E-Commerce Marketplace Blog

Category: Planning

  • How to improve user experience in an E Commerce site?

    How to improve user experience in an E Commerce site?

    E commerce is one the best ways to take your business online and expand your audience to globe. An E Commerce setup involves setting up a website and placing your products in it for your customers to peruse.

    However, an important aspect of E Commerce is that the customer experience has to be top notch otherwise you may risk returning customers.

    Here are some tips to make your website experience much rewarding and interesting for your online visitors

     

    Great Home page layout:

    A great looking home page is a must for a person visiting your website anytime. The call to action must be clear if you wish them to take an action.

    If your purpose is to first let the customers take it all for example a model displaying clothing range, then you need to add good quality pictures which are scrollable on main page.

    If you are selling tech products, your home page should be containing tech specs and most salient points about your products that can hook your customers instantly.

    Easy searchability

    You wouldn’t want a visitor to be lost in a maze of web links. A neat search button on the top helps a visitor to search directly for the product on your website, in-case they are short on time. The result page from search needs to show images and links closest to their search term. It can offer suggestions, if there is no exact product that matches their criteria. Think of it as like a real shop but a virtual assistant guiding the visitors

    Great product listings and descriptions

    You would leave a shop instantly if it does not have clean images and product descriptions. As a visitor , you may not develop confidence that a website that does not care to put effort into listing the products properly can deliver what you order ( if you do ) on time and in right shape.

    Great product listings with clear titles and descriptions make it easier for visitors to make a decision about either buying it now or to come back to at a later date .

    Fast Loading

    Fast loading of your website cannot be overemphasized. Slow loading website means lost revenues, customer frustration and penalty from search engines. Slow website also means abandoned carts. There are a number of free tools available for measuring and improving website speed. Don’t let a slow website kill your business.

    Buy now/Wish List/ Add to the cart/ Buy later

    Visitors to your website arrive with different purposes. Some wish to purchase a product immediately ( they are probably familiar with your website). Some are just looking around. Some will buy later. All kinds of visitors should be catered too. An “Add to Wishlist” button for example will make it easier for a visitor to load the products in the cart at a later date .

    While a buy now button will allow them to go directly to checkout and finish the process .

    Allowing customers to add reviews

    Everyone likes a good review. We all tend to glance at reviews even if we don’t intend to purchase a product because of them.

    Good reviews are helpful as a social proof in order to make a buying decision. Bad reviews are essential to understanding customer’s frustration with the product and a chance to improve it.

    Allow all kinds of reviews and product ratings to be placed and if possible, reply to them thanking for putting a review.

     

    Photo by Eugene Capon

  • Do you really need an online E Commerce store?

    Do you really need an online E Commerce store?

    Let us imagine that you have an offline business and because it is in trend, you feel it is the time for you to take your business online. Because, why not? You will have global audience; more people will know about your product line and your sales might just explode.

    But hang on. This is not an article about going online. In fact, here I would be talking about why you should not go that way, i.e. do not take your business online. It would be anti-consulting advice.

    Not what you want to hear?

    Well, like any business needs commitment, going online is often a big commitment and while I do not wish to discourage you, I feel that you need to keep your hopes realistic.

    Here are a few challenges I feel you should be aware before even you think about putting a single $ online. And these challenges are substantial.

     

    Planning challenges

    Planning an ecommerce store is not easy. Would you want to pay more fixed costs or more running costs. Would you want a large marketplace as your shop or would you go for your own store. How would you handle orders? How would you handle customer complaints. How would you handle social media grievances?

    Well, trust me these are some of the possibilities that can happen with an online business.  And planning for every aspect will cost you money.

    Local/Global

    Let us say you are comfortable selling in your industry. Your processes are running as optimized as possible. You can fulfil your orders and handle your complaints because your customer segment comprise mostly of local clientele who walk into your shop or call you by phone. It may seem interesting to add a web channel, but you need to ask if it really is feasible in terms of cost benefit.

    At this moment, maybe you are not comfortable serving outside the region. Having a website is good enough. You may not need an E Commerce store for your operations.

