Social Media Planning for Web Store

ECommerce has given an additional platform for consumers to search products, access product information, read product reviews and recommendations, compare prices, get best deals and finally make purchases. Howbeit, eCommerce is a technology designed, developed and implemented to ease the purchasing process.

However, since the products are going to be utilized by the customers, from here the social media comes into the whole picture. This platform gives consumers a medium to interact with others, share their views about various things, make social circle and recommend about specific things.   

       

Lately, webmasters are using this social media channel to offer an additional space to consumers for making well-informed decisions about their purchases. Online marketers are keeping a tab to get deeper insights on the social media activities of their consumers. They are stepping further by searching ways to utilize the social media data and highlight those items or services that are most recommended/reviewed.

Following points will help in growing online community & increasing the traffic to the web store:

Content Posting: Posting content on a regular basis helps online retail shopping cart owners to engage customers for a longer duration. Online customers’ response differently to different types of content postings like textual or image or any video. Additionally, the frequency of the postings also helps in checking the engagement levels with the web store.

Integrating social media buttons: A consistent postings on the social media channel likely results in getting more likes. The best way to increase the number of likes is integrating social media buttons in your web store. This not only serves as an additional platform, but also offers various information regarding the items or services, their reviews and first hand user experience of the products/ services.

Best price deals on social media: Offering the best price deal or deal of the week or an exclusive offer on social media sites drives more traffic to the eCommerce shopping cart. These are the very basic call to action contents. Twitter gives the functionality to display information about pre-sales or any preferred customers’ specials. Facebook gives the flexibility to run contests and any campaigns.

Sift negative feedbacks: Feedbacks are a very strong medium and if used properly, it offers the chance to enhance the overall productivity by streamlining the different processes. Webmasters need to be agile to sift-out the negative feedbacks. Feedbacks with negative impressions possess a ripple effect which discourages the social media community to opt for particular item or services.

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Making Your Online Store Stand Out

The global eCommerce sales, forecasted by eMarketer, are going to reach $ 1.2 trillion by the end of year 2013. This makes it very clear for retailers that it’s not going to be an optional marketing channel. The capability of eCommerce to cross the locational barriers and reaching the national & international customers has allowed the online retailers to opt for this channel. Retailers, worldwide, are encashing on this fad. 

The easy & cheap availability of technology, the technological innovation, pervasive internet technology  and access to  the untapped markets has led a flurry in the eCommerce industry where every retailer tries to carve his niche in the market. However,  whittling  and establishing your online business in this fast changing online space is the real nuisance for many online retailers. 

Additionally, the efficacy of the nuisances related to managing the online web stores are more coarse as compared to managing physical stores. The competition in this online space is much similar an offline physical market and the deciding factors for continuous growth are whipping out the small online retailers. 

The free or easy availability of over the counter eCommerce solutions has helped many retailers to establish their online store and letting them to manage front and back-end of the web store. Customization of any type in the online retail shopping cart to improve the overall efficiency gives higher customer experience and comprehensive centralized control of the online store. The technological innovation in eCommerce industry such as the application of social media and mobile communication devices are indispensable to make your web store noticeable in the industry.

The following points will give you an idea about the making your web store look unique among  your peers:

Tailoring to distinguish: Pre-designed, over the counter eCommerce shopping carts comes with a lacuna of inability to accommodate any tweaks to fit in custom requests. For illustration, personalize products feature is a new characteristic that is difficult to accommodate in off-the-shelf eCommerce platforms.  This feature can be used to incise your identity in any products. Any associated video showing the customization result in the product will effectively influence and enhance the customer satisfaction. 

Higher Control & Functionally: A hosted eCommerce shopping cart softwares suites more to those online retailers who are not much technology savvy. This type of arrangement is meant for transferring the web store’s control to the eCommerce solution provider company so that they can focus on more business-oriented processes.

Here are two points which should be taken care of are that the online retailers, before opting for such hosted arrangement, should check the type of services provided by the eCommerce company and the level & type of control and authority given to eCommerce solution providers. ECommerce companies usually handle the various aspects of eCommerce operations like order management, data feed management, hosting services, security management and web store optimization services. Online retailers should check whether the customization services are included in the agreement or not.

Handing over the important functions of web store management may jeopardize the overall control & authority of the web store.

Innovative application: Digitization of the new innovative marketing channels has given the online retailers an ability to make their web stores more interactive & personalized. They should have to utilize the reports generated data from order management, inventory management, overall marketing and social media. 

Any trends displayed in such reports may indicate particular interests and interactions and it should be used for offering custom rewards or offers or any gift certificates.

The eCommerce platform should be flexible enough to integrate extensions, plug-ins and various modules to offer a unique browsing, transacting and moreover sharing the shopping experience with others.

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