There is a great concern among entrepreneurs when it comes to bringing their businesses to the internet. Moving from a physical store to an online retail model is always a cause for concern, and we know why. Whether it’s the distrust of the platform that will be the basis of your e-commerce or even how your sales will be made, there are numerous reasons that surround the doubts of those who want to see the success of their venture.
However, it is important to emphasize that alongside experienced professionals these concerns can be reduced or even eliminated. That’s why today we bring you a compilation of essential points to have functional e-commerce with chances of growth.
With this list, you will be able to have a starting point with requirements that will bring more security to your decision. In this way, your business will be better supported in this process of transition or expansion to e-commerce. Therefore, Afrikbrand recommend this article for you to benefit the knowledge we have gathered through our experiences in 10 years of online sales.
What your e-commerce platform needs to offer
Serving businesses from the most varied segments is a constant challenge, but it allows us to see what is common in any enterprise. The need to receive qualified service, to deliver an optimized website, and to integrate your e-commerce with the most important solutions is the basis of a platform committed to your success.
Therefore, we will delve deeper into these subjects, and show the importance of each of them. In addition, we will present how a platform should present these solutions to your business, in order to make the best use of it and sell more.
Qualified service from the service provider
It all starts with the service, and that is what you will maintain throughout the relationship between the platform and the enterprise. That is, it is essential to have good communication and partnership between the two sides.
Therefore, it is noticeable the importance of having a qualified service, which understands the customer’s pain, and knows how to solve them. Not only that, but it is also of great value that the service pays attention to three points:
- The clarity in your communication;
- Punctuality with your promises;
- Sharing your information.
The clarity in the proposed solutions
Many entrepreneurs end up being overwhelmed by difficult words and technical terms. However, this is not what maintains a partnership between e-commerce platforms and enterprises for a long time. The best solution is to maintain clear language, using examples and practical applications of what will be done and why.
Even so, as much as it is necessary to use sentences that sound Greek to the shopkeeper, it is important to explain what it is about. Not understanding the content of the solution is not beneficial for either side.
Punctuality in deliveries
In addition to valuing clarity in communication, it is important that the service meets the deadlines. After all, the definition of dates will inevitably occur from the first meetings, so it is extremely important that they are adhered to.
If you notice that deadlines are being missed, it’s a bad sign. In this way, all your planning will always be compromised, harming your strategies and action plans. So, it wouldn’t be safe to go with a team that doesn’t provide that kind of credibility.
One example is the Website’s commitment to delivering customized virtual stores within the customer’s needs within defined deadlines, reaching less than a month in some cases. This is essential so that actions are taken with tranquility on the part of the shopkeeper, preparing all their marketing to precisely hit the launch of e-commerce.
Customer training and empowerment
It is also extremely important that customer service is transparent and willing to share its wisdom on the matter with the customer. After all, in this relationship, there must be an exchange, in order to reduce the load of requests for help or guidance. Once trained, the client will be able to make many decisions on his own.
In e-commerce, training an entrepreneur to understand e-commerce is a very beneficial point. That’s because turning the client into a professional with an understanding of the subject is making him independent, and brings him closer to the decisions that the platform usually makes alone. Thus, with good training, it is possible to make the client an ally.
Platform care in optimizing your e-commerce
An online store nowadays cannot think of being outdated, slow or confusing in any way. It is also very important to value good development practices in the e-commerce that will be delivered, and especially to follow modern trends and keep the site easy to update and maintain.
Not only that, but the platform itself must be easy to use, even by a person without computer skills. After all, in e-commerce, many managers are adept at traditional commerce and need to find facilities when managing their virtual stores.
Returning to the topic of clarity in service, all this must be handled by the professionals who develop the platform. But, even so, it is important to convey the importance of this to the customer, after all, it is necessary to understand why your store has a better sales performance thanks to the following points.
Online store responsiveness
During the entire pandemic experienced in 2020, it was recorded that 72% of the Brazilian population made their purchases through mobile devices. It is also worth noting that 42% of this group made more than ten acquisitions. In other words, we are dealing here with an audience with a high frequency of consumption in e-commerce.
This data serves to point out the importance of having a website optimized for access through cell phones and other mobile devices. Consumer habits have been redesigned, and today they fit in the palm of the hand. While desktop traffic dropped 3.3%, according to SimilarWeb research, mobile traffic increased by 30.6%.
