As an e-commerce retailer, one must know the facts and figures on where the industry is heading to, what are the new technologies, the new innovations so as to implement and strategies your vision and goal to meet the industry requirements

Fact # 1 -The shift from e-commerce to m-commerce

This is evident isn’t? Are you not the one who just downloaded Flipkart app during their App sale, and have been browsing it all the time to crack some good deal. And studies have shown that in year 2014 33% of visitors were browsing e-commerce websites via their mobile phone.

Yes, so accept the fact and still not thought of launching an app for your website, plan it soon. As there are many advantages to your business and the simplest reason is “Shop on a go”.

Fact #2 – Branding beyond Boundaries

Do you remember the latest Xiaomi sale? How much noise it made even before the product was launched. How people waited for its sale date to get lucky! A Chinese manufacturing , yet was able to successfully get its product sold out even before without spending much on advertising. That’s the present state of branding your product. Geographies doesn’t matter and so challenge is to just getting the right medium of communication and rest can go “viral”

Fact #3 – Store is always OPEN

The consumers browse the e-commerce website just to see if there is any deal to crack. People do “window shopping” and mostly in wee hours of day and night. And they need there store to be open. That’s the reality. So if we can purchase stuff, they should also have somebody to help you with your query and that’s the reason customer representatives should also be available.

Fact#4 – Plan and be prepared for Sale Day

People wait for sale, well even that’s not value adding to the customers in terms of saving money but still people prefer to wait for sale. The Flipkart big sale or Amazon Happy Diwali week sale or SnapDeal sale ..Plan your sale, make sure to get logistics working and make sure to aim for customer happiness rather that aiming for your profit

Fact #5- Customer satisfaction is the key

After recent flop show by Flipkart during their “diwali” sale , the CEO of Flipkart sent out an apology letter to all its customers on delivering their promise. And again they launched a new sale and this time it was great SUCCESS. When you loudly declare and follow that customer is the king, customer would build a trust and keep coming back to you, no matter how good your competitors offers a deal to them

Fact #6 – Social Network help a lot in driving traffic to your website

Just other day when I was browsing FB and an ad showed “Gujrati kurtas” and I clicked on it, well it landed me to a new website which I never heard of, and even while searching may be I would never have got it on Google. So these social networking ads play a crucial role in your visitors count and cracking deal out of it. So go ahead and get a paid ad on one of these.

Fact #7 – Free Exchange Policy

No customer would buy from you, if you charge or question them on why you want to return the item. You need to trust them and believe them and just follow “no question asked free exchange/return policy”. How often you put in bold and red reg your return policy, but very few customers actually read it, so don’t put a clause that customers feel dejected and may not return to you, and could also put a bad name to your retail store.

Fact # 8 – Email subscription or SMS service

A very good way to let consumers know about your offers, your newsletters or your discount coupons is via emails or SMS. So make sure to have this facility with your online store. A glossy email with all the exciting offers, for different categories will make sure to drive more traffic to your store.

Fact #9 – Offline Mode

The mutual pact of offline and online mode is what consumers expect and need a facility like click and collect or offline browsing mode [which saves data for later] or if you traveling and expect a delivery, you can pick it yourself from nearest delivery location.

Fact #10 – Adapt and Transform

Think on what customers want, now look around you what are the technologies which could help your customer in achieving it and then adapt those changes gradually. It’s quite apparent that all the leading stores who have kept customer focus as their prime importance and transformed it using new innovative technologies are the one who were successful.

It would be really interesting to see how this industry shapes up as it is now in verge of exploding more, leading to more thrilling experience for customers and economy. Do let me know your thoughts on comment below or if you want to suggest more facts to add in.

entrepreneur, shopify, sba