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Thefirst ecommerce sale是在1994年制造的……你能猜出那是什么吗?

It was a Sting CD.

Dan Kohn, a 21-year-old who ran a website called NetMarket, sold Sting’s十个召唤师的故事CD to a friend who purchased it with his credit card for $12.48 plus shipping costs. These exchanges are what we know as ecommerce today: Sales of services and goods made through the internet.

Download Now: Ecommerce Marketing Plan Template

自1994年以来,电子商务已经走了很长一段路,随着越来越多的购物者转向设备和计算机作为发现和购买新产品的主要工具,它正在增长。

让我们更深入地了解什么是电子商务以及围绕它的增长趋势,以及一些基本入门技巧。

Guide to Ecommerce

In this section, we'll review the many benefits of ecommerce, major ecommerce trends, types of ecommerce, and sales tax.

电子商务的好处

Ecommerce is not a trend, and it isn’t going away any time soon. Why? Selling goods and services on the internet highly benefits both the seller and the buyer.

Benefits to the buyer:

  • 方便
  • Quicker and easier transactions
  • Informed purchasing decisions
  • 更容易的价格和产品比较
  • Improved delivery process
  • Targeted communication

卖方的好处:

  • Lower overhead costs due to the elimination of brick and mortar locations
  • The ability to sell goods around-the-clock (versus traditional store hours)
  • Ability to reach customers beyond geographical location
  • More control over the selling process and tracking, especially if there’s one portal that handles point-of-sale (POS)
  • 通过SEO对潜在客户的可见性更大
  • More control over personnel costs and inventory management

电子商务趋势

最大的trend around ecommerceright now is growth — and that growth extends far and wide.

1.美国 Ecommerce生长

Ecommercehas seen tremendous growth within the U.S. in the last 10 years. In fact, data from theU.S. Department of Commerce shows在2017年,美国 ecommercesales grew faster than it had since 2011 and that it represented 49% of the growth in total retail sales. That growth trend isn’t slowing down, either.Statista data预测,美国实物商品的在线零售销售预计将在2024年达到近4765亿美元。

2。Global Ecommerce生长

Global ecommerce也快速增长。Emarketertrend data indicates that retail ecommercesales may exceed $4.058 trillion by as soon as 2020. As more shoppers look for products across borders and from international marketplaces, an uptick in ecommercesales is evident around the globe.

3。Ecommerce按类别增长

ComScoredata indicates there are a few particular industries seeing rapid change in regard to retail ecommerce生长。珠宝和手表 曾是at the top of the growth chart (as of 2016) with 39% growth, followed by furniture, appliances, and equipment (26%), and video games/accessories (24%).

Lastly, let's review the three types of ecommerce.

电子商务有三个分类。分类取决于谁卖给谁。

1。Business to Business (B2B)

商品和服务从一家公司出售给另一家公司。bob全站app例如,HubSpot为希望增长更好的其他公司提供产品。

2。Business to Consumer (B2C)

A business sells to a customer. This is one of the most common types of ecommerce. An example would be an online clothing store or the online segment of some popular brick and mortar business, like Walmart or Target.

3。Consumer to Consumer (C2C)

As you may have guessed — consumers sell directly to consumer via online marketplaces. Craigslist, Ebay, and Amazon are all examples of C2C ecommerce.

Sales Tax for Your Online Store

Now, you might be worried about how sales tax should be incorporated into your online sales. Let’s look at a state-by-state breakdown of sales tax. There are five states that do not currently collect sales tax: Delaware, Oregon, Montana, New Hampshire, and Alaska.

按州销售税

State

Tax Rate

Alabama

4。00%

阿拉斯加州

0.00%

亚利桑那

5。60%

Arkansas

6.50%

California

7.25%

Colorado

2.90%

Connecticut

6.35%

Delaware

0.00%

Florida

6.00%

乔治亚州

4。00%

夏威夷

4。00%

爱达荷州

6.00%

伊利诺伊州

6.25%

印第安纳州

7.00%

爱荷华州

6.00%

堪萨斯州

6.50%

Kentucky

6.00%

Louisiana

5。00%

Maine

5。50%

Maryland

6.00%

Massachusetts

6.25%

Michigan

6.00%

Minnesota

6.875%

Mississippi

7.00%

密苏里州

4。225%

Montana

0.00%

内布拉斯加州

5。50%

Nevada

6.85%

New Hampshire

0.00%

新泽西州

6.625%

新墨西哥

5。125%

New York

4。00%

North Carolina

4.75%

North Dakota

5。00%

Ohio

5。75%

Oklahoma

4.50%

Oregon

0.00%

宾夕法尼亚州

6.00%

Rhode Island

7.00%

South Carolina

6.00%

南达科他州

4.50%

Tennessee

7.00%

德克萨斯州

6.25%

犹他州

5。95%

Vermont

6.00%

Virginia

5。30%

华盛顿

6.50%

West Virginia

6.00%

威斯康星州

5。00%

Wyoming

4。00%

华盛顿

5。75%

Source: Based on 2018 Data. Refer to State's Department of Revenue for up-to-date rates.

