E-commerce sales have grown by an average of 27.6% in 2020 and this trend seems to be gaining pace. As more business’s shift their presence online to attract a wider local and global audience, it comes a naturally that the e-commerce market is growing at a rapid rate.

“E-commerce is no longer a channel simply for the future. The future is here.”

Claire Hennah, VP of e-commerce at Unilever

In this article, we explore some of the basic nuts and bolts of the e-commerce world, in addition to the software that runs this space.

E-commerce Solutions For Enterprises

In terms of software, Shopify & WooCommerce for WordPress-built websites remains one of the main tools that allows businesses to inexpensively set up an e-commerce shop online.

Alternatively, e-commerce platforms such as Amazon, Alibaba and Rakuten are offering a pre-built marketplace for merchants to list their products online.

Many companies on the other hand, especially at the enterprise level, are shifting to require e-commerce platforms to be custom built to fulfill a variety of purposes. The first purpose would be for control, companies that have custom built e-commerce platforms maintain a degree of control over their product.

The second purpose would be for branding purposes, enterprises that build their own e-commerce solutions is considered a good branding strategy.

Finally, due to the daily shifting business environment, a unique platform with an adaptive UI  means that the platform can be built to meet directly with their consumer’s demands which a pre-built solution such as Shopify may not provide.

Email Marketing In The E-Commerce Space

Email marketing is about keeping an exchange of value through the use of email. Good email marketing is something that benefits both the marketer and the buyer. It’s about showing your customers a product and the benefits of the product, while maintaining a very personal touch.

Email marketing’s main goals are to keep in contact with your customers and to generate more product sales.

Klaviyo still remains one of the top email marketing platforms that is pre-built for e-commerce marketing. This can be seen in their features such as custom templates and designs that are made specifically for e-commerce.

On the other hand, traditional email marketing platforms such as Mailchimp & Aweber may not have the customer capabilities or the integration necessary to run smoothly in e-commerce. An email marketing platform that is tailored for e-commerce offers a seamless and intuitive design in addition to a focus on a target market.

Software Development in E-commerce

There are some key areas that software is being developed in E-commerce.

1 – Product Sourcing and Development

Product sourcing and development has always been the bread and butter of the e-commerce industry.

Product sourcing is simply a company finding a manufacturer, usually overseas but sometimes locally, and getting products developed and repackaged as their own (also known as white labelling).

As the supply chain has a lot of intricacies while communication being a crucial part across all chain sections, companies that source products require a solution to streamline, and collect data on the sourcing process are required. This is where custom-built product sourcing software comes in.

2 -E-commerce Analytics

From mum-and-pop shops to well-known e-commerce brands, data analytics still play a crucial role in recording and making sense of data.

Data science in e-commerce allows you to understand customer buying behavior & predict potential trends in order for businesses acquire a clear picture of what is going on in their brand. Using this data, e-commerce companies can use this information to make better business decisions to secure a better return on investment on their marketing and sales budget.

Data analytics software plays a huge role into collecting, processing and finally graphing this data which is widely used in the e-commerce field.

Some of the best tools in the field are Google Analytics & Optimizely although custom-built analytic tools for enterprises are widely utilized in the market.

3 – Payments

All e-commerce platforms require integration with payment gateway, which an intermediary piece of software to transfer funds from a merchant to a merchant’s bank.

Developers for payment solutions need to work with API integration in mind. The RESTFUL API is the standard for web services.

Conclusion

E-commerce and online shopping are a trend that does not seem like it will be slowing down. With systems that allow goods to be delivered to the doorstep of your front home with a few pushes of a button, that comes to be no surprise.

We should expect that the e-commerce trend of digitalizing commerce will continue as the barrier of entry into the market gets lower with the availability and modernization of technology.

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