Ecommerce Archives - GUJRAT INDIA

How to Research an Ecommerce Business Idea

Ecommerce is well known as being a low overhead route to market but that doesn’t mean that you can be complacent about your business model.

I’m going to give you some ways in which you can test out your ecommerce business idea before you get in too deep.

A common way to set up an ecommerce site is to start with your business idea, talk to a design or web agency who will provide you with a project proposal to design and build your website. Once built and paid for you then begin to wrestle with ways to generate traffic to your new website, given that the site is new and has few (if any) inbound links you’ll soon be setting up your Google AdWords account and paying for visitors on a Pay Per Click (PPC) basis.

Given that you’ve just paid to design and build the site and are now paying for your traffic, this isn’t a good time to find out that there simply isn’t the demand you thought there would be for your products, or that given the cost of traffic and overheads you can’t make a profit on what you sell.

Let’s look at some ways of avoiding a situation like this. By taking a range of steps using existing online tools and services you can get some real world research to find out a bit more about your potential market, and then with a minimal investment test how receptive that market is to your proposed products and price point.

Step 1. Where is the search?

Your first step should be to write down a list of the phrases you believe potential customers would use to find your products, once you have these phrases use some online keyword research tools to find out how much traffic there is for each term, as well as the level of competition each phrase has.

You need to bear in mind that the figures for search volume will vary dependent upon where you go for the figures and the marketplace you are looking at. Google’s keyword research tool is geared towards AdWords and by default will give you figures based upon their ‘Broadmatch’ setting which includes similar searches, and as such by default gives unusually high traffic figures.

I prefer to use Yahoo! or Wordtracker for this kind of information as the figures are more realistic, if you do use Google’s keyword tool then make sure you enclose the search term in speech marks as this will match the phrase directly.

Step 2. How many competitors are there?

You might find that you have a healthy search volume, but then if this is an already well mined niche with many existing competitors you will be at an immediate disadvantage as your competitors will be trading with an established website and you will be starting from scratch.

There are 2 pieces of information we will need for each phrase to give us a complete picture of the situation. One is the number of direct competitors who are already in Google’s index for the phrases we are interested in and the next is a keywords effectiveness index (KEI) which combines search volume with competitors volume to derive an index figure which highlights the potential of each phrase in our list.

Step 3. Get to grips with the competition

Not all search phrases are created equal as some will have more sites competing for them than others.

Imagine you have a search phrase in your list with 100 searches per month, are you competing with 10 other sites for that traffic or 10,000,000 other sites? By using an effectiveness index you will see at a glance where there are gaps in the competition and if you decide to go ahead with your new ecommerce site you can use this information to help optimise your website for these phrases.

In order to find the number of competing sites for a search phrase, do a search in Google with the search phrase in speech marks and take a look at the “Results 1 to 10 of about xxx” the xxx figure is the amount of websites that are in Google’s index for that exact phrase.

The KEI equation is searches x searches / competition = effectiveness for example 100 x 100 / 10 = 1000 KEI which is a great opportunity as ultimately you have 100 searches with only 10 direct competitors for that phrase. Whereas 100 x 100 / 10,000,000 = 0.001 KEI which is dreadful!

If you know a bit about search engine optimisation you will recognise these techniques as they are often used in the keyphrase selection process when optimising an existing site, but given that this research can easily be completed before any website has been built it makes sense to employ these techniques to get a feel for the nature of the opportunity presented online for your particular business idea at the outset.

Step 4. Test your business idea with PPC

This technique requires more of an investment but rewards you with some more tangible results.

You will need to set up a few web pages for your key products with a click to purchase button that sends you an email. Tell your prospective customers that you are out of stock and ask if they would like to be informed when the product is back in.

Now set up a PPC account with Google and spend a couple of hundred pounds/dollars on getting traffic to the page, you’ll soon get a feel for the cost of traffic and the kind of conversion rate you’d be starting with.

Step 5. Prototype your ecommerce website with SaaS

These days there are many low overhead software as a service (SaaS) web applications for ecommerce that are ready to use with nothing more than an online sign-up.

This kind of service utilises existing functionality that runs on a webserver and has no design/build overhead so you can simply start trading and pay as you go for the service.

Pick an ecommerce service provider that you like the look of, upload your products and set it up with a low cost payment system such as PayPal and off you go.

