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Creating an E-commerce Strategy in 2018

Emma Miller1321 08-Feb-2018

For years, technological trends have played a major part in the success of e-commerce. In fact, saying that would probably be an understatement as without the internet there wouldn’t even be e-commerce to begin with, at least not in its current form. As such, the fate of e-commerce was always heavily intertwined with technology. Likewise, seeing as how the year 2017 is already behind us, a new year brings its own set of rules, as well as the latest technological and e-commerce trends. Retailers who aren’t quick enough to catch onto these trends will be left trailing behind in the year 2017, as more successful ones take their place as pack leaders in the year 2018. So, what are these latest trends, and how do you build your e-commerce strategy around them? Let’s find out!

Multi-channel management

For years marketing has been conducted solely on TV, in the form of commercials, or on billboards and storefronts to drive sales and lure potential customers. With the advent of the internet and social media this is no longer the case. People are no longer ‘hooked’ by one form of advertisement that is thrown directly at them but take their sweet time researching peer reviews on Google and social media before they finally make their purchase. Therefore, media has become quite fragmented and e-commerce marketers need to focus their attention on multiple channels instead of a single one, in order to increase their chances of making a sale. For example, we can see this trend in the journey of an average customer which looks something like this: They browse their social media feed, bump into a YouTube video, like the video and want to know more, search Google for relevant info about the product, search social media for peer and influencer reviews, and only then proceed to the e-commerce website to make the final decision. In addition, each of these channels has their own set of rules and specific demographics that need to be taken into consideration, what works on Facebook might not work on Twitter and vice-versa.

Creating an E-commerce Strategy in 2018

Content that converts

There are those who will tell you that people are simply fed up with the amount of content thrown at them and that they’re totally oversaturated by it. This is true to some degree, as content is like a double-edged sword and if not utilized properly it could severely damage your marketing efforts. The thing is that the average attention span is shrinking, meaning you need to produce high-quality and engaging content that will interact with viewers more to hold their attention for a bit longer. To achieve this, you need to focus your efforts on creating how-to videos (as video content is expected to overtake 80% of all internet traffic by 2019) and blog posts which are somehow related to your products. This is because customers are now very information savvy and apart from searching for means of entertainment they want to get something more out of your content that’s either educational or helpful to them in some way. For this reason, e-commerce traders are finding it increasingly difficult to keep up with the enormous demand for such content and often turn to marketing agencies and data-driven platforms such as 2easy to find content specialists for their websites. 

E-commerce optimization for smartphones

When we look at Shopify’s Black Friday and Cyber Monday sales, where 64% of purchases were conducted over smartphones and only 36% over desktop, we start to see a clear pattern of the growing number of smartphone use in e-commerce sales. This is not really surprising, seeing as how today, we’re practically married to our hand-held devices and we can’t leave the house without them. However, one of the main reasons Shopify was so successful in this venture is because they have optimized their websites for smartphone use. As such, they have a clear advantage over other sites as they are more user-friendly and easier to navigate for smartphone users. Additionally, seeing as how mobile phone has already taken the lead in website browsing over desktop, it only adds more incentive to optimize your e-commerce platforms for smartphones. Moreover, from an SEO point of view, this is also the case as Google has updated its search algorithm for mobile-first indexing, meaning websites will be ranked based on their mobile phone traffic over their desktop one instead. Yet, it’s not just about the number of searches done, but also the increasing number of mobile spending which, for example, has tripled in the UK last year, generating an amazing £370 million in the first six months


In conclusion, forget about the past, look forward and bring your e-commerce business up to speed with these latest trends and see it flourish in the year 2018 and beyond. 



Updated 07-Sep-2019

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