Now that we've reviewed some ecommerce basics, let's review the steps you should consider following if you're looking to launch an online business.

当您遵循上述步骤并建立在线商店时,请牢记电子商务营销和网站的以下最佳实践。

Ecommerce营销最佳实践

您需要知道什么marketing for an ecommercebusiness? Here are a few best practices that can help jumpstart your efforts.

1.测试社交媒体广告。

With11.8亿日常活跃用户,Facebook的观众可以被轻拍。考虑通过社交媒体帖子和视频来定位您的受众,并实验以查看最有效的方法,并驱动销售和收入。

2。Collect email addresses and stay in touch.

Recent data表明,四分之三的公司同意电子邮件营销为“良好”投资提供“优秀”。通过在现场收集电子邮件地址并要求客户选择从您的未来沟通中,您可以为访客提供一个理由继续回到您的 ecommercesite again and again via offers, sales, VIP discounts, and more.

3。Use personalization to tailor offers/messaging.

个性化对于在线购物者而言,比以往任何时候都重要。实际上,研究shows 74% of online consumers get frustrated with websites when offers, ads, and promotions appear that have nothing to do with their interests.

确保您利用个性化的产品建议,个性化您的电子邮件营销工作,并通常努力使每个客户都像您说话一样onlyto him or her.

4。Gather feedback via surveys.

The best way to keep a finger on the pulse of what your audience wants is to ask them. Leverage online surveys to gather feedback on everything from product to your marketing efforts to customer service interactions.

5。Choose ecommerce software that helps you meet your needs and goals.

You may be wondering how to make sure you choose the right ecommerce software for your specific business. Here are some tips.

How to Choose the Best Ecommerce Software

When searching for the best ecommerceplatform and software- 例如ecommerce website builder—to meet your needs, there are many factors to consider. Look for:

      • 主题和自定义能力:You should be able to customize ready-made themes that allow you to personalize and add company branding.
      • Domain name customization:Make sure you can get a custom domain name and URL (so you don’t have to include the platform’s name in your website URL).
      • Expert, 24/7 support:花时间详细探讨平台的服务。如果紧急情况在道路上播出,您要确保您一时的通知会得到快速,可靠的支持。
      • 灵活的付款方式:Customers want to pay in a variety of ways today — from credit cards to digital wallets and beyond. Look for an ecommercebob电竞官方下载足够灵活的软件解决方案可以支持许多不同的安全付款选项。
      • Multiple language abilities:您的客户可能来自世界各地,因此您需要能够说他们的语言。使用支持许多不同语言的工具,这是一个好主意。

6. Keep best practices for your website in mind.

When you’re ready to build aninbound ecommercewebsite, there are a few best practices to keep in mind that will help you get results out of your time and effort.

Select and customize a mobile-friendly theme.

BrightEdge datashows that more than half (57%) of web traffic now comes from mobile devices like smartphones and tablets — which means it’sessentialto use a mobile-friendly theme when building your ecommercewebsite.

ecommerceplatforms, you can browse a selection of free and premium themes (all of which are mobile-optimized) and find one that’s best suited for your needs. Plus: From there, you can customize the templated website theme. By adding your color scheme and branding elements (like your logo), you can make your ecommercewebsite look 100% custom-made.

Take a look at this Shopify template example:

Shopify template example of a mobile-friendly ecommerce website theme

Source

Optimize for the web.

Web optimization encompasses a wide range of strategies and tactics that help convert more site visitors into customers, but let’s focus on two in particular:

      • 编写诱人的产品描述。Use persuasive copywriting triggers to make your product descriptions sell. That means tapping into psychological tactics like fear of missing out, reciprocity, exclusivity, and more — all of which encourage site visitors to buy (and to buy NOW).
      • Add beautiful product images.在营销方面,视觉效果非常重要 - 尤其是对于在购买之前看不到或触摸产品的在线购买者。除静态产品图像外,还通过使用产品和视频合并模型图像来添加上下文,从而为客户提供360度视图。

