Category: eCommerce

Ever since shopping through a mobile device has garnered popularity, eCommerce businesses across domains are going through their websites on mobile to see if the experience their customers have on desktops is similar to that on mobile.

Yes, it is 2020; however, the shopping experience on mobile is still not where it needs to be. There are still many eCommerce stores that deploy poor UI/UX design tricks (e.g., pop-ups) on their mobile sites to repel their potential customers.

Statista reports 3.8bn smartphone users by 2021, out of which 49% shop on mobile. Despite that, only 12% of consumers find mobile shopping convenient. That is a lot of room for improvement for eCommerce businesses.

When it comes to mobile, there are two options that they can explore, namely: Progressive Web Apps (PWAs) and native apps. Interestingly, consumers spend 3X-to-4X longer on native apps as compared to the time spent on mobile sites and desktops.

Similarly, PWAs achieve 50% higher conversions in the eCommerce sector. The benefits of both options are in front of you. But what is most apt for your business? To help you decide, let’s do a comparative analysis between a PWA and a native app.

1. Look and feel

Native apps offer the best UI/UX experience through the right amount of animations and effects, efficient gesture control, appealing layouts. Users can instantly browse through the app.

Meaning, the design, and settings of a PWA are similar to those of native apps. It combines the look and feel of mobile apps and the best UX website elements.

2. Functionality

PWAs are responsive and load promptly, thereby eliminating any jerky transition that can hamper the user experience. They can be used offline. Native apps can take time to load and/or not load at all if there is no internet.

PWAs and websites share the same speed and responsiveness capabilities, complete with database access and automatic data. A native app functions separately.

3. Installation and updation

Users will have to visit the app store, search for your app, and download it. However, a native app is easily discoverable on the internet and also gets automatically updated.

A PWA eliminates the issue of app fatigue. It doesn’t need to be discovered, downloaded, or updated. Users can go to the browser on mobile and search for you.

4. Security and compliance

PWAs offer faster access to built-in device features such as camera, phone book, biometric sensors, a recent location, microphone, and more, which could be troubling.

A native app, on the other hand, makes use of device functionality and hardware responsibly and asks for the users’ permission before accessing anything on mobile.

5. Optimized for search

Since PWAs are web-based, each page on the web app is indexable. That means, PWAs enjoy a high searchability rate on search engines such as Google, Yahoo!, and Bing. Further, users can share the PWA with just a brief URL.

A native app needs to be optimized for app stores, which includes using descriptive meta titles, using the right keywords, uploading high-quality app screenshots, encouraging positive reviews.

6. Learning and development

To develop a native app, one must know different languages such as Swift and Objective-C for iOS, C# for Windows, Kotlin, and Java for Android. This is time-consuming and expensive unless you opt for a Magento eCommerce development company to build you a customizable solution

PWAs save time and money because it needs to be developed once – irrespective of the operating system or web browser.

Successful PWAs in the market

PWAs sound feasible from all aspects – financially, discoverability, usability. Many eCommerce brands have deployed the technology, two of which are:

1. OLX

PWA of global online marketplace OLX allows users to avail of a chat option for negotiating product prices, along with features such as Add to Cart, push notifications, and offline functionality. OLX managed to improve CTR by 146% and reduce bounce rates by 80%.

2. Trivago

The Germany-based hotel booking marketplace app launched a PWA a few years ago that comes with multilingual support and features like offline functionality, push, speed. With their PWA, Trivago increased user engagement and CTR by 150% and 97%, respectively.

PWA vs. native app – the choice is yours

When choosing between the two, you must decide what purpose you are planning to serve for your potential customers. Sure, a PWA can offer an app-like experience to consumers on mobile. If you just want that, then it makes no sense to invest resources in developing a native app.

However, if a PWA can’t add anything to your existing mobile app experience, or if you want a specific feature to be available on mobile and PWAs don’t support it, partner with a mobile commerce development company.

Do your research and see how having either of the two apps will impact your eCommerce store.

The Coronavirus outbreak is a global event which has changed the way companies do business. Never has physical commerce been impacted so much. That is why, all major industries and professionals are considering how they can use their online presence to make money even during quarantine. If you are wondering how your online business presence can help you during the Coronavirus, here is a short list:

5 Benefits of Getting an Online Business Presence During Coronavirus

1  Client/Customer Access

The first and most important benefit you get from having an online presence like an eCommerce website or app is client access. The simple fact that clients can get access to your services or products makes you a leader in the market. This is especially applicable during the Coronavirus lockdown where people cannot or do not want to do outside. If they need any kind of product or service, they will need to contact you. So, if you have an app, then you can expect to give them that. This naturally comes at an elevated cost and will grant you goodwill as well.

2  Ahead of the Competition

Moving ahead of the competition requires that you are able to develop your client outreach program. So, when you have a website or an app, then you can stay ahead of the competition in addressing client needs. This is a great way to build your online reputation and also give your business a boost when things are low. So, even if you do not have a website or app at the moment, you can quickly get one and this will give you a significant advantage over others.

