easier over time. The disadvantage of this kind of product is that most of the time they cannot be bulk produced and quality controls need to be much stricter. Manual labor may be required and thus cost of production may be higher than a mass-produced item.

    Subscription Services

    Subscription is a fitting example of E Commerce product (or service) that can provide a sustained income with time. Subscription can range from subscription of products such as food items, groceries, personal health or services such as educational courses, entertainment videos for select audiences.

    The obvious advantage of such a service is that you will get predictable income, and you can plan better to become efficient with time. However, the disadvantage is that you will need to provide the service all the time despite any roadblock. Some of the services like food and personal health are very essential and thus their supplies on time are must. If you already have such a service, you can take the process online and encourage users to sign up online.

    Photo by Markus Winkler:

     

     

  • Top E Commerce Trends in future

    There has been exponential growth in technology space in the last few years. From improvement in internet speeds, better customer targeting to implementation of AI based engines for a better shopping experience, it has become almost a race to achieve better profitability and efficiency.

    Increased competition from existing large players and constant entry of new players, everyone is forced to adapt to new methods of looking for customers and marketing to them in the most efficient way possible.

    From the last few years, entry of mobile and social media has upended the traditional E- Commerce channels such as websites and opened new avenues to grab eyeballs. Of course, it has been very challenging to maintain track of such changes and adapt to them as quickly as possible.

    Here we are listing a few future E Commerce trends that are shaping the industry, from reputed sources that you need to be aware of.

    Continued Rise of Social Commerce

    It is probably the most important trends about future of E Commerce. Platforms such as Instagram, YouTube and TikTok continue to drive engagement in an inorganic way. To do this, they reward the creators that drives the users of the platform to view their content. Later, the content can be monetized and products sold either as a link or an in-content ad.

    The important part of Social Commerce is a sense of community. An influencer creating a content can either have a large following or leads a group discussing specific topics.

    The influencers are generally considered authority on their subject and their recommendations matter to their followers.

    With attention spans going down, Social Media platforms have introduced short form videos where it is much quicker to capture attention and direct people towards an objective for brand, either by attracting leads or converting them to sales.

    Rise of Automation

    The use of automation is necessary when you want to minimize human interface in a known and repetitive process. This reduces the chance of errors and help optimize the process. Imagine a human sending an email manually on order completion vs sent automatically by the software system. The chance of missed email is eliminated.

    The above example can be called as workflow, and many such workflows could be chained to form a complete process chain. This would ease the process and free up human resources for other important work and also that it minimizes any errors that creep up because of manual processing.

    The automation will increase with time as more rule-based Automation systems allow users to set up their own workflows.

    Entry of AI

    When we talk about AI, we need to differentiate between two types of AI as there can be confusion about capabilities of each type.

    Traditional AI: AI that is deterministic and that are known to have predictable outcomes based on the inputs. For example, predictive analysis and self-driving could be called as traditional AI.

    Generative AI: This type of AI helps in text, image and music generation based on pre-set data. It is easy to create a lot of new creative materials based on the existing datasets. It is usually unpredictable and requires human oversight on its output.

    More detailed comparison here

    While traditional AI is used to do further analysis such as Inventory management, seasonality predictions and supply chain management, generative AI will be used to further automate customer processes such as chatbots, visual commerce and price optimization.

     

    Virtual Reality

    The emergence of Virtual Reality and Augmented reality might have a significant impact on E Commerce. The devices allow users to experience a product in almost real time. One can also do product demonstrations in three dimensions and make the experience immersive.

    You might have already seen the process of trying on for example, spectacles, clothes or make up on your image or a computer-generated image.

    The next stage would be for you to take a walk into an integrated, virtual store and pick and view products. You can then later add these products into a shopping cart and pay for them getting the feel of an in-shop experience.

     

    Conversational Commerce

     

  • Top Categories in E Commerce World

    E Commerce has been on a constant growth path over the years. The categories have grown multi-fold. Some of the subcategories now even classify as categories of their own. This shows the extent to which E Commerce has swept the shopping mania across the world.

    Here are some of the most popular E Commerce categories based on the demand. I have taken the top categories based on the top-level categories displayed by Amazon in their menu. Also added are some stats to give you a perspective on why these might by the top-level categories.

     

    Electronics

    According to Research and Markets, electronics today account for $789 trillion worth of market , expected to grow to 1.2 trillion in 2032. The top contenders in this category are mobiles (cell phones), laptops and computers, gaming, audio and video equipment.

