First of all, a short definition of what e-commerce means. E-commerce is also known as electronic commerce, i.e. a virtual shopping process. The term originated in the 90s and was coined by the literature of American writers. E-commerce belongs to the field of marketing distribution policy. Direct trade or a service relationship between supplier and consumer is carried out via the Internet.
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The variants of e-commerce
There are several varieties of electronic commerce. These also relate to the type of participants. E-commerce can be used by private individuals, companies, but also state institutions to do business or to provide services. E-commerce thus includes all areas of internet trading from online shops to internet auctions.
Advantages and disadvantages of Ecommerce
For companies, e-commerce is a very useful alternative as it has many advantages. The creation of an ecommerce website significantly reduces personnel costs, since far fewer people are required to maintain a website than to run a business. Furthermore, the costs for the company are reduced, as all that is required for online trading is storage space for the products. There are also some advantages for the consumer. You need much less time and are not tied to opening times, as you have the opportunity to shop around the clock. In addition, the consumer can compare products and possibly purchase products cheaper than in the local store. Another advantage is the internationality,
However, trading on the Internet also has disadvantages for companies and consumers. The companies lack direct contact with customers. Often the products cannot be adapted directly to the needs of the customer. On the other hand, consumers are deprived of the opportunity to view and test the product. However, laws have given the consumer a right of return, which has made the area of electronic commerce more attractive in recent years.
High user experience for higher sales
As the operator of an online shop, you have to give a lot of thought to make your online business thriving and profitable. The design of the online shop is just as important as the quality or prices of the products. The aim is to achieve the highest possible user experience, or UX for short so that the virtual customer feels comfortable in the virtual business and has fun online shopping.
Because that is what online marketing experts understand by user experience: The visitor to an online shop should enjoy shopping in an online shop, otherwise, they jump off again and visits another provider or maybe only buys once in a corresponding Internet department store. What experiences a user has in such a department store on the Internet is decisive for whether he wants to have it again with the next purchase or whether he spends money elsewhere.
This is why shop operators like to spend money to improve the user experience and ultimately to increase the conversion or at least not to let it decrease. When the user experience becomes relevant, the online shop has already won the visitor as a potential customer. The steps to a good first impression and aroused interest have already been taken. Now the customer should feel comfortable, finding related and relevant articles are, for example, a factor for a good UX. Creating a wish list can also be a lot of fun for the user, because it is almost like real shopping, just without spending any money. Nothing is forgotten, however, because everything can be entered on separate wish lists, ideally sorted. Customers also find a certain social component fun, such as comments, reviews of products, or create favorite lists.
All this and more, paired with other components from conversion management, such as design, menu, or text, make the online shop a hodgepodge of great experiences for the customer, which he will gladly experience again at any time. User experience as it should be – that’s how it works with the conversion increase.
More success with ecommerce website
Ecommerce websites aim to a large extent at the sales aspect, which means primarily products should be sold. While salespeople approach customers in a “real” business, advise them, and advertise products, in an online shop this must also work without human contact. The concept by which one can quantify the success of an Internet business is called a conversion.
The conversion is shown as a percentage and amounts to a few percent even in a very successful ecommerce website. But a small percentage has a big impact on the sales that an online shop can make. The way to an increased conversion rate is usability, i.e. the user-friendliness of such a website. If a shop is not user-friendly, shop optimization is necessary.
The aim of the online shop is to convert as many visitors as possible into paying customers. The conversion rate indicates in what percentage of cases this is successful. The shop optimization helps to increase this percentage by the shop is optimized in terms of usability.
This optimization can take place on the respective website ( on-page optimization ) or through external measures ( off-page optimization ). Mainly, however, the optimization of the online offer, i.e. the actual webpage, takes place, that is, menus are made clearer, ways to the products are shortened and the information is richer.
The Internet user should find what he is looking for more quickly and thus find (want to) find the way to the virtual till faster. In this way, through online shop optimization, you achieve a better conversion of pure visitors into actual paying customers, and the conversion rate increases. And so you have effectively more success with an ecommerce website.