3 Brand Recognition

Getting brand recognition is all about doing for your clients and customers what no other business can. When there is any kind of situation like a Coronavirus lockdown, your clients will definitely appreciate the services you give them. This will give you the ability to develop your business in more ways than one. For example, using the internet and online services, you can provide services to clients and even get them to promote your business for you.

4 Reliability

Getting a great app for your clients makes you a far more reliable business. So, while your competition loses business, you can get a far better reliability factor for yours. This is a great way to grow your business and earn goodwill value from your clients. Of course, if your website or app has a great interface, then this increases your reliability a lot. This will not just help you get the most from your business during the quarantine but also when business resumes as usual.

5 Big Revenue

The final yet very important part of getting a dedicated website or app for your business is the revenue it gets. This will be a great benefit in many ways and it may even let you 0grow your business. Naturally, you can achieve great gains even when the industry is slowed down or at a halt.

Should You Go Online with Your Business During the Coronavirus Outbreak?

The Coronavirus has impacted countless businesses worldwide. You can reduce the impact the outbreak has had on your business and can even give your business an edge over it. This is a great way to overcome the slowdown and keep your business running like normal. Plus, clients will definitely appreciate the extra step you take to help them when help is not available. Get a reliable website or app or both for your business and give it the edge it needs to overcome the Coronavirus!

Planning to set up a multi-store online presence? The most important step for that is to choose an effective and reliable eCommerce platform and that is none other than MobiCommerce.

It is rightly said that when you are considering something why not think big? Because a lot of them are typically taking a “one-size-fits-all” approach when it comes to online business. The competition of eCommerce sites is getting hotter day by day but unfortunately, there are very few who take the road less travelled i.e. the road of multi-store e-commerce.

What’s such a big deal about Multi-store e-commerce? 

Multi-store e-commerce is nothing but a combination of several shopping stores which can be managed from one admin panel which can be yours. Under the umbrella of your brand’s ownership, you can then run multiple storefronts, experimenting with multiple product lines, store designs, marketing strategies, segmented customer targeting, and much more, by assigning multiple administrators and staff to manage a specific store.

What will a multi-store ecommerce solution do for a business? 

It is quite natural to fear about taking such a step and opening a multi-store e-commerce solution than single e-commerce but, guess what? Opting for it is the best and smartest way to beat the competition in today’s market. Why? Because a multi-store ecommerce solution is no less than a jackpot.

The implementation of multiple online stores can benefit in several ways. First of all, since each storefront of yours will be promoting your brand, you will obtain a better online presence. To add more, greater visibility, higher traffic and conversions, wider customer base, global exposure, high ROI, the list goes on…… are some of the fruits you can enjoy.

Now, all of these can be possible only if your multi-store ecommerce solution is built right i.e. at the hands of the best ecommerce solution company because it all depends on how eligible it is to run multiple stores and attract multiple vendors as well as customers. To make that possible, you need someone who is a seasoned player in the field of ecommerce solutions services like MobiCommerce. You may ask why MobiCommerce? The following are the reasons;

Why Mobicommerce is Entitled to be the Best Multi-store E-commerce Solution?

Due to the extensive experience and expertise in developing innovative and promising e-commerce solutions for small and medium businesses across the globe, delivering the best quality work at the fastest turn-around time, MobiCommerce became the most sought out B2B and B2C E-commerce and M-commerce App Development Company.

The reason it also excelled in being the best multi-store ecommerce platform is because of its approach and set of tools and features it provides to set up a multi-store business which is as follows;

1. Excellent Storefront Features: Mobicommerce understands that every store owner desires to deliver an amazing user experience and gain 2X store revenue for which it offers customer-centric storefront features like mobile-friendliness, fully-tested Android and iOS branded native apps that can be used to send automatic B2C notifications and more, customer account creation through which a customer can view order history, update shipping addresses, access account information, and even review products and vendors from the dashboard, customer loyalty program, advanced product search and filtering, daily deals & gift cards, payment options like e-wallet and store credits, quick and easy social media log in, one-page checkout, e-mail and SMS notifications to keep customers updated, multi-vendor orders management, delivery time & date preferences and so on.

2. Marketing and Promotional Features: Mobicommerce allows each storefront to market and promote products with the cross-selling and up-selling feature. It is built with the most current SEO best practices that make the marketplace easily visible to the search engines. It allows you to set up gift coupons and discounts that customers can use on your website, web app, or mobile apps. Apart from that, social media sharing, mobile deep linking, push notifications, one-step checkout, related product recommendations are the other features which will make your multi-store e-commerce solution a star among the crowd.

3. Marketplace Owner Panel: Mobicommerce makes it easy for you to manage your multiple stores with an efficient admin panel which includes all necessary features like vendor management, commission management, advance vendor payout system, tax management, vendor ratings and reviews, order management and much more.