If you did the phrase research you’ll also have a good starting point to set up an AdWords account and a strong lead on the phrases you should include in you site content to attract search traffic.

Essentially in this last step we are setting up a fully functioning ecommerce website, however as we are only paying for the service monthly and there is no design/build overhead we can quickly get to grips with the nature of the business and see if it has legs or not without sacrificing all of our capital, which if things go well we are then in a position to spend on improving an ecommerce site we know works rather than simply gambling on a hunch.

The State of E-Commerce in the Developing Nations

The use of the Internet is growing at a high speed worldwide. According to the Internet world stats website the worldwide penetration rates of the Internet is 25.6% in 2009. Under developed nations of Africa, Asia and Latin America are also showing high growth rates in Internet usage. Between the year 2000-2009, Africa shows 1,392.4 %, while Asia and Latin America show 545.9% and 890.8% growth rates respectively.

This fast growth rate in Internet usage in the developing countries affects their international trade situation highly. Nations such as India and China are now becoming among the major participants in this global business environment. They increased their competitiveness highly. Other developing nations from Africa and Latin America are also showing advancements too.

As a result of this high growth in Internet usage and penetration in E-commerce, the above nations are showing high progresses and advancements in their economies. Their products and services are now reaching long distances around the world. Other developing countries also have to take lessons from these model nations. If they can give enough attention to the industry and can do the desired tasks, they can see the economic transitions that the above model nations are able to see.

Thus, in order to see those results first of all each and every developing country needs to know and believe that E-commerce is now becoming an obligation to compete in the global business environment. Globalization is making our world a small village and highly simplifying business activities. Today entering to the global business network is a very simple task as people from one corner of the world is now reaching people in the opposite corner of the world just from their bedrooms. In addition, individuals, companies and nations as a whole are getting tremendous financial benefits and raising their competitiveness in the global market.

If developing nations want to grow their economies, entering and competing to the international business is mandatory. And doing business electronically (E-commerce) is now the technology level that business environment today reaches. Therefore, these nations need to put the advancement of Information and Communication Technologies and E-commerce among their priorities. This asks the collaboration of all concerned bodies, professionals, government bodies, law and policy makers, banks and the society as a whole.

Connect Your eCommerce With ERP! Here Are Its Tangible Benefits

No doubt, eCommerce is a booming phenomenon in the trade and business world. Slowly and eventually, we all got habituated with the convenient online shops that are selling everything we need to buy from physical storefronts.

But, things aren’t that easy as it seems for the online retailers! While offering goods on an online portal, there are various shortcomings too that they need to be aware of. Some of them are operational inefficiency, slow accounting, lack of departmental coordination and inventory management problems. The main reason behind all these? One eCommerce platform, but too many tasks to handle! Front-desk selling to stock keeping and other admin functions. So, it is natural that eCommerce stores are plagued with problems, mainly inefficiency and poor coordination. Integrating an ERP solution with the backend functions of the eCommerce platform solves all the problem so that you can have control over everything from one point. Here’s how.

#1 Synchronisation of sales orders

Instead of manually transferring every order from the eCommerce system to your separate ERP, you can now save all your sales order data automatically. Yes. Integration makes that seamlessly and as quickly as possible. So, you have now less turnaround time as every order accepted online starts with fulfilment process over the ERP.

#2 Inventory management gets easier

While doing trade online, retailers mostly face the issues like double data entry, demand variations, stock-outs, bullwhip effect, SKUs mismanagement, and so forth. These are obvious because inventories are huge for online businesses and are essentially stored in warehouses in different locations. After integration with ERP, all warehouses information are synced up together at one centre and are fed into the eCommerce system, so sellers can take and dispatch orders wisely.

#3 Accounting support

Numbers of sales/purchase are at the heart of every business. Exact accounting figures are essential as that help business to flourish in the sales front and manual data entry/interpretation result in flawed figures. ERP integrated with eCommerce platform help retailers or their accountants to better flow of information of data like shipping costs, dispatch expenses, sales revenue, etc. and subsequently in accounting.

#4 Enhanced Customer satisfaction

Syncing all information related to customers can better help businesses in offering personalised services to them and provide maximum satisfaction. Integrating ERP results in an automatic update of every customer details on the eCommerce panel so that retailers can change offers for them accordingly.

