While retail sales have been growing at a rate of 5% to 6% per year, online retail sales have been generating an annual growth of 25%. Last year was no exception, with online sales growing 25.9% to $136.2 billion. For myself, having been in this industry for so long, it is very easy to identify the types of E-Commerce sites that are going to be successful and the ones that are going to struggle to capitalize. It takes a strong commitment from a site owner to keep up to date with the latest trends both from a design and a functionality standpoint.

 

What are users looking for
A potential online customer has a lot of options in the websites they choose to order from. A poor design and a backend payment system tied to PayPal will not instill confidence. Users want a website with a smooth navigation, intuitive search capabilities, lots of product details, personalized tools, and a quick checkout process. A recent study of online retailers indicated 60.3% of merchants redesigned their E-Commerce sites in the past year. The key is the willingness to spend the time and effort to improve. Don't sit back, because even the big gorillas in the industry find ways each day to improve their processes.

 

Enterprise results with a small business budget
Take a quick gander at some popular E-Commerce based websites; let's say officedepot.com, cdw.com, llbean.com, victoriasecret.com and sears.com. That's a pretty diverse mixture of sites. What do they all have in common? For one thing, there's the look. These sites each have a strong brand identity with a slick design. You'll also notice that they're all extremely easy to use. They have speedy page downloads and intuitive navigations. Getting to the products and learning about the details is extremely easy. Finally, their features sets are top notch. Users are guided along in the process, being offered suggestions and amenities. Ok, so we know they're good, but they probably have limitless budgets! The key is how to get an enterprise solution like this on a small business budget. We spent a lot of time thinking about this over the last couple years at core3.

 

What we came up with is a full scale E-Commerce product that is scalable, flexible, and offers features that modern business demands. Integration of our e-commerce system incorporates powerful capabilities that make management of your store, including products, orders and customers, easier than ever before.

 

Our ability to customize and accommodate special needs is also much greater, due to the fact that our E-Commerce platform was developed completely in-house. This gains a competitive advantage by allowing your store to match the look and feel established by the marketing-based sections of your site, helping to build confidence in your online offerings.

Build it and they will come?
It is important to get rid of this line of thinking. A better saying might be 'build it really well, market it really well, and then they will come'. We've seen too many sites that spend their entire budget to get themselves online and then wonder where the results are. That was a top priority when we set out to develop our E-Commerce solution. We wanted the integration costs to be low enough that a small business could still afford to budget for marketing.

 

The core3 E-Commerce solution was also designed with search engine optimization methods in mind, making your site appear higher in natural search results. Category and product names are automatically inserted in page titles, META tags, and URLs, making your online store pages very attractive to search engine spiders, especially Google. A recent Shop.org and Forester Research study showed search engines remain the top source of online customers, generating 30% of new customers.

Core 3 Solutions has over a decade of industry experience with developing effective systems for the management of online sales channels and can help you every step of the way. You'll quickly realize how easy it can be to reach out to new customers. For additional details, call us at 248-530-1000 or complete the request a quote form.