4. Vendor Panel Feature: Where each vendor of your marketplace will get a unique store to display and promote their products within your marketplace. Moreover, it also provides a dedicated dashboard using which each vendor of your marketplace can manage their store without any interferences. Other management features like vendor catalog and order control, vendor membership, accounts & MIS and more will keep your vendors happy and content.

5. Shipping and Payment: Mobicommerce marketplace comes with features that make shipping and payment easier to manage, including several automated features that save your time and money like real-time and manual shipping calculations, 3rd party payment integrations, logistics management, and multi-shipping options.

In short, it does not matter what kind of marketplace you have in mind, be it a generic, on-demand delivery, on-demand service, booking, or B2B multi-vendor marketplace, Mobicommerce knows what each one needs and serves features for all accordingly.

Conclusion

You will easily come across a lot of ecommerce development companies that offer a multi-store e-commerce solution but, you will get a complete omnichannel sales solution only from Mobicommerce. Everyone wishes for a feature-rich, customizable, scalable, and fully-tested marketplace with quick go-live ability which Mobicommerce fulfils smartly, efficiently and cost-effectively.

So, look no more if you want to attract customers, impress vendors, and optimize sales because Mobicommerce has already proved why it is the best ecommerce solution provider among the competitors and hence you must go for it.

Now that we have rung in the New Year, one thing is for sure – “mobile” is still very important for consumers and businesses alike! Let us tell you why:

• Google drives 90% of mobile search traffic.
• Users spend 86% of their time on mobile sites on an average with a majority of the time spent on gaming and social media.
• Google mobile app payments amounted to $700mn in just four years where its Pay service also paid a crucial role.

Mobile is now seen as the first digital touch with consumers. It is undoubtedly the new battleground for businesses, and eCommerce brands specifically are leveraging that in a significant way. They are continually looking for new ways to target and engage their customers.

That’s where Progressive Web Applications (PWAs) enter the picture.

Defining PWAs in an age of mobile commerce

(Source – https://www.applozic.com/blog/wp-content/uploads/2018/09/PWA.png)

Google introduced the PWA technology in 2015 with an aim to create an enhanced website with an app-like functionality, and thus combat the constant problem of app fatigue and poor app discover rates.

The technology is known for a gamut of benefits, including:

1) Improved loading experience

Mobile websites that take more than three seconds to load have already lost 53% of their traffic. To add to it, a 100-millisecond delay can cost 7% of the conversion rate on the website, and that is a number that businesses can’t ignore.

2) Active push notifications

The user gets notified on his or her device even when the progressive web application is not open in any browser. 2.7x more people are likely to open and click a push notification as compared to an email. The feature helps eCommerce brands lock in more conversions. Retail chains like Lancome and Starbucks are known for their excellent PWA-enabled sites. Ever browsed through them?

3) Better internet discoverability

The end goal for any business is to get discovered by their customers. A progressive web app is easily discoverable by search engines because it’s full of content and if appropriately optimized, a web app can fetch good search results.

4) Offline usage

(source – https://brooklynseo.nyc/wp-content/uploads/2019/01/web-design-brooklyn-cg-media-692×576.jpg

Whatever content is downloaded on the web app works even when the device is not connected to any Wi-Fi with the support of a Service Worker which is a script that the browser runs separately in the background. This means your customers can even access your PWA-enabled site in locations with spotty internet connectivity.

5) App-like navigation

The UX and UI of a PWA are similar to a mobile app, but here, you don’t need to search for it in the app store and download it to use it. It’s fully responsive and eliminates any lags or jerky transitions to ensure a smooth user interaction.

A PWA is served via HTTPS to ensure the web content isn’t tampered with and to prevent snooping.

How PWAs can help improve eCommerce SEO

(source – https://cdn-images-1.medium.com/max/1600/0*6lsqh6xg_UzpRs9A.png

PWAs leverage technologies like Service Workers, Cache API, Web App Manifests to provide a web experience similar to native mobile apps.

In the last two years, they have proven to get 50% higher conversions for eCommerce brands and helped to improve the customer experience on the web app.

Recommended blog: Why Progressive Web Apps Are Important for Businesses?

George.com, Alibaba, Jumia, eXtra, MakeMyTrip and Flipkart are some of the most popular global brands in the eCommerce industry to have launched a PWA-enabled website. Social sharing platform Pinterest observed an increase in engagement by 60% and a rise in user-generated revenue by 40%.

So how does a PWA affect SEO? In more ways than you can imagine.

1) If an eCommerce PWA, serving contents from multiple resources, uses rel=canonical tags, it avoids any content violations.

2) If a web app page is available through a specific URL that does not make use of any fragment identifiers (#), Google crawls that page often which further helps in search rankings.

3) To ensure that the content of each page on the web app is indexable, it is necessary to use the feature of server-side rendering (SSR). Google’s master tool called Fetch and Render tool tests how Google Bots see and index a page.

4) Since PWAS are identifiable as “apps” thanks to Service Workers and W3C Manifests, it helps search engines to find the progressive web applications better and faster.

5) The number of embedded resources on the pages of a web app is considerably less as compared to a desktop site. This helps in faster loading of the pages. No wonder PWAs load better and quicker!

