What are the basic components of e-commerce?

Online shopping is mainstream. Everyone does it and in lieu of recent in-store credit card security issues, it's often viewed as more secure than going to a retail store or giving your credit card to a random customer service rep on the phone.

Trust in online shopping is not an issue anymore. The issue is getting your visitors to shop on your website over a competitor's. In order to capture your audience and make the sales, your e-commerce website needs to be current and implement several very important elements.

Here are seven things to consider when developing or restructuring your e-commerce site:

1. User Friendly

If your store is easy to navigate, you will have a greater chance of making a sale from the start. The homepage should be inviting and encourage visitors to click on products or categories of items they are looking to purchase. Categories should be self-explanatory and should be broken down into subcategories so visitors can quickly find what they are looking for.

The search bar should be easy to find and quickly list all applicable items that are currently available for sale once the user types in their query.

2. Shopping Cart and Checkout Process

Adding items to the shopping cart should be simple. Color choices or style preferences should be easy to view and select. Customers like to view what they have in their cart while continuing to shop, so make sure you have a design and functionality that makes it easy.

Don't confuse users during checkout. Keep things basic and value your customer's time. The shopper should feel confident shopping on your website.

3. Mobile Compatibility

80% of all online adults own a smartphone. Mobile visits, in many cases now, outrank desktop use. Your e-commerce site needs to be designed and built for all devices, not just a personal computer or laptops.

4. Calls to Action (CTA)

Make sure to lead your customers through your site with calls to action that are specific to what you want them to do. For example, if you have a sale, your CTA button could be "Click Here to Save 20%!" It may be obvious to you and even to most people, but there are still a lot of people out there that have lives, raised kids or are raising kids, own or run businesses that don't spend much time on the web. Adding that extra help builds confidence in your business, shows that you care about your customers and helps to make things less frustrating. Always avoid making your customer feel stupid because they not. If they are going to your website they must be smart enough to buy from the best company out there.

5. Images and Descriptions

When people are searching for a product to buy, they want to know all the details about it before making their purchase.

Shopping online can have it's drawbacks because one cannot physically see or touch the items they are looking at. Because of this, it's important to have professional quality images of your products and when applicable images from multiple angles, views, and even context.

It is also important to thoroughly describe the items in detail. Cover all aspects, including size, texture, uses, benefits, colors available, etc. You want your potential customer to feel confident that they know enough about your product to purchase it, instead of going elsewhere.

6. Customer Support

Some sort of customer support needs to be available in case of any problems or questions. There are several different types of customer support, such as 800 numbers, email support, and online chat. Decide which is the best choice for your budget and type of business. Keep in mind to always be friendly and respond in a timely manner to resolve any issues to keep your customers happy.

7. Security and Privacy

Last but not least is security. Make sure you have an SSL certificate installed to encrypt data coming and going to the browser. Today every website, e-commerce or not, should have one. Also, have a transparent privacy policy that tells your customers how their information is used on your site and by your company.

Conclusion

An e-commerce site needs to not only pleasing to the eye but a stress-free shopping experience as well. By developing an online store that is easy to navigate along with a seamless checkout process on any device, you will retain your customers and expand your business by acquiring new ones.

For more, check out: How To Get Better Marketing Results With Beautiful Design.

Different Components of E-commerce

 The technology and infrastructure used to develop the E-commerce application is the key to its success.

The hardware and software must be selected in such a way that they can fulfill the needs of the E-commerce application.

The following figure shows the components involved in E-commerce infrastructure.

What are the basic components of e-commerce?

1. Hardware:

A Web server hardware platform is one of the major components of the Ecommerce infrastructure on which the performance of the whole E-commerce application depends.

While selecting Web server hardware, the software that will run on the server of the E-commerce transactions to be processed must be considered.

The amount of the storage capacity and the computing power required depend on the volume of the E-commerce transaction to be processed.

If the exact requirements are not known in advance, then the hardware configuration should be highly scalable so that they can be upgraded to meet the requirements.

2. E - Commerce Softwares

Software is the main component that implements the E-commerce services and functionality. Software for E-commerce can be categorized in the following two types

Web server software:

Web server software is required in addition to the Web server operating system software.

It is used to implement some extra functionality such as security and identification and retrieval and sending of Web pages.

Web server software creates a Web log file that identifies things such as the URL of the visitor, the length of the visit and the search engine and the key words used to find the site.

Web server software includes website development tools such as HTML editor and Web page upload support.

E-commerce softwares:

With the growth of E-commerce, many applications have emerged— for example, the electronic shopping cart that tracks the items selected for purchase and their costs.

A typical E-commerce software must support the following processes:

Catalog management:

It is required to deliver the customized content to the screen or the GUI used by the customer.

The software used for catalog management combines the different product data formats into a standard format for viewing, aggregating and interacting catalog data into a central store.

Product configuration:

The Web-based product configuration software allows the user to build the product to their specifications without the intervention of the salespeople.

For example, Dell Computers and CISCO systems use configuration software to sell build-to-order and network processes to their customers over the Internet.

Shopping cart

A model known as shopping cart is used by Ecommerce sites to track the items that are selected for purchase; the shopping cart allows customers to view all the items selected by them.

The customers can add new items and remove the previously selected items from the shopping cart.

Transaction processing:

E-commerce transaction processing is used to process the data received from the. Shopping cart and to calculate the total cost of the purchase.

Web traffic data analysis:

It is required to analyze all the data captured in the Web log file. The analysis is essential to improve the Website performance.

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Business Models Of E-Commerce

In E-commerce, business models are models that define the way in which business is' done over the Internet. Creating and deploying an E-commerce Website is a prerequisite for creating any E-commerce solution. Identification of the business model is first step in the development of an E-commerce Website. Business models in E-commerce can be categorized into the following four types, depending on the type of parties involved in transaction:

1. Business-to-Business:

It is defined as E-commerce between any two companies. Business-to-Business (B2B) E-commerce, which deals with relationships among businesses that have two primary components, E-frastructure and E-market. E-frastructure is the architecture of B2B, and E-market refers to a Website where buyers and sellers interact with each other and conduct transactions. Some of the application areas of B2B are supplier management, inventory management, distribution management, channel management and payment management.

2. Business-to-Consumer:

It is defined as E-commerce between companies and consumers. Business-to-Customer (B2C) involves selling and buying of goods and services over the Internet from Web retailers to Web customers. With B2C E-commerce, the retailer sells the products and the services to unknown and un trusted strangers. Therefore, extra effort must be made to capture customer and payment information. The most common application areas of this type of E-commerce are purchasing product and information and personal finance management.

3. Business-to-Government:

It is defined as E-commerce between companies and the public sector. Business-to-Government (B2G) E-commerce refers to the use of the Internet for public procurement, licensing procedures and the other government-related operations. Internet-based purchasing policies increase the transparency of the procurement process and reduce the risk of irregularities.

4. Consumer-to-Consumer:

It is defined as E-commerce between consumers. Customer-to-Customer (C2C) E-commerce is characterized by the growth of the E-marketplace and on-line auctions, particularly in industries where business firms can bid for what they want from multiple suppliers. 

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Back to E-Commerce Questions