The hassles of managing an eCommerce store alongside a separate ERP system are many. But, you need an ERP system deliberately to have control over all your process and safe-keep all customer credentials. So, it is worth integrating the two to have streamlined control and coordination between the frontend and backend operations.

The Importance Of eCommerce Website Designing

The world is transforming into a digital platform each passing day, more and more people are getting online. Consumers and brands are joining this platform like a revolution in every way they can whether it is blogging, social media or browsing. Those companies which didn’t focus on this till yet, they are most probably behind their competitors. Without a digital presence, you can’t have a great impact in the market. That is where eCommerce sites come in, a site or a portal which facilitates all the features and benefits a company and their user need to engage and make future decisions.

A perfectly designed and developed eCommerce site would have all the basic and advanced features to facilitate easy navigation, tracking details and providing better experience every time user lands on it. It consists of astonishing graphics in conjugation with conspicuous copywriting which is difficult to ignore. You can display and do some sorts of sale on a static site also, but dynamic websites are recommended for providing better service. On dynamic ones, you can easily customize the adjustable things and add products with changing discounts and offers.

It is a unique way to offer such experience what captivates your target audience and prompt them to come back again. A thank you page, followup email or digital marketing plays a good role in bringing back to their landing page which means continuous flow of income and customers’ satisfaction. You can set up different payment options, tracking options for orders, and you can also store their details for providing customized service next time. It also allows you to add advanced features.

The popular languages for eCommerce website designing and development are Magento, PHP, python and so on. Some of the languages cost money like Magento and Zen cart, and some like PHP and Drupal are free to use. A professional designing company would mix HTML codes also to make it more SEO friendly. No matter what they do, the outcome should always be user-friendly site with easy navigation, engagement features and convenient to make purchase.

Now comes the main point, who should invest in this? Almost anyone- who would like to do online business and sell more products alongside influencing their offline presence. If you are in retail sector, real estate, food business or in any other field where you find opportunities to expand your business online, then it is the best option for you.

Future of E-Commerce and Delivery Systems

The Asia-Pacific region has seen an online boom over the past decade, particularly in e-commerce.

In fact, this part of the world actually has the largest online market globally and high levels of growth in the e-commerce market, India has had a lot to do with this.

According to the experts, India’s total online sales are forecast to exceed $100 billion in 2020, putting us in top three worldwide.

E-commerce has been the largest game-changer for the Indian economy and it continues to develop as we swiftly embrace modern technologies. Several aspects such as ample array of inventory, comfort, service, fruitful offers, cash-on-delivery, free freight, seamless return procedures, reliable and convenient purchasing system, linked with profitable offers have begun the outbreak of online purchasing in our country. According to a statement by Google and Forrester Consulting, a number of online shoppers will approximately triple 2020, with over 50 million fresh customers rising from tier I and tier II cities.

The nation has been riding on the e-commerce surge due to heavy internet penetration backed with reasonable data charts and mere availability of smartphones. The imminent years will observe breath-taking discovery in e-commerce and carry forth uncomplicated and interesting shopping adventures.

The rise of Private labels: All the top e-commerce giants will introduce their personal brands. They will begin producing their own merchandises and sell them aggressively within their portal while simultaneously exchanging other brands.

Mobility: Each person, who is further a possible buyer, wants to accomplish tasks on the run! From clearing utility bills to buying food or clothes, each job can be managed online.

With Smartphones and other handheld devices governing the tech society, e-commerce owners are discovering it pretty effective to encompass mobility. Simply put, mobility is steadily becoming to be an extremely significant aspect of e-commerce.

Automation: Mobility trends can drive to efficient automation of various methods. Members in the e-commerce platform can allow automatic payment options, billing, and publicity to their clients. Highly attractive and stunning apps are also of supreme significance, as they encourage and promote on-the-go operations like never before!

Technology: Every player in the business will attempt to go ahead the standards and produce a distinguished identification for themselves by steadily expanding newer and greater ideas which will further increase buyer interface and experience.

Acquiring new technology: Every player in the business will attempt to go ahead the standards and produce a distinguished identification for themselves by steadily expanding newer and greater ideas which will further increase buyer interface and experience.