What’s new in store for PWAs in 2019?

1) Apple has always remained fresh and at the top of their game. However, the tech giant chose to ignore PWAs, when they first came into the picture. However, things have changed and how. Now even iOS devices support the technology as Apple feels PWAs have stood the test of time.

2) Google states PWA compliance standards have secured a perfect score of 100%. According to Mobile Marketer, the mobile conversions of online retailer Luxmart doubled and reached 1.24% since the launch of their PWA-enabled website.

3) Now that major tech companies like Apple and Google are wholeheartedly adopting the technology, it has convinced web developers around the world to write the coding of web apps just once and then deploy to different sites.

Wrapping up

Progressive web apps for Android and iOS are in the making on a massive scale in 2019 – for various industries, and eCommerce is no exception.

MobiCommerce, a progressive web app builder, completely understands if your customers don’t find it easy to purchase your products, you are losing sales to competitors. You need to be where your customers are! We will build a responsive, SEO-optimized PWA for your eCommerce business that enables more consumers to find you easily.

Looking for a one-stop-solution commerce solution? Contact us today, and a member of our staff will reach out to you at the earliest to learn about your requirements.

The eCommerce industry in Saudi Arabia is booming. In 2017, online purchases worth USD 8mn were made on shopping websites and mobile applications. Females constitute a more significant part of the eCommerce customer base in the country at USD 1.7bn.

Don’t be surprised when the average spendings of an online shopper in Saudi Arabia reach SAR 2,405 in 15-18 months or when the number of eCommerce buyers in the country increases at a CAGR of 12.4% by 2020.

With Saudi Arabia taking pride in its higher connectivity rates, young working population, and advanced infrastructure, the day isn’t far when the country becomes the top online retailer in the Middle East.

The logistics and warehousing industry in Saudi Arabia: An overview

Currently, there are 12.94mn eCommerce shoppers in Saudi Arabia, and an additional 6.34mn users are expected to start shopping online by 2022. The statistic reveals that anywhere there are these many customers, the demand for robust logistics providers will be more.

Generally speaking, customers are picky by nature. They are spoiled for choice and have the liberty to choose the same product from five different online websites! Therefore, the delivery time plays a significant role for eCommerce businesses in engaging customers on a long-term basis.

The scenario in Saudi Arabia is no different. Since a large number of orders are placed on multiple eCommerce websites, we can’t help but wonder the state of logistics in the country.

Quite interestingly, Saudi Arabia is one of the fastest growing countries in the logistics and warehousing industry in the world and even managed to grab the 52nd spot in the World Bank Logistics ranking in 2016.

From the viewpoint of logistics, there are two types of deliveries that an eCommerce business offers:

A. Standard delivery takes about 6-7 days depending upon the pickup and drop-off location.

B. Express delivery services boast of a turnaround time of 24-72 hours depending upon the pickup and drop-off location.

In Saudi Arabia, the logistics sector has been dramatically influenced by the express facility offered by eCommerce businesses to their online shoppers.

Without further ado, let us take a look at the top three logistics service providers in the eCommerce industry in Saudi Arabia:

#1. DHL Express

#2. Pick Logistics

#3. SMSA Express

Over to you

Whether the eCommerce businesses should create an online store mobile app to track their deliveries or take external help, there are ways in which logistics can be handled and made more effective. And the logistics service providers, specializing in eCommerce, in Saudi Arabia are surely doing the right way.

B2B eCommerce is increasing with great pace worldwide. B2B companies are rapidly shifting from offline to online market as according to one recent survey B2B commerce is likely to reach a whopping amount of $1.1 trillion by 2020 in U.S. Companies today prefer buying from a website rather than buying from sales representatives. Owing to these statistics, marketers are inclining towards b2b online software solutions for smooth and impressive online presence.

Companies opt for those platforms that offer an improved eCommerce platform. There are numerous online wholesale eCommerce platforms such as Zencart, opencart and Magento etc. but not all options meet the demand of its customers.

Magento has been a most preferred platform for many B2C customers and with time the platform has expanded its functionality even in B2B sector. After serving incredibly to B2C customers the company has introduced its B2B modules with some unbelievable features that make it a comparably better eCommerce platform. The platform is specially designed to give an amazing onboarding and purchasing experience to the customers.

Top 10 features which make Magento a preferred technology for B2B eCommerce:

1. Flexible pricing: Pricing plays a very vital role in B2B commerce especially if you are dealing with wholesale customers price negotiation can be a headache for many. Magento saves you from endless email chains of discussing quotes. The customer can place their quote from their shopping cart which can be updated, changed or accepted by the seller. One can even set up email notification if any changes are made by the client with a specific quote. The stunning feature named Group Price in Magento Community enables merchants to show the price for all the products, but display different numbers and with the Tier Pricing feature price will be displayed as per the the volume of the products.

2. Targeted promotions: Magento allows you to apply your net marketing tricks by offering discounts and other services by accumulating customer’s information like location, age, shopping behaviour etc. This feature is focused to give your customer a personalized shopping experience.

