There’s no question that the e-commerce industry is booming. While online purchases might have stalled during the pandemic, digital shopping is once again getting back to its former peak, while the number of buyers might actually be increasing.
What this surge in online buyers has caused, is massive competition among e-commerce platforms. Buyers have numerous options to fulfill their buying needs. If you are planning to build an e-commerce site, or already own one, how do you enhance it for maximum ROI?
- User Targeted UI and UX
- Ease of use
- Analytics & Personalization of Content
- Real-time inventory management
User Targeted UI and UX
It’s important to design the platform for your target user, and not based on products or internal processes. Even before beginning the design phase, you need to invest in a discovery phase, where you analyse the market and draw a user profile.
Here’s an example of user personas for the retail industry – User Personas for the Retail Industry
And here we speak about both UI and UX processes in-depth –
Importance of UI in E-Commerce | Influencing Conversions
Importance of UX in E-Commerce | Guiding Conversions
Ease of use
If you have designed the UI and UX after drawing an ideal customer profile, the platform should automatically be easy for the user to use. Some things to keep in mind –
- Provide quick access features like sort and filter.
- Make checkout easy with multiple gateway options
- Group products based on purchase history (use machine learning to achieve proper product grouping)
- Use technology stacks that make the platform fast
- Do not bombard the user with multiple pop-ups
- Allow users to create profiles
- Use automation and chatbots for ease of navigation
- Make it easy to reach a human customer support executive
Analytics & Personalization of Content
One common scenario every e-commerce platform experiences is shopping cart abandonment. Sometimes users peruse items and leave even without adding products to cart. How do you reconnect with these users?
By setting up analytics systems that track user behaviour and allow you to re-target them with content that is personal to their shopping history. This not only creates a personal connection, it also increases chances of making a sale.
Technology like machine learning and AI allows you to create specific and personal recommendations to users based on past shopping trends (both for the user and all users as a whole). When you are buying a product, Amazon shows recommendations based on what other users who purchased the same product also bought. They achieve this through machine learning programs.
Real-time inventory management
Lastly, invest in an inventory management system to manage inventory between the digital platform and the warehouse (unless you are running a dropshipping or marketplace model, where you still need to ensure real-time inventory updates). You do not want users ordering products that are already sold out.
When building a custom e-commerce platform you can incorporate an ERP right into the platform.
How to Begin?
If all of this seems overwhelming, don’ worry, that’s why we’re here. As technology experts we understand the nuances of building a high performing e-commerce platform. You can focus on setting up business operations, and leave the technology to use. Drop us a message for a free consult.