Drone Delivery: Organisations have continued working their way around to invent the delivery method to reduce human energy as well as time. The solution to these difficulties is Delivery by Drones. DGCA is now fast tracking the process of announcing guidelines for the use of drones for civil purposes in India. If everything works as per the plan, then India might become the first nation in the world to acknowledge the use of drones for civil purposes.

Artificial Intelligence: As the e-commerce area becomes saturated, investors searching for innovative application of technology are zeroing in on corporations developing artificial intelligence (AI) solutions.

So what’s now?

There’s no suspicion that companies of all areas can considerably avail from revenue increase and productivity progress with an online proximity, but there still appears to be a doubt by the majority to fully encompass it. There is still a comprehensive lack of knowledge of these interests and concerns regarding the value of setting up and continuous carrying cost.

With the extensive use of social networking sites and buyers receiving information, guidance, and suggestions throughout their networks, Indian buyers attain to obtain big savings from online procuring. It’s never more been quicker or easier to explore for commodity information and access a wider range of data, bigger product choices and lower prices.

Accelerated extension will see obstacles to online retailing decline over time for various companies and consumers. With a growing amount of firms allowing assistance to retailers to set up an online presence, it will shortly become a no-brainer.

Users are now experiencing the mobile internet and making acquisitions on their Smartphones. Local retailers attain to obtain improvements in profits with an online proximity and will suffer if not prepared to meet the competition from offshore producers.

Why Ecommerce Website Is the Need of the Hour for Your Retail Business?

From new companies to expansive ventures with well-known brands, relatively every organization is picking up an advantage from their eCommerce site where they can offer their particular items or services. In the present focused society, buyers never again search for adventures on the high boulevards to purchase merchandise or items; instead, they use online assets for their shopping accommodation.

“According to Statista report, in 2017 eCommerce was responsible for around $2.3 trillion in sales and is expected to reach $4.5 trillion in 2021.”

This is the place internet business sites gain ubiquity in the market. Numerous retailers are favoring this choice to offer their items on the web. There are immense advantages of internet business sites and here are a few motivations to pick an eCommerce platform for your business:

Extends Your Brand

Consistently the number of online clients expanded by some rate and half of them invest energy in seeking and shopping of items. Thus, web-based business site can be a viable device to expand your brand image alongside internet showcasing services and eCommerce life utilities.

This will enable you to grow your items and administrations to a full degree while making your business famous in the online commercial center.

Comfort of shopping

Have you ever wish to go out shopping late at night or have required a few products on dire premise? Online business sites are accessible every minute of every day to buy products whenever and with quick coordination, it will be an additional favorable position.

Also, individuals don’t generally have much time to go out and look through the things they need to purchase, so they go online shopping for those things. This demonstrates the online retail business is exceptionally advantageous for shoppers since it has no time requirement.

Focus on a more extensive engagement of people

Web is a huge field where you can discover billions of clients web-based, hunting down something, or creating something applicable to them. A large number of clients may look for merchandise and ventures for their benefit. Ecommerce development can take your business to them and achieve a vast amount of online clients.

Subsequently, you can focus on a substantial number of engagement of people through your web-based business and satisfy their necessities with your items and administrations. At the point when clients discover your site essential and helpful, the movement will increment and draw in more groups of onlookers.

Displays launching of services or products

There are a wide variety of internet advertising devices and practices that can be used to make your site prevalent among online clients. Internet business is where you can get best-promoting open doors that can get quality movement on your website. Most conventional advertising systems are SEO and SMO, PPC, content showcasing and some more.

To set up an eCommerce website for your business, you will require certain things, for example, a group of best eCommerce business site designers, online advertising techniques, a god spending plan and some an opportunity to actualize your thought effectively. Internet business has everything that can make your image mainstream through online assets.

After everything, you need to decide, go for something which you can control in the future when your business will expand. Don’t be in a rush. You can check our blog on things to remember before developing a website.

Read more about Magento vs Shopify: Select the best platform for your eCommerce

Differences Between E-Commerce and E-Business

E-Commerce and E-Business are two completely different terms but unfortunately they are always used interchangeably by many of us. The reason behind this lies in the meanings of “business” and “commerce” in English language. But there is a difference between e-commerce and e-business. There are many people who understand the subtle differences between the two and there had always been a debate among these two groups about the differences and similarities between e-commerce and e-business. The aim of writing this article is to clearly bring out the differences between the two as both of them are completely different phenomenon.