3. SEO friendly: This feature makes it easy for users to discover their products. The search engine optimized eCommerce store ensures that customers are having an easy access to the products they are looking for. They make your shopping smooth by providing relevancy-based search options.

4. Easy to update: Developers find it easy to add pages to the website or update the pricing and products without any hindrance to others. Magento is an incredible online b2b eCommerce solution for wholesale merchants. Magento works 80% faster when it is about re-indexing. Adding any new product or category in the database will not cause obstruction in the running of eStore. Even if more than one person is updating the site information the changes will be updated unhindered.

5. Simplified re-ordering: Magento makes it easier for those customers who make purchases repetitively. Yes, it is very important in B2B commerce to give personalized shopping experience to your customer for a long-term relationship. Magento offers a requisition list that allows clients to edit and manage their previous purchases. They are grouped for better management and status tracking on a weekly or monthly basis.

6. Anti-fraud: To avoid any fraudulent activity in your b2b eCommerce software online we have to choose to connect to fraud protection solutions but Magento has made it easier for us by providing a feature of built-in fraud protection solution in collaboration with Signifyd. The most important role this solution plays is the chargeback guarantee. They reimburse any fraudulent activity that was processed in our store.

7. Updated version: Magento does not rely on old technologies. It supports PHP 7.1 which is one of the latest versions of this programming language along with MySQL 5.7 for database needs and Varnish 5 which is also a latest caching technology. The latest and updated version of Magento also allows you to make changes in the appearance and themes without making any changes to their backend. The innovative and latest technology of Magento aims to provide stable and reliable b2b commerce software solution for wholesale.

9. Multiple Administrator Roles for Different Websites: You can run multiple eStores with the single administrative dashboard. Yes, it is true with Magento you can access multiple eCommerce websites without revealing your information to anyone and it also provides a facility of content management and multi-manager benefits.

10. Secure payments: The biggest concern of any eCommerce site is to make way for secured payments. Magento keeps all the crucial information related to your customers secure and ensures that your clients go through absolutely protect payment procedure.

Conclusion:

Magento, b2b eCommerce software online is a boon to eStores as its incredible features ensure that the client gets an amazing and smooth shopping experience. The software has tried its best to overcome all the hindrance that is experienced while online shopping. This b2b online solution has made it easier for merchants to enter the online industry and explore the worldwide market.

In numerous regards, the Middle East is a market on the move. This incorporates the web-based business part, which has just started to make its mark as the area’s economies hope to expand far from petrochemicals to more supportable ventures. Generally speaking, there is a considerable measure of guarantee for eCommere mobile app business in the Middle East, with Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates setting up the layout for maintainable plans of action that different nations will hope to imitate.

Over the most recent few years, business visionaries over the Middle East have propelled new items, organizations, and have demonstrated the likelihood of making a dynamic startup scene like Europe and the United States. New companies from the locale have indicated extraordinary growth. A case for this is the ongoing securing of Souq, an internet business player that got gained by Amazon for nearly $800 million. Another prominent exit from this area is Talabat which was procured by Delivery Hero based out of Germany. As indicated by a report distributed by MAGNiTT, a research agency, more than $870 million worth of resources were put into Middle Eastern new companies a year ago and each organization raised more than $500k independently. eCommerce business, be that as it may, is a significant area in which new companies can do considerably more to fill the hole in the market. This is exactly why numerous entrepreneurs are all set for creating free eCommerce apps for the users to explore the market.

As per an ongoing report by Gulf Pinnacle Logistics (GPL) prior to 2018, the nation’s web based business showcase is relied upon to develop at a rate of 7.2 percent for every annum to reach $23.7bn by 2022. Also, the terrifically vital last-mile delivery market is relied upon to grow upto two-folds in size to $3.4bn by 2022.

Having more internet business players accessible, in any case, will urge all to enhance their contributions no matter how you look at it, as none will want to be abandoned. This unmistakable difference is a glaring difference to the situation a while ago, when a total deficiency of choices made the whole procedure – from item choice to delivery – horrendously moderate and frequently muddled. It currently appears as if the area’s eCommerce business players have arrived at a similar end and are secured a race-to-the-end fight as they attempt to lure the dependable customers into buying their products via their mobile store eCommerce app.

It is generally realized that the adjustment and infiltration of the Internet in the Middle East is high, essentially higher than the worldwide and not long behind the US and European locales. As opposed to this, local organizations’ appropriation of web based shopping has generally been fairly low. From the details introduced by PayPal and other research directed in the district, one can obviously distinguish the requirement for more nearby organizations to grasp eCommerce all the more truly. Right now, there is a genuine absence of professionally executed shopping cart app development that will ingrain trust in the online viewers and convert them into online customers. Organizations need to put more into their advanced directs, keeping in mind the end goal to partake and bear the product of this eCommerce development which is at last occurring in this locale.

