Ecommerce Bespoke Development

Your website should be as good, if not better, than one of your sales people with all their retained knowledge and experience.

Things to consider for effective ecommerce trading:

Search and Selection: Once on the site it should be easy for your customers to browse for products. This is achieved by having your entire catalogue stored and indexed in a database which can be searched using any number of variables like size, shape, colour, brand name or range. If products can be found quickly and easily you will make a sale. If not, you risk losing a customer altogether.

Cross Selling / Up selling: Show your customers the full picture by bringing together complementary products. So, if a product requires batteries, show batteries on the same page. And if an item has been superseded; there is a better equivalent or it comes in different sizes; make the customer aware of these options. By becoming a ‘one-stop-shop’ you reduce the reasons a customer has to look elsewhere making you more likely to close the sale.

Sales Order integration: Having a website that is fully integrated with all your business systems ensures that once an order is completed it goes ‘live’ in the fulfilment system. Meaning it can be picked, packed and dispatched immediately. The benefits of this are clear – faster delivery times, no duplication of orders, no re-keying of information and continuous data validation.

Live stock levels: Your ecommerce website should link into your company’s accounting and  stock management system. This way you can ensure that live stock levels always appear and that if items are out of stock customers can be automatically told when they will be re-stocked or ‘back orders’ taken with expected delivery times.

Top Product Lines: People tend to follow trends. So, if you know what your best selling lines are then let your B2B customers know about them. They will not want to miss out on stocking potentially profitable lines. Likewise if you display your ‘hot buys’ prominently on your site then your consumer buyers are more likely to click through and buy there and then.

Repeat Business: Encouraging that all important return trade is where an ecommerce website will pay dividends. Do this by making it easy for the customer to buy again. For instance, if you sell a product which will be used in a particular amount of time, why not send the customer a replacement reminder via e-mail which takes them straight to your site and populates their basket for them? Storing card details and tracking previously ordered items makes shopping with you even easier. These little prompts will hopefully mean your customer need never go elsewhere to shop.

Specific Pricing: Websites can now be built with integral intelligence when it comes to product pricing. Depending on a customer’s log-in validation i.e. whether they are retail or wholesale, the website can automatically load the correct pricing structure for the customer. This can also apply to seasonal or quantity driven purchase discounts. This means the customer only ever sees information relevant to them.

“You might also like”: In a shop environment it is always possible to bring new and complementary products and lines to a customer’s attention. Showing them what is new in stock can immediately increase the value of a sale through impulse purchases. Your virtual shop should be no different. Highlighting exciting new stock items is easy and should be a must-have function for all ecommerce sites.

Bright Matter know what makes an ecommerce website effective. Let us discuss with you your particular trade to advise on what functionality will suit your consumers or wholesale customers. Contact us.