Ecommerce Conversion management
Conversion management is one of the most important measures that can take its turnover to increase, especially online stores. The point is to guide the site visitor to where they want them to be: to buy. In conversion management, it is therefore important to turn simple page visitors into paying customers, i.e. to convert.
What is the best approach to conversion management? The first step is high traffic, i.e. a high number of visitors. The visitor must be received and continued on one page in the second step. For ecommerce websites of all kinds, this means ensuring good usability in the shop, because more usability and more sales apply to every shop.
Only with good usability can you turn visitors into paying customers. This means that ideally visitors should browse the offers of an online shop, be registered, add products to their shopping cart, and then actually buy them.
The number of users who are lost on the way from visiting the site to actually making a purchase is called the conversion waterfall. In fact, the number between visitors and buyers is falling rapidly. Only those who master good conversion management and implement it in their online shop can keep this number as high as possible. A conversion rate of 1% is the minimum that an online shop should aim for, a conversion rate of 3% is very good!
That said, with 1,000 visitors per day, good conversion management would generate 30 paying and actual customers – that’s how it should be. However, a lot of research into keywords, page layout, usability, and user behavior is necessary before such a rate is reached. But then conversion management really pays off in the truest sense of the word!
More usability, more sales
More usability, more sales – the statement from the title of the article can certainly be adopted 1: 1 as valid when talking about an ecommerce website. But is usability really measurable? No, not directly, but it is noticeable in an online shop and is ultimately also noticeable in the sales figures – and is somehow measurable.
Usability is the magic word for ecommerce websites of all kinds. Whether cars, travel, or services, the potential customer who has found himself on a website has to find the page good right away. The Internet user of a website generally only gives a very short time for this. Within a few seconds, the user has decided to stay on the page or to increase the bounce rate.
The jump is to be avoided urgently and for every online shop. Ecommerce websites have to take on the real sales pitch and the real advice from a salesperson and also look objectively good. In addition to the visual appearance, the menu structure and intuitive operation are particularly important for good usability for an ecommerce website. The customer has to find what he is looking for quickly and directly, without getting lost in the shop for a long time, because he does not stay that long.
With just a few clicks, the user must be able to find and order the product of their choice. The latter then again requires certain basic information, the customer does not want to buy the cat in a digital sack – information through product descriptions is ultimately also part of usability.
If the route to the product is quick and easy and the product is well explained, it is easy to explain that online sales increase. Every online shop can really use usability – more usability, more sales, there is some truth to it!
Elements of usability
Usability is one of the most essential elements that constitute an online shop. All that the webshop is geared towards is selling goods or services. how the goal is achieved? By turning the visitor into a customer. How do you turn visitors into customers in an online shop? Through usability. And these are its most important elements.
Let’s start with the moment when an Internet user visits a website that is not familiar to him, an online shop. Within a fraction of a second, the user decides whether he likes the page or not. If he decides positively, usability continues, if he decides negatively, he is a lost customer. You cannot convince all users directly, everyone has a different taste. A lot is decided emotionally, especially with the first impression. But you can try to meet the taste of the masses, for example by not designing a neon-green side.
Usability begins now, with the menu structure, home page text, images, and submenus that are just as well designed. Guide your visitors through your online shop and take them by hand. Do you want to run a good webshop? Then guide users to the buy button and make sure they want to click on it.
That was the three-line short version of what usability is for a website operator. A customer goes through many steps through your online shop, from the first impression to the click on the buy button. Good usability prevents an excessively high rate of loss due to the so-called usability waterfall. The result is a very small percentage – the conversion rate. X% conversion rate means that X out of hundreds of people on your site actually buy something. Usability = Conversion = X.
Ecommerce Website Usability Conclusion
For every online shop, it is extremely important to take visitors by the hand from the first click and to give them a good time in the shop. Menu items must be clearly laid out and easy to find. Products and information must be clearly described and navigation in the online shop must be fun. All of these are factors that increase the time spent on an ecommerce website and ensure better usability leads to a higher number of sales and revenues. Digital Legates Ecommerce SEO services are meant to make your eCommerce store into a product selling machine with a higher ranking of products on the Search Engine Result Pages.