For as far back as three years,an expedient development with numbers multiplying every year has been observed. Today, 15% of physical retailers in the GCC are on the web. This number will change drastically inside the following year as stages are making it simpler for retailers and littler organizations to bounce on the web-based business fad rapidly and cost adequately.

In spite of the fact that our viewpoint for web-based business is educated, to some degree, by the accessibility of online installment stages, it is essential to take note of the cash-on-delivery system in quite a bit of Asia and expansive parts of Latin America. Albeit such installments acquire extra taking care of expenses and need security, online business suppliers will keep offering these alternatives, especially in wilderness markets, for example, Iraq and Iran. The last has a vast, energetic and well-to-do purchaser market and a significant interest for premium apparel and buyer electronic products is anticipated to rise in the last piece of the 2016-2020 conjecture. Internet business suppliers entering these business sectors will see a long haul requirement for cash-on-delivery frameworks, enabling one to estimate a solid development – though from a low base – in these nations.

Conclusion:

With this advancement, organizations cannot afford to overlook versatility. eCommerce mobile app business has considerably more potential in the Middle East because of the high cell phone and tablet infiltration, with cell phones being the most widely recognized method of association with the web.

When it comes to online shopping, visualization that comes in mind is about individualwho is buying products from Amazon, ebay or Flipkart right? But ecommerce industry is not limited to that only in this technology-driven era.

Businesses have also started doing commerce online. Businesses selling to other businesses via ecommerce platform known as B2B ecommerce are performing great.

It means Wholesalers, Manufacturers and Distributors are selling to retailers, suppliers online. This is about direct B2B model. Just like B2C, B2B also offers ecommerce marketplace platform.

B2B ecommerce product demo

Surprising fact is that though less popular and recently arise, B2B Ecommerce industry is double the size of B2C ecommerce!

Flexfire LEDs is one such brand which receives 80% of its revenue from B2B sales.

It is forecasted that global B2B ecommerce revenue will top $6.7 trillion by 2020.

73% of B2B millennial are involved into purchasing decision that has different mind-set and preferences for buying. And thus it’s necessity for businesses to be available at the places where their clients are. (Reference: forrester.com)

So are you ready to accommodate next wave of B2B ecommerce?

Running a B2B ecommerce channel is inherently more complex than traditional B2C ecommerce. B2B clients need extra functionality and personalization than B2C.

It can easily be overcome by modern B2B ecommerce platform.

Let’s review B2B ecommerce Software features to get sustainable growth –

1. Custom Pricing Feature –

In B2B commerce, you have different pricing structure for different customers according the volume of business; order quantity, product type etc. Here the customers can also request for custom quote.

B2B ecommerce platform provides such functionality to handle whatever complex pricing structure your businesses have.

2. Custom Bulk Discount –

It has the feature to offer you bulk discount functionality in order to attract bulk purchase and develop customer loyalty ultimately enhancing business relationship. It also determines Minimum Order Quantity (MOQ) to set your margins and make you remain profitable.

3. Customer Profiling –

Personal customer storefront would be given with single and multiple accounts where they need to register and submit their info. It also enables to give specific roles and access to particular user.

Based on the customer profile, custom order quantity, discounts, price, MOQ, payment terms etc. would be determined. Also, it will allow you to offer custom catalogues, one click reordering, personalised promotions and order tracking facility.

4. Convenient Payment Mode

It offers you multiple and flexible online payment mode along with selected days credit facility that is accommodated in your ecommerce store itself. It helps in improving reordering and managing customer loyalty.

5. Omni-Channel Presence

Responsive, fully customised and scalable ecommerce platform solutions including website, mobile apps, and web apps for your B2B ecommerce is to give comfort and ease to your client at your virtual store. Client can access their profile from anywhere from any devices. User Interface in B2B is as important as it is in B2C.

6. Integrated Marketing features

In-built marketing feature to enhance your sales made possible with timely reminders, notifications, personalised offers and discounts and many more. Search engine friendly solution to fulfill your desire.

So, this platform offers end-to-end solution reduces human resource efforts. Sales reps in this case are to assist clients and perform consultative role rather than manual paper work.

Benefits of B2B Ecommerce Platform:

More Online attention

Saves Time and Money of both

More valuable business relationship

Convenient mode of promotion

Customised, flexible and transparent business treatment

Develops new idea for business relations

Improved Customer Loyalty

So, what are you waiting for? Scale-up your B2B commerce by uplifting it to online with the help of B2B ecommerce platform!

New trend in e-commerce shopping in these days is all about making the purchase online via e-commerce website and mobile application but instead of home delivery get your goods picked-up from the store location – a concept known as Buy Online, Pick-up In-Store – BOPIS.

Why to “Buy Online & Pick-up In-store”?

BOPIS Concept is the combination of two different mode of shopping i.e. online shopping and offline shopping. Each has its own wins and pitfalls. Online Shopping offers ease of shopping from the comfort of our home, convenient access, you can order at anytime from anywhere from the device of your choice. You also can make the research about the market, products and pricing and then determine the seller to choose and platform to buy from all this without going out of your home.

