Best Practices in E-Commerce

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Over the past several years, e-commerce has transformed how people buy and sell. The Internet provides a fast and easy way for people to purchase things without having to visit an actual bricks and mortar store.  An online store can reach customers anywhere in the world.  In fact, online shopping has become so popular that many vendors sell only online with no physical location. E-commerce also facilitates the purchase of digital media with instant downloadable delivery.  Today's top e-commerce site builders take all of these factors into account. Online businesses are also quickly evolving to adjust in times of economic hardship by offering steeper discounts, flat-rate shipping, loyalty programs, and other perks.  Many e-commerce site builders make it easy to run promotions and keep your customers happy. So if you’re thinking about opening an online store, keep these three things in mind:

Storage Space

Some e-commerce site builders put a cap on your sales, so choose a platform that offers you the inventory space and bandwidth to fit your needs.

Safety Protocols

Choose a platform that offers fraud protection and Secure Socket Layer (SSL) encryption. This is for the protection of you and your customers. SSL technology makes it possible to send online payments securely and is a must-have on all e-commerce sites.

Site Design

Your e-commerce solution should have a user-friendly interface. The functions of each tool should be clear and it should be easy to select your desired options. Remember the needs of your customers. Imagine that you're shopping your own online store. Well-designed menus, filters, and sorting options will minimize the amount of time it takes to find a product and purchase it.

Making Customers Brand Ambassadors

The spirits giant Pernod Ricard is beta-testing a social network for bar tenders and introducing an Absolute-branded website which shows videos on how to make as many as 3,500 cocktails.  Those are the moves you'd expect from an industry leader efficiently leveraging the digital marketing space. However, it's their breakout, creative drive to develop the "world's first Internet-enabled t-shirt" that has intrigued many marketers.  The project, developed in partnership with wearable tech makers Switch, is testing a washable, digital t-shirt in 20 markets in the coming months that lets wearers display personalized and animated messages in real-time. The t-shirt OS 2.0 initiative builds on a campaign the brand ran in 2012, which was billed as the “world’s first Internet-enabled t-shirt”. Interesting move by Pernod Ricard. Imagine converting your customers into brand ambassador "walkers".