    Technical requirements

    Once you move from offline to online , you will realize how much of a vast world it is, With so many vendors, technologies and tools to choose from, it is a hugely confusing array of things. And unless you have basic knowledge of technology, vendors might lock you into software you may not need.

    You would also need to select from the right e commerce tools to tools that do work of email marketing, search engine optimization and customer complaint system. As of now you are probably maintaining most of them in an excel sheet in a local system (which has its own issues, nevertheless). But then you would need to worry about the availability of website, technical issues, software that doesn’t work the way you want them to. Unless you have a competent team or a vendor, you will be in a difficult position to handle all the headaches that come with an e commerce store.

     

    High costs

    At the first glance, the E Commerce looks easy to get into but with time and experience people running a store may realize that costs add up quickly.

    You would need to pay for software tools, domain names, hosting space in terms of technical needs.

    Then you would need to pay for marketing tools such as email management and lead generation.

    You would need to pay for the vendors to help you install these tools or you would need to invest a significant amount of your own time to learn them.

    You would need support staff to manage aspects of delivery and fulfilment.

    You would need a social media manager to handle all the posts on your behalf and in addition work on any customer grievances arising on social media.

    So you can see there are significant costs to every component of E Commerce business.

     

    Risk of frauds and legal challenges

     

    As an e commerce store, you are responsible not only for listing your own product but also you are a custodian of your customer’s data. You would need to institute strong policies if for example you plan to sell in places like European Union. You would need to comply with GDPR.

    In addition, you need to secure the site against cyber frauds, credit card frauds and data breaches. In some place you could be held responsible for data breaches and penalties could be heavy.

    You would also need to teach your customers about safe email practices so that they do not fall prey to attacks like phishing leading to revealing their data.

    Competition

    E Commerce is often touted as easy to start. Thus, you have very serious large competitors which can take away your lunch money completely to small startups which are nimble enough to take off small bites from your lunch.

    The competition is not just from independent websites but also from social media platforms such as Facebook, Pinterest, Instagram etc where someone can create catchy content and instantly drive traffic away from your webstore.

    The price of the product is also no longer an advantage because anyone can see and compare your prices with a million of other listings. There are now AI tools which can help scrape sites completely and thus nullify any competitive pricing advantage.

    Sometimes large competitors can play unfairly and lower the price of products in a popular niche down by so much that it may become impossible to compete with them.

    In addition, large competitors have much heft over suppliers, and they can easily create similar products in your category leading to sales losses.

     

    Conclusion

    The purpose of the article is not to discourage an average seller from starting an e commerce store. But like all businesses, easy entry means higher competition and lesser margin and often higher unintended expenses.

    As with every business, one needs to be aware of the benefits and risks of starting a business. Hopefully, this article helped you understand the risks well.
    Photo by Image Hunter

  • How to start your own E commerce store?

    How to start your own E commerce store?

    Launching your E Commerce store is frankly not always an easy task. However, let us outline a few strategies you can use to launch your own E Commerce store.

    Planning

    • Identify your niche

    It is the most important step in first to determine what you would like to sell. If you go too narrow , you would not see much demand. If you go too broad , you would run into competition with existing players and trust me, the competition is extremely high.

    • Sourcing your products

    If you are not already selling your products offline , you would need to think about where are you going to source your products from. Is it from in-house manufacturing or purchased from a wholesaler. You would also need to consider the lead time between customer order and your sourcing time.

    • Market Research

    You need to determine that if your product really has a demand . Without good market research you would be throwing darts in dark. Market research may involve asking around , checking with potential customers, reading research reports etc.

    • Legal Requirements

    Some places require additional legal requirements for you to be online. GDPR is a primary requirement for example when you wish to sell or market in EU countries. You would also need to understand anti-spam regulations

    • Budget identification

    You would need a substantial budget in order to for example set up a store ( even though large marketplaces provide almost free placements). You would need to take photographs, pay expert to write good product descriptions and pay ongoing and / or fixed cost based on your software requirements

    • Break even planning

    Since an ecommerce project involves resource management including money, you would need to plan as to when the fixed and running costs will be recouped. That means either doing calculations yourself or involving someone with accounting knowledge.