Therefore, a modern E-commerce platform like today adopts the Mobile First trend, that is, it develops the pages looking first at the result on the mobile screen, and then adapts it to the desktop. This ensures that the mobile visitor will have a much better experience on your site than in traditional online stores.
SEO optimized
One of the biggest desires of any merchant is to have their store well positioned in Google search results in an organic way, that is, without having to pay. And how is this done? It’s not in a simple way – if it were, everyone would do it. But with the application of SEO techniques in the construction of the page content and in the development of the page, this is possible.
Generally speaking, SEO is the acronym for search engine optimization, or in good Portuguese, search engine optimization. These are the best practices that a page must contain to meet what search engines prioritize:
- Good use of keywords;
- Rich content related to the topic;
- Fast content loading (Google points out a maximum of 2 seconds of loading as ideal);
- Internal links (leading to other pages on the website) and external links (leading to third-party websites);
- Friendly URLs (your website address);
In addition, search engines consider the length of time visitors spend on each page of your site and the recurrence of hits. In other words, many Internet users spend more time in their virtual stores collaborating with the positioning of their e-commerce in Google searches, for example.
Most of these practices must come from the development proposed by your e-commerce platform. Being able to configure your product registration in an SEO-oriented way is an example of this.
Loading and using pages
As said, it is of great interest for the virtual store to optimize the navigation on its pages. Regardless of the device and connection, it’s important that your e-commerce is fast, fluid and easy to use.
In addition to helping with organic positioning, as it is a good SEO practice, having a lightweight website helps to retain the audience in the long term, after all, on the internet no one wants to waste time. This is especially true for consumers who access your site via mobile devices, and we’ll explain.
When visiting from the computer, the tendency to wait while the page loads is to simply switch the window and do other things. When the access comes by cell phone this is more unlikely, and the visitor chooses to leave the site instead of waiting.
Integrations available through the platform
Now dealing with parts that belong behind the scenes of your virtual store, but that is highly relevant to the management of your business, which are the integrations.
For an e-commerce to work, it is necessary to rely on third-party solutions, which solve logistics, payment, and also inventory issues. Through integrations, you can connect all this with your e-commerce, and manage directly from your platform.
This is important for time optimization purposes, minimizing activities and worries. And to show the importance of the main integrations, let’s contextualize the way they help you manage your e-commerce.
ERP-Management Systems
Integrating your e-commerce with your inventory is a fundamental need. In this way, it is possible to manage the products not only in your virtual store, updating each order completed on the platform, but also optimizing the processes of any product output, whether by sending the goods or by purchasing in the physical store, if any.
In a scenario where the virtual store has no connection to an ERP-management system, everything must be controlled manually. As much as your platform automatically updates the stock registered on it, you will have to check out the system that you use to manage stock manually, product by product.
This generates extensive, time-consuming, and labor-intensive processes. The idea is to use technology to streamline processes and keep your fronts updated in real-time. We also provide a free eBook, with material rich in data, information, and guidance on uncomplicated, dynamic inventory management that helps your business succeed.
Logistics Solutions
One of the major concerns that exist among retailers who are going to start selling on the internet is finding carriers to make their shipments. Some believe that there is only the Post Office, while others are fearful for the quality of this service when making their shipments across the country.
Therefore, it is important that your platform already provides the facility to connect your e-commerce with carriers across the country, freeing you from the worry of running after this service.
That is, you can reduce shipping costs for your customers, thanks to this advantage offered at the time of integration. It’s another way for you to be sure of the importance of choosing the right platform for your e-commerce.
Payment methods
Receiving money over the internet was a big question when e-commerce started to become popular. Nowadays, however, it is still a question present in many shopkeepers, especially those who are not used to existing technologies.
What can reassure these retailers is that a complete and intelligent platform facilitates this process, allowing partner solutions to be integrated directly with e-commerce. Without the need for difficult configurations, and with exclusive rates for customers, Some website facilitates the management of these solutions and makes the consumers of your virtual store make safe purchases and have their payments delivered without complications.
Today, Most ecommerce websites covers the main means of payment, including issuing bank slips, Pix, and credit cards from various brands. In addition, risk management solutions, with anti-fraud actions, protect your e-commerce and ensure that your e-commerce will only work with true sales.
The best thing is that the implementation of payment solutions is done by the specialized team, as well as all other integrations.
In addition to a qualifying service, a careful development of your virtual store, or the facilities for managing your e-commerce.