If you’re serious about selling online, or you want to grow your sales, then investing in professional eCommerce packages is an absolute must. The range of software available presents varying levels of flexibility, selling tools, and management options – which you pick will be decided by the specific needs of your eCommerce business.
The point of eCommerce software is to enhance your selling power with sophisticated catalogue management, encrypted transactions, professional design templates and flexible yet simple back end with slick order processing.
In basic terms an eCommerce package should allow you to handle purchases, document sales and process orders while giving your customers a clear, quick and reassuring check-out experience. For you, this makes the act of running a business easier, for your customers it provides peace of mind – an essential ingredient of a sale.
Integrating your back-end systems will make accounting easier by synchronising your product database to your accounting package. It will also help you update the website, vital if you are to maintain the interest of returning customers.
Market leading online retailers spend millions of pounds every year finding out why customers abandon purchases at the checkout and convincing them to return to their purchases. For you to compete you have to mimic big retailers’ attention to detail.
Customers still look for a golden padlock in the bottom right-hand corner of their screens, which is the sign that payments will be secure, for reassurance. This comes from Secure Socket Layer technology, which is the basis for a decent eCommerce package.
The best packages offer an additional range of useful widgets for your ecommerce website, including easy to navigate customer accounts, email compatibility for customer alerts, the ability to rate products and feedback forms.
Hi Dan
Really important subject to address, not only from a tools and business process point of view, but also from the type of model of the varying solutions available.
There are all-in-one systems that handle everything from back office to web front end, and specialised apps to deal with each individual part of the process. Some of these are licenced from a vendor, others are specific to one agency, or ‘proprietary’ systems, others are cloud based, often termed ‘Software as a Service’ (SaaS), whilst others are open source and can be owned by the retailer or brand.
Just to complicate matters, some systems are elements of all of the above, so it can be a bit of a minefield!
I’ve known people come seriously unstuck because they don’t fully understand the model so it’s good to research and ensure people ask the right questions to and agency or vendor.
Cheers,
Mark.