Web Store Development Strategies for the Holiday Season

As the holiday season draws closer, if your business is not ‘holiday-ready’, you may miss out earning additional revenue. Google data reveals that over 1/3rd of customers have already begun shopping for the festive season, so e-tailers need to make sure they’re ready to handle the rush. Last year, retail businesses began to incorporate tech-friendly store experiences and offer fast shipping, this year, businesses need to channel their efforts in ensuring that consumers get what they want, where they want and how they want without losing sight of the business’s bottom line.

It takes no time for a customer to go online and rant or rave about their product/service experience. How often have you re-considered a purchase after you read a tweet dissing it? A large majority of us use social media to endorse products, ask for recommendations or simply post a review about a bad restaurant meal.

A recent report by Business Insider reveals that, “Facebook is a top social commerce platform that drives over 2/3rd of mobile e-commerce traffic”. In addition, it accounts for “50% of total social referrals and 64% of total social revenue.” Studies also show that ‘social commerce’ sales will amount to $14 billion by the end of this year. This implies that businesses will need to ‘engage’ more to beat competition and stand out.

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So, it is imperative for a business to consider social media and customize service/product offerings around it. In addition, the user experience and design of online shopping websites needs to integrate the required social media extensions/plugins. The buzzword here is ‘social selling’ and here are two ways to get ready for it:

• Intuitive Design and Personalized Content – Organizations need to ensure that the website design for online store includes responsive elements. These could be in the form of custom functional views that use a consumer’s social or demographic data. In addition, personalizing the content of the web storefront can help differentiate your brand.
• Capitalize on Data – More and more firms are making use of data to attract new customers and keep the existing ones. In store analytics maybe in vogue now, however, for eCommerce businesses, data can be used in a much broader sense to comprehend customer behavior and individualize offerings. Has your organization thought of using ‘Wishlists’, ‘Consumers also bought’, or Facebook ‘Likes’ to target potential shoppers for niche product areas?

Mobile commerce, when implemented effectively, can have a beneficial and cascading impact across all your channels. Mobile buyers usually switch between store, computer, and phone when purchasing anything. These technological and behavioral changes do create more reasons why a mobile-focused approach is a necessity.

What should be included in this approach?

• Omnichannel/Hybrid Shopping: The boundaries between online, mobile commerce and brick & mortar have blurred. So integration between these platforms can no longer be an after-thought for e-tailers.
• Secure Payments: Online sales may mean more business. But they also mean, more opportunities for cyber criminals to steal private customer data. Online shopping websites should make sure their back-end systems comply with Payment Card Industry Data Security Standard (PCI-DSS) and can deal with any increase in transaction volume without compromising on data security.

e-Tailers need to remember that online store development is the latest trend in retail. Be it in the form of social selling or through mobile. Customers are turning to the world wide web for everything – from relying on their social network for a product recommendation to online price checks. The smartphone is now ubiquitous in all shopping journeys. So, enterprises will have to be tech savvy, integrate store-web-mobile to create a shopping experience that helps customers shop ‘their’ way.

Rishabh Software can build custom eCommerce solutions that help enterprises in the delivery of integrated shopping experiences to customers.