The nuts and bolts of websites go far beyond the domain, hosting, and design. Various tech companies are employed for services including payment processing and customer relations to email marketing and more. A modern site relies heavily on these tools to remain competitive in its industry and niche. Wildly successful e-commerce sites leverage these tech services to become market leaders.
What are these tools? Why do they matter?
E-commerce has come a long way since the 90’s when a site owner was hard pressed getting people to pay for items online. Nowadays, we’re comfortable with one click ordering and autofill options during checkout. Big platforms like Amazon, eBay, AliExpress, and InstaCart have defined the online sales ‘experience’.
We’ve come to expect a series of interactions within our online shopping.
Behind those experiences are the services that make it happen. Services like…
Several shopping carts companies fight for market dominance including:
These services make the transaction possible by storing and transferring product information to the business. Payment processing and inventory management services are coupled with the cart to streamline the customer interaction.
CRM software was the essential item to make e-commerce go mainstream for this reason: It added the personal touch.
Up until CRM, your interaction with an online store was little more than an email or (hopeful) phone call. This was the barrier many stores experienced because there was a lack of transparency and trust. CRM solutions created better contact with customers to reassure their private data and interest were handled with care.
There are thousands of online stores with millions of product pages. Today, you can easily create a shop using free templates and import product data feeds. This creates immense competition for the market players but information overload for consumers.
Tools and SEO reseller providers make it possible to rank for competitive terms. This increases web traffic and online sales. These tools and services also make it possible to build brand reputation and authority — higher rankings generally convey higher status.
Tools like SEMRush make keyword research a breeze while content & link building services offer sustained growth based on what’s discovered during the R&D phase of site building. These tools have evolved into full suites for all things online marketing.
Email is one of the better and highly effective modes of online marketing.
The average email open rate is 24.79% across all industries. This is incredibly rewarding even when compared to the ever-popular social media marketing. In fact, email marketing is often the better investment because you own the list.
Social platforms may change their terms of service at any moment. These platforms come and go (we’ve recently seen Facebook get a drop in engagement). Email marketing remains successful because a business has direct access to the individual. It’s an effective tool for promotional emails and engagement; it’s also integral to CRM and shopping cart software.
Media editing tools are a bit of a catch-all but you’ll know them best for creating banner ads, YouTube videos, and interactive Web elements. These are the tools giving e-commerce sites visual flair and marketing creativity.
Without them?
Shops are stuck promoting products using text links which — if you’re using Google AdWords — isn’t nearly as effective as they were in the past. In fact, there’s a good chance you’re losing money due to ad fraud. Media, on the other hand, creates a different level of engagement — one benefiting from personalization and visual stimulus. These two elements increase engagement, shares, and eventually sales.
There’s a reason successful e-commerce stores list certain products or display items in a particular fashion: data-driven decisions.
Analytics provides the data used for logical decisions about:
… and several other factors contributing to the user experience.
A data-driven approach to web development and online sales makes A/B testing possible. This process creates incremental improvements and conversions. A 0.01% increase in click-throughs may not seem like much but this could be millions of extra dollars for big businesses!
Many e-commerce site owners operate in a state of obliviousness. They assume operations are good because the business is turning a profit. Yet, they fail to realize how much is improved if they were to employ tech tools and services. They are enduring the market.
Those on the path to growth accept this need for modern tools and resources. They embrace the challenge of implementing the tools and realize their rewards. Every e-commerce site should have the items listed in this post. No exceptions. Why? Because competition is fierce and these resources make it possible to claim your market share.
If you are interested in even more technology related articles and information from us here at Bit Rebels then we have a lot to choose from.
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