5 E-commerce Trends Small Businesses Need to Know

E-commerce is the one field that changes every minute, bringing an all new set of rules and standards to follow. Regardless of the size and industry of your business, you need to make sure that you have the right and updated tools and strategies to get along with the recurring changes in the field of e-commerce.

We bring to you five most prevalent e-commerce trends which small business need to know to score well:-

1. Go Mobile

During the festive seasons, most people do online shopping while surfing on their cell-phones and iPhones as they are on the go. This trend was highly popular in the previous year, and will continue to be so in 2014 as increasing number of consumers like the convenience of shopping during travel.

So this is important for small businesses to ensure their online portals are optimized so that they can be viewed on any type of device. Unlimited browsing, saving and shopping across various platform should be the important traits of businesses.

2. Revised shipping methods – Faster and free

This year will witness new innovations in the delivery end of e-commerce industry. Since customers would like to get their products quickly and without paying much freight charges, it is essential that you look for creative ways to do free and faster delivery.

3. Business beyond borders

In order to grow, it’s crucial for small businesses to look beyond borders and take their businesses on global scale.

4. Give value to content marketing

Content marketing is a good way to establish your authority in the market and gain the trust of your customers. It is also one of the most effective e-commerce marketing strategies.

5. Consumer focussed business

By allowing customers to specify the type of product what they want to purchase and when, you can make your customers feel special and retain them easily.

 

By introducing all the above mentioned oncoming trends in your business, you will be able to grow your small scale business to good extents.

5 Things You Need to Decide Before Designing a Website

In today’s world, everything runs on the internet - whether it’s plain networking, browsing for information, locating the best outlet or anything else. So, no matter, you have a large business or just a small venture, a website is an important thing to have. A website is a medium through which you interact with your customers and tell the world what you are selling (a service or a product). When it comes to creating a new website, you will find innumerable website designing companies or even web designer artists who work part time.

But here are the five most important things which you should be aware of before you set out to outlining the first design of your website.

1. What is the purpose of your website?

Ask yourself, why you are creating this website. Are you doing it for creating brand awareness or for generating sales? Each type of website demands a different design. By defining the purpose, you will find out what you want your website to do, and then accordingly you can start designing it and adding the number of pages to it.

2. A bit about your customers and the unknown visitors

Your website will cater to your audience, who are already your customers and some of them will be only visiting it, and so, it is important that you know them well. Site’s content, pages and design solely depend upon who your audience is.

3. Styling your website with varied graphical assets

Your website should be a visual treat to your customers. So take great care of balancing the use of graphical aspect of your website - neither should it be too much nor too less. Start with a mock-up in Photoshop in case you wish to maximize the visual integration of various graphical elements used in the site. On the other hand, if your site displays minimalist design, then creating a working prototype will be an ideal choice.

4. Visibility of site

If you desire to keep the number of visitors on your site to an all-time high, then you have to take up effective Social Media Integration and Search Engine Optimization.

5. Setting up the final design

If you do not have much technical knowledge, it is suggested to hire dedicated designers and developers to help you in the process. Also look for a reliable and effective hosting solutions provider to keep your website always up.

By following these 5 simple yet important points, you can make sure that your website stays up and enjoys huge traffic.