E-commerce success, as defined by A-K Strategies, refers to e-commerce websites that actively make a net profit. There are indeed many strategies to achieve e-commerce success, as can be seen by the number of websites available online, each of them emphasizing different avenues to obtain optimal success. After surveying 4 different websites, however, I have come to a conclusion as to what the top 3 strategies to achieve e-commerce success are.
Firstly, knowing your target audience and catering to their needs and preferences. This includes creating a website with a design and branding that is in tune with the customers’ likes and dislikes. In addition, online businesses need to know the level of technology available to their customers. For example, requiring Flash player to view the website when the customer is unable to or does not have the software will surely deter them from visiting the site again.
Secondly, the provision of customer service. This involves the active building of customer loyalty programs, and the usage of personalization and mass-customization in order to reach new customers and increase customer loyalty. Focusing on customer service in e-commerce is particularly important because online merchants will be doing business with people that they have never met; thus, the lack of personal contact can often be perceived to be impersonal and unsatisfactory service. The provision of good customer service can be achieved through the answering of customers’ queries quickly and personally, developing innovative ways to keep your customers updated regarding new products, and ensuring that massive orders are dealt with promptly.
Next, it is marketing. The Web has too many websites offering similar (or even identical) products and services. Thus, online merchants need increase brand awareness and hence product sales through avenues such as viral marketing. This can be achieved through the utilization of social networks and other high-traffic sites to spread the word. Online marketing can take place through appealing to specific interests of the customers, niche-marketing and also geo-targeting (different content delivered to the visitor based on his/her current location, country, region etc).
According to Juliana Nelson (1999), a senior analyst with International Data Corp’s Internet and E-Commerce Strategies Group, successful e-commerce is all about “reaching new customers and retaining them”. Through all the websites that I’ve read regarding successful e-commerce strategies, one thing is clear: in e-commerce, the customers are the most important. Everything, be it marketing, advertising, branding, product and website design etc., must be done with the customer in mind. Their needs and preferences have to be met and their demands have to be answered, simply because the huge plethora of choices available online entails that e-commerce sites need to have a unique selling point in order to achieve a comparative advantage over competitors and attract customers to purchase their products.
Here is a video that will help us understand more regarding what to take note of in the construction of an e-commerce website.
References:
http://www.akstrategic.com/ecommerce-success.php
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