    In addition, there are

    • Musical instruments
    • Software
      • Wearables
    • Office Equipment
    • Headphones ( yes, they are in there)
    • Car Electronics

    As you can see that the categories evolving, even smaller categories are getting a space of their own.

    With ever evolving technologies we can see more categories being added to this top-level category.

     

    Computers

    Other than just electronics, computers form a top-level category of their own. According to a research paper, personal computers market is experiencing a growth of 8% CAGR year over year

    Computers category contains Computer, PC, tablets. Then there are supporting categories such as

    • External monitors
    • Disk Drives
    • Printers
    • Network Storages
    • Specific components and parts

    Home, Garden And Tools

    Home décor, gardening and related tools and accessories are a top category on the Amazon Website. According to Technavio research, the category is growing at 13%, which is phenomenal. The category is very wide because it essentially covers what is involved in management of a home.

    A few important subcategories are

    • Home Décor
    • Furniture
    • Kitchen
    • Dining
    • Gardening tools
    • Utensils
    • Cleaning supplies
    • Kitchen Gadgets

    Pets Care

    Pets Care as E Commerce category stands to grow by 7-8 % CAGR over the next few years. Primary subcategories are

    • Dog Food
    • Cat Food
    • Apparel
    • Pet Waste treatment
    • Furniture for pets
    • Aquatic pets
    • Reptilian pets

    Food And Grocery

    This category holds a dominating share of E Commerce market across the world . Based on one report, the market for grocery is growing at about 25% CAGR.

    The top subcategories under this category are

    • Canned and packaged foods
    • Coffee
    • Chocolates
    • Snacks
    • Breakfast
    • Cooking and Baking
    • Drinks
    • Sweets
    • Beverages

    Beauty And Health

    Beauty and healthcare is also a rapidly growing category in E Commerce. The category has a huge size just because of presence of influencers, social media tools such as YouTube, Instagram and TikTok. In USA alone, the beauty category is growing at 23% plus.

    The top subcategories in this segment are

    • Personal Care
    • Skin Care
    • Hair Care
    • Makeup
    • Perfumes
    • Foot care
    • Beauty Accessories
    • Shave and Hair removal

     

  • Key Metrices for a small business E Commerce project

    Key Metrices for a small business E Commerce project

    Metrices are the numbers that are used to understand the performance of any project.  Your small business E Commerce software too needs to focus on certain metrices that will improve your sales efficiency and enhance the customer experience.

    Large corporations track multiple metrices across their large landscape of E Commerce. For a small business, however, it might be quite difficult to track so many metrices as it can get overwhelming.

    Here, we list a few top metrices that you can consistently check and evaluate your performance for your E Commerce project.

    Visits to your website

    The biggest problem for a small business E Commerce website is its discoverability. You have just entered the highly competitive landscape of E Commerce on internet, and you realize that you are not getting the traffic you were expecting even if you possess the most unique products. Increasing visits means your site is getting known and getting featured on search engines.

    Conversions

    The next most important question to ask is that what percentage of visitors are converting to customers or at-least signing up on your website. It is important for a small business to track it because the advertising resources are limited and you want a high conversion rate for the visitors. So, a good ratio to check would be Number of sales ( or sign ups ) done / Total number of visitors to the website.

    Bounce Rate

    Bounce happens when a customer visits your site and just migrates away. Bounce rate is also an important indicator for search engines to evaluate, if your website is providing the needed content for the traffic they are sending your way. If the bounce rate i.e., number of users leaving site upon visiting first page/ total number of visitors is high, then it may signal to the search Engine that something is not right with your website and it needs tweaking

    Shopping card Abandonment

    Shopping cart is considered abandoned when user adds the product to cart but does not move forward with intent to closing the sales. It can mean that either shopping cart to check out process is difficult or user finds out that the closing price does not guarantee the value that you are offering. Shopping cart abandonment leads to sales loss and affects conversions on a higher scale as customers have given up on your products just in the final stage.

    Return rate

    A major source of headache for business owners, small or large in E Commerce segment is the returns from the customer. High rate of return means either the customer has a mismatched expectation (in terms of colour, size, or weight) or the policy about return is too lenient allowing the customer to use and send the product back. High rate of return could also mean that customer is not satisfied with the quality of the product that they see online.

     

    Website loading speed

    The biggest source of frustration of a user and the most important factor for the search engine is website loading speed. Slow websites lead to higher bounce rate. They also mean that your shopping cart may be abandoned much more than a faster website. If you self-host your website, the loading speed is often your responsibility. You may use a number of online tools to help you increase your website speed. Remember, slow website is equivalent to money lost.

    Photo by RDNE Stock project