The differences between the two are as follows:

1. E-Commerce is the subset of E-Business. If you remember the Venn diagram you studied in school then you can very well understand what I am trying to convey. The later one is a very broad concept while the former one is just a small part of it. This relationship will be cleared in the subsequent points.

2. Those activities which essentially involve monetary transactions are termed as “e-commerce”. However, e-business is a much broader term. There are many other things besides selling including but not limited to marketing, procurement of raw materials or goods, customer education, looking for suppliers etc.

3. To sell online is e-commerce but to bring and retain customers and educate them online about the product or service is e-business. Having a website to do it is not sufficient. But, having a professionally built website loaded with latest technologies to capture the attention of the visitor and win his/her appreciation is required. When money is involved then the first thing which user looks for is safety and security of his/her money. Having a website laden with such qualities is important.

4. When Dell sell computers, laptops, monitors, printers, accessories etc online then it is not engaged in e-commerce but e-business. Let me tell you how. When a visitor comes on the website, the first thing he see is website design and navigation as well as those things which are going to help him find what he is looking for and if he directly lands on the page he was looking for, he looks for the information related to it. The information provided should be appealing and clear maximum doubts of the visitor so as to convert him in a client. Till now no money has been exchanged nor been talked about. So, was this e-commerce? No, it is e-business which guides the visitor.

5. E-commerce has also been defined as a process covering outward processes that touch customers, suppliers and external partners while e-business covers internal processes such as production, inventory management, product development, risk management, finance etc.

In all, e-commerce can be described as the use of the Internet and the web to transact business. More formally, digitally enabled commercial transactions between and among organizations and individuals. On the other hand, e-business can be described as the digital enablement of transactions and process within a firm, involving information systems under the control of the firm. Moreover, e-business applications turn into e-commerce precisely when an exchange of value occurs.

B2B Shopping Cart – What an E-Commerce Business Takes to Be Successful

Online shopping is giving e-commerce businesses more and more room to flourish. E-commerce businesses have now been improving and developing with astonishing pace. E-commerce is basically doing trade online; buying and selling items on World Wide Web rather than local stores and shopping malls. There are many different modes for selling online and every mode needs a different king of shopping cart.

Every business to business (B2B) online store needs a B2B shopping cart. Use of the right product and the right type of shopping cart affect your business.

Before going on further with B2B shopping cart, let us discuss first what is meant by B2B? B2B, as written above, means business to business. E-commerce, as with real life trading, deals in different aspects of trading.

Some trade with consumers, some with other business, some trade from consumer to business and some trade from business to consumers. B2B, as stated earlier in this article is business to business trading.

The point in e-commerce is the issue of secure payments, valid transaction and transfer of money from shopper’s credit card (or bank account) to a website and to website to owners accounts. This wired connected worldwide trade – the e-commerce – just like real trade has different forms and types with different benefits and drawbacks.

All types are different ways of buying and selling services and products. Some types of e-commerce are Consumer to business, business to consumers, business to employee and consumer to consumer. All of these have different modes and limits of transactions and payments.

Business to business is relatively new in e-commerce and getting more popularity than previous types of e-commerce and having a good shopping cart software review is important. According to a rough estimate, there are almost 90% of transaction made on internet are made via B2B e-commerce type as it allows large amounts o secure and quick transactions among business partners to improve their business which in due course increases their profits.

This is the main reason it is more common in practice where there are online store and e-shops. Owners of online shops and e-stores prefer this practice of transaction over any other form of transaction as it is quick and more reliable.

Business to business software that is used in online stores and websites and blogs that allow people doing shopping and buying services online is called B2B shopping cart. This software is featured with many of the common tools as the standard shopping cart software has.

Among the advantages it has is cost-efficiency. You do not have to spend millions to have a shopping cart. B2B shopping carts unable you to have your store open 24/7 and to have customers from all round the globe. To be exact and precise, you’re having a store that can be visited from everywhere in the world wherever the World Wide Web (the internet) is accessible.

Is SEO for E-Commerce Different Than Regular Online Businesses?