Online ecommerce sites does provides the ease in product availability by delivering it at your doorstep but here one also has to wait for few days to get it delivered and doesn’t work well when you’re in quick need. Also, it charges handsome bucks for shipping at your doorstep. Offline mode could be convenient in this sense but it asks for sheer waste of time in looking for the product in store, standing in queue for billing etc. Buy Online and Pick up in-store will help you to overcome the disadvantages of both the platform by allowing you to shop online and get your goods picked-up quickly from store without wasting your time with ready package and dedicated Pick-up stores.

How BOPIS works?

There are lot many companies who have implemented the concept in very well manner and is doing successful.

Here, in this new trending concept called BOPIS, customers can search for the products they want online either on company websites, mobile application or at marketplaces. When Customer goes to any particular e-commerce site and searches for the required product it showcase the product images, features, product contents, cost etc at the first stage. Customer then decides the product they want to buy and clicks on ‘BUY’ to make order of it. At check-out process one has to fill the details regarding payment method, mode of delivery etc. So, at the mode of delivery step while doing check out one finds the option for “Pick-up In store” . For the one who wants to pick-up the products from the store can select that option and specify the conveneint sore from where they’ll pick-up the goods. Here, the products that are available for Pick-in store mode will show ‘Pick-up in-store’ option at check-out process. Once the order is made with BOPIS, the retailer arranges for the product from the inventory and makes the product ready in very few hours say 2 to 3 hours of purchase made and once it is ready for the delivery they sends email notification to the customer with the subject called “product is ready for pick-up” specifying the store location. Customers can then visit and collect the product by showcasing their ID proof and the email. As simple as that!

IKEA, one such example for BOPIS –

(Image Source – IKEA)

Excited about In-store Pick-up facility? There are lot many reasons that people chooses BOPIS concept are –

• Same Day Pick-up Alternative

With this alternative, you can get the Products on the same day and avoid 2-3 days of extra time to get it delivered at home. Very helpful when you’re in urgent need of the product and couldn’t wait for product delivery!

• No Shipping Cost

According to the research, 65% of people choose this method to avoid heavy shipping fees. This is mostly chosen by the ones having pick-up stores near to their location.

• Ease of return

Customers can view and check the products at Pick-up store, if it’s not as expected or not fitting to the requirement then one can have the option to return it at the store itself. This reduces the extra efforts of applying for return online and transit time taken by executive to pick-up and exchange if any.

• Convenient mode of Pick-up

It is easy for the people to pick-up the product in very few minutes enabling quick purchase of products. Nearby locations made them to choose this alternative. 29% of people said that they chose this alternative because of convenience.

• Attractive discounts for in-store purchase

Omni-channel sellers offer attractive discounts to customers to shop from in-store. When customer select in store pick-up they tend to get more discounts or gift vouchers, entice shoppers to choose it.

BOPIS Trend and Forecast –

The concept at its infancy level tends to grow faster with the high ratio of people willing to accept the new trend.

(Image Source: Nielsen)

Essentials to excite customers for BOPIS –

Customers will choose the alternative only if they’ll get benefitted from it considering all the aspects. What essential factors are there which e-commerce owners have to give importance for smooth In-store pick-up mode?

• Dedicated Pick-up store facility
• Quick In and Out process
• No waiting time
• Designated Parking slots
• Signage and guidelines for Pick-up
• Ease of locating pick-up

Walmart is one such store provides great In-store pick-up facility to customers. It has separate pick-up store with quick signage and guidelines. It does provide dedicated parking slots to customers that allow reducing time in transit.

If the normal retailer store and pick-up store would be same, it will take as much time as one can take for shopping in-store. That will not give any benefit. There should be different departments for each section for ease. So to improve more in-store pick-up, retailers must have to maintain this with consistency.

To name a few – Target, Mecy’s, Home Depot, Lowe’s are performing very well and catch-up the trend.

Challenges in availing In-store Pick-up:

Retailers will definitely get benefitted with the new model if planned very well. Such concept is getting failures due to

• Poor Implementation
• Lack of Local Pick-up stores
• Hassles in in-store pick-up

Staff with lack of training and support leaves very bad impression on customers. This leads towards dissatisfaction.

Stores need to manage and integrate Online and offline inventory in order to make the process ease. With most of the products not available with this option force buyers skip this alternative. There should also be integration among nearby stores in order to fulfill the shoppers need. Finding improper implementation leads towards failure.

It is tough for e-commerce stores who have the warehouses only and not offline store purchase facility. They need to build offline store, if not pick-up store to provide this facility takes time and of course need the investment.

The concept would be annoying for –

• It is not suitable for the shoppers who want goods to be delivered at their preferred location; there are 82% such people
• Do not have pick-up store nearby
• Products not available in local store

On the other hand, the concept is very helpful to the one who face challenges in driving traffic to the offline store. Based on the survey, it was identified that people tend to buy something extra while going for in-store pick-up increases sales. There are retailers offering huge discounts to shoppers choosing in store pick-up. Increased in-store footfalls will definitely enrich the sales ratio.