    • Technology

    Technology is the most important component of the E Commerce store. Even if you are using an established marketplace, you would still need to know technical nuances like setting up an store, understanding how to read reports, how to list products etc.

    If you are planning to run your own store, then you would need a partner or a vendor with sufficient technical expertise to handle deployments and various changes.

    You would also need to be updated with latest technological trends related to new developments like search engines deploying Artificial Intelligence. Your product ranking may be affected because of that

    You would need to learn about Search Engine Optimization to make sure that search engine respect your product pages and send the traffic to them

     

    Execution

    • Setting up store

    Once you have all the information regarding how to set up your store or set up your website, you would need to

    • Purchase a domain
    • Install and configure e commerce store software
    • Add product information
    • Integrate with payment and fulfilment gateways
    • Add pricing information
    • Add shipping policies
    • Integrate with shipping vendor
    • Stocking and inventory
      • Finding place to stock your inventory
      • Make agreements with vendors for supplying raw materials in time
      • Design store to put your stocks in
      • Provide easy access for inward and outward shipping
    • Payment and Gateway processing
      • Understand the charges for payment by individual gateways
      • Decide on the payment gateway vendor
      • Form an agreement with them
      • Integrate your e commerce store with their gateways
      • Test before going live with test data
    • Logistics planning
      • Connect with shipping vendors
      • Identify logistics vendors based on your cost structure
      • Finalize agreements on shipping
    • Marketing and advertising
      • Decide if you want offline or online advertising or both
      • Set up social media accounts
      • Set up Google ads account in case you wish to run google ads
      • Print flyers if you wish to market your store offline

    Post Launch

    • Fulfilment of order
      • Pack the order in suitable container
      • Inform shipping vendor of pickup
      • Change status for customer post pickup
      • Perform inventory number modifications as needed( or configured automatically)
      • Monitor orders for deliver
    • Handling of returns / complaints
      • Respond to customer complaints in a timely manner
      • Be respectful of their concern
      • Check if the replacement or refund is based on the policy
      • Arrange pickup of the item as agreed upon
      • Connect with logistic partner for pickup of the item
      • Verify item condition upon return
      • Arrange for replacement
    • Customer behaviour analysis
      • Determine which customer makes more purchase
      • Or which customer buys high value items
      • Or which customer returns more than usual

     

    Photo by zheng liang:

  • Common Pitfalls of starting small E Commerce business

    Common Pitfalls of starting small E Commerce business

    E commerce is the one of the hottest trends in technology. Easy availability of internet, high recall of top merchants such as Amazon and Ebay and umpteen choices on many platforms makes a E Commerce setup a lucrative opportunity. And you would be tempted to think that it is all No Guns and All roses in there.

    Just slap a website or open a store in large marketplaces and you are coasting to making moolah. Unfortunately , the price of ease may be good for the end user but the price is often too high for businesses running these e commerce stores. This is not to discourage anyone but to make them aware of the pitfalls before you decide to throw the money at your venture. A little caution goes a far way.

    So, you ask , what is it that can hurt your E Commerce business. Well, let us list a few items out for you.

    Intense Competition:

    In categories, where the big players rule, small players often find it difficult to attract and retain customers.