E-commerce is one of the most competitive markets across the globe today. With online retail biggies ruling this realm, it is difficult for the new players to survive the cut-throat competition. Well, there are some fronts through which they establish themselves digitally. One such area that is somewhat easy to conquer is that of search engine optimization. But, you need not forget that the professional support is necessary to improve your search engine ranking. This is because search engine optimization of an e-commerce website is completely different from that of a regular online portal. An experienced and credible S.E.O company in Chicago can tell you about the differentiating factors.

The factors we discuss below also help you understand how search engine optimization strategies of online retail portals are different.

There are myriad of pages:

A regular website that informs about the services of a company has very limited pages, which makes the search engine optimization somewhat easier. Talking about the e-commerce sites, there is a product page for every product the portal sells. Therefore, the company needs to optimize each page so that the product available on the portal could be found by the potential buyers.

There is always addition of new products:

E-commerce is a domain where the company will be adding new products regularly to expand their sales or to modify the business strategies. And, it is vital that the product pages of these new products are optimized efficiently. Otherwise, you won’t get the expected results.

Speed has to be fast:

Talk to any experienced digital marketer, and he/she will tell you how important the loading time of a website is. Slow websites not only offer a bad experience to your customers but also upsets the search engines like Google. In case of online retail websites, the speed gets slower due to the presence of unnecessary plugins, heavy images, third-party widgets, and inefficient coding. To avoid these issues, you need to connect with a social media marketing Chicago that offers specialized services for e-commerce websites.

There are also category pages:

The category pages are considered the most powerful areas of an e-commerce portal. They need to be efficiently optimized to help you get the best results. The URLs have to be search-engine friendly and content has to be unique and user-friendly. Also deep-links related to product categories have to be built for better results.

All these factors show you can’t use the regular search engine optimization strategies for your online retail or wholesale business. A specialized strategy has to be planned and implemented to get desired results and avoid getting penalized.

The team can help you raise your e-commerce business-related marketing efforts through an efficient S.E.O plan. Several companies from Chicago that seek affordable S.E.O services connect with this agency for the results.

How the History of eCommerce Has Cleared the Way For Entrepreneurs

The history of eCommerce is not only interesting but has proven to be one of the greatest developments of humankind over time. eCommerce also known to as electronic commerce, can be used to refer to the act of conducting business transactions and communication over electronic device such as computers. It involves the buying and selling of goods and services over digital communication networks and encompasses electronic transactions such as smart cards and electronic money transfers.

There has been a lot of confusion regarding the difference between eCommerce and e business. To explain the difference between the two, one will need to look at the manner and location in which the business is conducted. E business involves the conducting of business over internet networks. It is purely an internet affair and encourages buying, selling and collaboration with partners online so that unlike eCommerce where the business is conducted at a specified location, e business is conducted online anywhere and anytime. This difference as we will see later has its bearing on the history of eCommerce.

The first form of eCommerce was conceived in the late 20th century when electronic technology was used for the transfer of information and for conducting business transaction between different business entities. The enabling technologies at the time were the electronic funds transfer and the electronic data interchange. Drawing from this part of the history of eCommerce, many businesses came up with ways through which they could expand their influence within the market and these efforts and innovation gave birth to what are now used as automatic teller machines (atm’s), credit cards and telephone banking systems.

A time went by and with the introduction of high-speed internet connections and relevant security mechanisms; the history of eCommerce was fast tracked for the business idea to become what is it is today. More businesses and especially those within the banking industry saw a lot of growth over short periods of time. However, the eCommerce businesses experienced their lowest points during the ‘dot-com’ collapse that saw a great number of internet businesses crumble to their knees.

Calm was restored a few years later when most of the businesses and especially those in europe began to embrace eCommerce. History was written once again when business transactions, driven by the desire to serve the increasing worldwide customer service demands and regardless of size and nature were conducted over the internet. The most remarkable companies during this time were amazon, eBay and dell that despite conducting small internet transactions have grown to become the most formidable electronic business entities in the history of eCommerce.

eCommerce has made life much easier than it was two centuries ago. It has taken into account how busy life has become so that not many people enjoy the luxury of shopping from one store to another without any time constraints. Buyers are now able to shop for whatever they want just by a click of a button. You are also able to compare prices of goods and services from stores worldwide but from the comfort of your home. Like all things good, eCommerce has enlightened most people on the importance of technology. It has also made it possible for businesses to appreciate just how much a simple invention can change the face of your business. Such is the history of eCommerce.