In nutshell

It is a decisive role to be performed by e-commerce owners to convert customers integrating both the channel. Definitely giving benefits to both the parties involved, it requires great planning and execution to create enriching experience and lead towards success. Enjoy buying online with your most convenient mode and overcome its drawbacks with In-store Pick-up mode.

Commercial activities made by business with other business via electronic commerce platform stands for B2B eCommerce. Considering the statistics, it is forecasted that the Global B2B ecommerce industry will top around $6.7 trillion by 2020. This determines the scope and trends in B2B segments now-a-days.

Considerable amount of businesses are using this platform and many more to join the pace because the benefits is provide is highly recognizable.

Benefits of B2B eCommerce Platform:

• Functionality for self-service
• High level of scalability
• Custom pricing
• Custom quote
• Flexible payment options
• Ease in reordering
• Mobile commerce
• Omni-channel support
• PCI security

All these have force businesses to match with the trend in order to boost the sales.

Surprising fact about B2B ecommerce is that though recently arises and less popular, it is double the size of B2C e-commerce. There are various advance platforms over which you can build your B2B e-commerce multi-channel systems.

In this Infographic, you’ll learn about trends and statistics of B2B Ecommerce industry and software solution which includes the importance of this platform, why it is in trends, countries having high demand of this platform, B2B sector industrial trends, platforms used to build the platform and lot more. Read, learn and share to empower the sector.

Launch of Apple Siri had initiated the trends of Voice Search. But after the launch of few more such products like Amazon Echo, Alexa, Cortana, Google Assistant etc., it has given a fuel to market rise. With the heavy acceptance of such voice assistance in US, marketers have also taken up the challenge to beat the new rising mode of shopping.

Glance at statistics

Gartner predicted that, “by 2018 30% of the interactions will be based on Voice Search”, search strategies will be adapted in next 12 month.

According to Comscore, “50% of all searches will be voice searches by 2020”.

 

Voice Search and E-commerce –

Voice search has enabled quick search alternative. You can just speak out and your voice assistant will help you finding the stuffs you’re looking for. It’s also available on your desktop, mobile, TV and tablets.

The technology is rising and will have great impact on various industries like ecommerce app and website development. Days are not far when you’ll add items to your cart with voice shopping! In the coming years, Voice search assistant will directly interact with ecommerce platforms and look for the products you’ve searched; it will show the comparative results to you!

Recommended Blog: How Artificial Intelligence (AI) Implications Transforming the Face of Ecommerce

Business owners now need to make efforts for voice search in order to stay on top of the mind. Content in this case as well makes the importance.

There will be VOICE APPS soon that will interact with voice to have easy mode of communication without any interference. Few companies have already stepped into it by providing voice apps.

Amazon’s Alexa, Echo can help you out to place order on Amazon via voice search technology and make perfect end to end shopping experience.

Walmart has partnered with Google to enable Voice shopping even more affordable. Yet the current structure of voice search is far below compare to what it is expected to grow.

How to optimize site for Voice Search?

So, to match the trends and to be available on SERPs, Business entrepreneurs need to make efforts to optimize their sites for voice search.

Tips to Optimize sites for voice search –

• Optimize for questions

While voice searching, its general tendency that people asks questions to get answers. Here in voice search people won’t speak the way they type keywords in text based search. So, optimize your site for questions that people generally used to ask.

E.g. Voice search – where is Mexican restaurant near me?

Text search – Mexican restaurant near me

While speaking, people generally starts with why, where, what, best, good etc.

Publish question based blogs, testimonials or FAQs in order to be on top in SERPs.

• Use Natural Language

Voice search will be led by natural language processing technology because people will tend to speak in normal routine language during voice search.

Your ecommerce store should be able to understand and reply to natural language used by people. Try adding general terms, product titles and showcase such way that they respond to query placed in natural language. Add natural language to your site content.

• 

• Optimize for long-tail keywords

The content search by voice would of course be longer than what it is in text based search. And thus you need to optimise your site for long-tail keywords as well to match with voice trends.

We are coming back to the era when people used to type long questions to search.

• Local Search Optimization

As voice search is 3X time more likely to be local due to instant shopping need, local search optimization will enable sites to be on top of search result page and to yield best outcome.

Make sure that you appear locally as well on Google by adding your business profile, business timings, delivery time etc. to be found local and provide accurate details. Schema mark-up helps to achieve rich and structured data in order to provide detailed product information.

Tips to integrate voice controlled strategy into your ecommerce –

• Product Information in natural language
• Consistency across channel
• Analysing customer behaviour
• Plan your Voice Search pattern

To conclude

2018 is may be the year for ‘Voice Search’ rise. E-commerce industry will be transform by the changed search pattern of consumers. Thee technology enhancement driving towards the change is accepted highly becauseit is consumer friendly, quick and also hands-free technology. You can shop while doing other tasks! So, let’s wait for Comscore’s prediction to be true when 50% of consumers will use voice search.