    • Long time to achieve Network effect
      • One of the biggest problem of any marketplace is that there needs to be enough sellers and there needs to be enough buyers to make a decent amount of sales. The giant marketplaces often has both. However, for am small player, achieving network effect is not easy.
    • Unfair trade practices of giants
      • Big players rarely play fair. If your products are profitable they might undercut you or create their own private labels to outsell you. However , they might give you an option to sell your stuff with cobranding as well
    • Capital requirement for advertising
      • If you are selling on large marketplaces, marketing is easier because the recall value of the website is higher. However, there too the competition may be intense and you may be asked to run paid ads .
      • If you own the website, all marketing and advertising expenses come out of your pocket
    • Logistics and Delivery Issues:
      • Warehousing
        • Warehousing of products is a capital and on going expense. You need a suitable place with adequate safeguards in place to make sure that your product is available when ordered
      • Costs
        • As stated, the costs of warehousing is huge and often needs specialized skill to store your products. You also need to be mindful of cost of perishables and methods of disposing them in case you are selling perishable goods
      • Timely delivery
        • Customer expects your products delivered on or before time. A delayed order is lost reputation for your business and source of frustration for your customer.
      • Handling of returns
        • E Commerce industry suffers from repeated returns issues. You may need to design policies around return and vet them legally in order to make sure returns are handled with care and without affecting your business severely
      • Fulfilment
        • Sometimes order fulfilment is a costly operation requiring you to contact a vendor to supply an ingredient or a raw material. You need to have contracts in place that when you customer places your order, you vendor has raw materials to fulfil them.
    • Payment Frauds and Security Threats:
      • Data breaches
        • Data breaches occur regularly even at large secured sites too. Data breaches refer to exposure of data not only related to purchase but also customer personal information such as addresses, phones , names etc. They can cause embarrassment to the customers and is fraught with legal issues.
      • Phishing
        • Phishing refers to using a similar looking page or URL in order to trick a customer into revealing their email and password. This information can then be used to glean further insight into customer.
      • Credit card frauds
      • Technical issues
    • High Return Rates:
      • Issues related to mislabelling
      • Customer fraud
      • Damages
      • Frequent returns
    • Customer Trust and Retention:
      • Identity theft
      • Credit card frauds
      • Lack of responsive customer service
      • Not good service guarantee
      • Fear of online transactions
    • Regulatory Compliance:
      • Complex laws
      • GDR
      • Taxation
      • Liability
      • Data Privacy and Security
    • Technology Challenges:
      • Data breaches
      • Platform scalability
      • Websites for multiple devices
      • Integrations with vendors.

    Photo by Micah:

  • Top Marketplace platforms where you can start a store without your website

    Top Marketplace platforms where you can start a store without your website

    You would like to start an ecommerce store of your own, and you have also decided that you would go to the most reputed and largest ecommerce stores in the world.

    You do not want to be bogged down with setting up your store and instead use the facilities offered by various platforms and start selling as quickly as possible.

    Here I have listed a few top stores where you can instantly start your ecommerce store. You would get information about why you should sell here and what are the gotchas you need to watch .

    Amazon

    Why to sell on Amazon

    According to the sales pitch on Amazon page itself, Amazon is most trusted business in America. They are incredibly popular in terms of one of  most recognized brand and third largest by revenue. Amazon ships to over 100 countries in the world that means Amazon has got a massive global visibility for your product line. There are country specific programs to help your business export from home country to the world.

    In terms of customer statistics, it is unbeatable, as customers across the world buy and sell things on it.

    With professional plan provided by Amazon a seller can do more than just sell their product. In case you have higher sales volume , Amazon provides professional plan to help you manage your listing and provide more tools to build your brand on their website

    Ebay

    Ebay is another large website which also caters to global clientele as well. In terms of sellers, as of 2025 Ebay boasts about 135 Million of them. Ebay also about $21 billion worth of GMV and sells 46% of its listing internationally.

    Why to sell on Ebay

    The Ebay site lists reasons to make it worth your while to sell your merchandise using the Ebay website

    • Easy Listing
    • Free Listing upto certain number of products
    • Fraud protection
    • Mobile oriented
    • Multiple tools available to sellers
    • Links to social media accounts
    • Global Selling
    • Your own store
    • Millions of buyers
    • Sellers Protection

     

    Etsy

    Etsy started with a unique selling proposition of selling vintage items and crafts. It soon became a go to place for sellers who were individuals or small scale craft builders. But since then it has allowed mass market merchandise to be sold on its website which has lowered its value for individual sellers as company’s focus seems to be changing.

    Why to sell on Etsy

    • Smaller fee for listing
    • Powerful tools to manage and support your business
    • Support and education for sellers
    • Customer care for resolving issues and getting help
    • Regular Newsletters
    • Community help

     

    Facebook Marketplace

    • Why to sell on Facebook Marketplace

    Walmart Marketplace

    • Why to sell on Walmart Marketplace

    Photo by Nataliya Vaitkevich:

  • How do I decide which type of e-commerce platform I should use?

