All Things E-Commerce

Hi everyone!

I’m back with a new class and that means a new blog! This one is going to discuss what I’ve learned over the last few weeks in my e-commerce class.

We’ve gone over lots of topics like different e-commerce marketing trends such as the use of AI and Chatbots, the types of e-commerce businesses out there, best practices, and the must-have traits of a good e-commerce site. But there were a few key takeaways from each discussion I wanted to highlight in this blog.

Must-Have Traits of E-Commerce

First is that all e-commerce websites must have the following traits in order to be successful: they must be user-friendly above all else, be optimized for different viewing methods, have quick loading times, and high resolution photos and videos. These traits are just a few among a longer list, but to me if a single one of these four were not present on an e-commerce website, I would personally click off of it.

In this day and age, shopping online is nothing new, but the entire experience of being able to feel and try a product is lost in e-commerce. Due to that we must make sure all online stores are simple, effective, and thorough to provide that full in-person experience to customers in a digital environment.

Building The Business

The next key takeaway for me came from our class discussion of the different kinds of e-commerce businesses. They are categorized the same way as any other business (i.e. B2B, B2C, C2C, C2B, etc.), but regardless of which business type, the most effective entry into the e-commerce world is by starting with a combined set up. This means having a brick-and-mortar/e-commerce store hybrid. This allows consumers to get both IRL and digital shopping experiences.

Inventory/Revenue Models

We also discussed the different type of inventory models e-commerce businesses can have to support their business. Methods like drop-shipping and subscription-based are the most common and simplest, however, which inventory model you chose is entirely dependent on what products you sell and how confident you are in your company’s selling ability.

This lead us to discuss different product revenue models. The most popular consists of single product, single category, and multiple category. Single product is great if you know you have a great product and it will sell, single category is an ideal way to diversify your inventory slightly without spending too much money, and multiple category works best with established brick-and-mortar stores.

Best Practices

Finally we discussed some general best practices for any e-commerce website. First and most important in my opinion, is utilize Google Product Ads to promote your site. It is a very simple way to start promoting a business through along with optimized SEO and structured market language. These three practices are essential to keep your website as high up on the SERP (search engine results page) as possible.

Additionally, as e-commerce is becoming more socialized with in-app shopping on essentially all social media networks, its important to stay up to date with trending and advancing technology. Using influencers and UGC to promote your products show potential customers interactions with real people and authentic product reviews. Or you could include QR codes and filters into your promotions for a more physically interactive experience. The main takeaway is to make sure your website is ready to keep up with exciting promotional practices.

I hope you enjoyed learning a bit of what I’ve come to learn over the last few weeks in the e-commerce world

On The Next Blog

We will start to get more in depth into SEO practices and how to best optimize your e-commerce website.