    How do I decide which type of e-commerce platform I should use?

    If you have decided to dip yourself in E Commerce world and you wish to sell your products online, the first question that comes to mind is, where you can list your products and how easy or difficult the options are to setup a store.

    The question then boils down to the comparison between self – hosted e commerce solutions and established marketplaces and how to decide which one is right for you.

    Let us look at criteria which may help you to decide which way you need to go.

    Are you a newbie or experienced in E Commerce field?

    Would you like your visitors either to have a full-fledged ecommerce experience or would you just list out your goods on a known marketplace and outsource most of the related things for e.g., billing, carts, payments etc. There are advantages and disadvantages to both options.

    Platforms like Amazon, eBay and Etsy help you to forget about other things (like billing, cart management etc) and just focus on listing and selling. They are great for a beginner. You would just need your Id and a bank account to start listing your product. The advantage is ease of setup obviously.

    However, disadvantages are that you are dependent on platform policies for example restrictions on things to sell and ever-changing commission structure.

    On the other hand, an expert in ecommerce however may use software which may be customized to their needs. They have a technical team to support their software. Thus, they are able to provide a personalized experience to the visitors rather than a generic store look offered by standard e commerce sellers.

    The experienced e commerce seller is often well versed in not only trends in software but also how to market the website, SEO related optimizations and expertise in backend operations.

     

    Your own technical expertise

    If you do decide to go for a custom software like a do-it-yourself or employ a vendor, you will need to know and understand the technical aspects of the software you are going to use.

    A lot many business problems are solved by already developed software. You may need to either use plugins or perform code enhancement to further change the software for your own need.

    You would thus, need to be able to understand how to configure the software. If the standard workflow provided by the software is not good enough you may need coding and development. You would also know to test them and then deploy them to the production.

    You would also need to understand security and logging of data events. You would also need debugging skill in case you encounter errors.

     

     

    Fixed costs for setup

    Ideally, cost for listing on a popular platform is lesser than if you were to run an ecommerce store on your own. You do not spend on, for example getting a domain name (though it is a good idea) , setting up a ecommerce software on it and then maintain it.

    The cost for starting an ecommerce store can vary from $1000 – $50000+ on wix

    These are not minor costs, and they do add up based on the number of features that you plan to add. Additional integrations may cost more.

    With open source free to use projects, one can reduce the cost of setup and use free plugins to help with functions.

    You may use open-source software which are free to use such as WordPress, PrestaShop, Magneto Ecommerce store for setting up the ecommerce stores at almost zero prices.

     

    Ongoing fees

    There is cost associated with both self-owned and platform owned e commerce business.

    In case of cost of self-owned website and a store running on it costs may include

    • Domain costs
    • Website hosting
    • Plugins and optimization
    • Legal compliances
    • New Features
    • Support to existing customers
    • Handling returns and referrals.
    • A detailed cost structure

    Using a known marketplace can help avoid some of the above costs. However, even those marketplaces may charge you following.

    Costs related to

    • listing products
    • Per sale
    • Additional tools (amazon)
    • Additional features or upgrades
    • Annual costs
    • Fulfilment costs

    Depending on your size of project and budget you may decide to utilize self-hosted or on an established marketplace or have presence on both.

    Need for customization

    Customization can be a complex topic as there are so many aspects to it. Let us study them in detail.

    You may wish to completely build an ecommerce store from scratch as no software currently in the market suits your requirements.

    You may decide that a standard template is good enough for you, but you should be able to change colours, fonts and upload your own logos.

    The third option is a mix where you decide to heavily modify the front end (themes) to suit your brand needs while keeping the backend mostly outsourced to known vendors.

    You may also decide to use plugins/coding to alter both front end and backend.

    The choice that you make will depend on your business costs and revenues and your technical expertise. You may also outsource the customization to your technical consulting partner (the costs may be high).

     

    Conclusion

    Choosing a platform for your E Commerce project is not an easy task. It involves thoughtful consideration about your sales and budget. It comes with additional tasks related to management, and further customization.

     

    Image by Waldryano from Pixabay