创造出色的客户体验。

Research表明客户体验将超过价格和产品作为2020年销售的主要品牌差异化。这意味着要专注于在您品牌的所有各种接触点上创造令人印象深刻的客户体验。

A few ideas to get you started:

      • 添加一个常见问题页。回答您的常见问题 ecommercewebsite helps potential customers quickly and easily find the information they need to complete a purchase.
      • Reduce image sizes for quick load times.Survey datashows more than half of website visitors expect a page to load in less than two seconds. At more than three seconds, they leave the page (and aren’t likely to return.) Reduce the size of your on-site images so it loads quickly.
      • Leverage user-generated content.Including用户生成有限公司ntent(think customer reviews, images from social media, and testimonials) on your ecommercesite means adding elements of social proof — which can improve the overall buying experience for customers.

Next, let's cover the ways in which you can work to increase your ecommerce sales.

How to Increase Ecommerce Sales

Ecommerce sales in the U.S. alone gross每季度1300亿美元,这近几乎是所有零售销售额的10%(该数字在全球范围内也在增加)。这是很多人在寻找在线产品和服务。

If you’re building an ecommerce business, you need to devise a strategy to increase sales and get a piece of that pie. You won’t have an ecommerce business without customers. So, consider this one of the most important sections in this article. Let’s cover a few ways that you can增加您的电子商务销售.

1。Hook prospects in the consideration stage.

If you only try to reach prospective buyers in their decision stage, you’re too late. Conversely, if you provide relevant content in the awareness stage and fail to follow-up, you risk them forgetting about you as they move along the buyer’s journey.

It’s also important to remember that people go throughbuying cyclesand can move back and forth between stages before they commit to a product or service. Once you hook a prospect with your content keep them engaged and send them content that speaks to their present stage. Your goal should be to get on their short-list of potential purchases.

2.使用付费目标超越竞争对手。

有这样的网站喜欢的原因Google Shopping如此丰厚的——他们的工作。搜索引擎的回报n billions of results daily, and many of those results are for products and services just like yours. The problem is the competition. When done right, paid advertising can position your ecommerce store in front of the right audience and ahead of your competition.

3。Get (or give) some information before they leave your site.

不是每个人都谁访问你的电子商务商店再保险ady to buy — engage them anyway. Think about reasons why someone would visit and bounce off a page (maybe they’re considering options or they find your product too expensive or they want to make a more informed decision).

Whatever the reason, your job is to provide them with something that will keep you top of mind as they continue their search. Ideally, you would gather some lead information but at a minimum provide them something useful that can assist them as they go about their search.

4.投资重新参与购物车放弃。

购物车放弃是不可避免的,但不可撤销。有时用户只需要一点推动即可通过再营销or a simple email reminder. Before you reach out though, make sure to address some of the commonreasons why prospects abandon their shopping cartsin the first place.

5。Remember to integrate social.

Don’t underestimate the power of social media when it comes to online sales.Instagramreportsthat 60% of people find products on social, which makes sense with the integration ofshoppable content. Meet your potential customers where they are and remove friction from the buying process by leading them seamlessly to a sale.

Examples of Inspiring Shopify Ecommerce Stores

Not sure what your ecommerce store should look like? Here are a few examples of inspiring stores to help get your creative wheels turning.

1。Tattly

tattly Example of Inspiring Shopify Ecommerce Stores

Because Tattly offers a product that’s highly visual in nature, they’ve opted for a theme that’s photo-centric. This lets new visitors quickly get acquainted with the product offering and provides a few different paths for deeper product exploration, too.

2。Graydon护肤品

graydon skincare Example of Inspiring Shopify Ecommerce Stores

Graydon护肤品uses a website layout with a large rotating header image that helps communicate a feeling around the brand and product. The images feature different products sold by the brand, and the simple top navigation makes it easy for customers to quickly find what they’re looking for.

3。18Waits

18等待启发Shopify电子商务商店的示例

18Waits also uses large rotating photos on the home page of their ecommerce store — but they sometimes integrate them with promotional offers. This helps shoppers visualize themselves wearing the product, while also enticing them to check out a special sale going on, too. Overall, the theme they’ve used is fairly minimal, which puts all the focus on the photography.

4。Easy Tiger

easy tiger Example of Inspiring Shopify Ecommerce Stores

Speaking of minimal … Easy Tiger takes minimal design to the extreme. With a clean white background and no distracting design elements, all the focus is on their products. The red text also pops from the screen, making it easy to read and consume.

5。BluKicks

blukicks Example of Inspiring Shopify Ecommerce Stores

BluKicks also uses an image-centric approach on their homepage with quick navigation to product types. The lifestyle-type images they spotlight here communicate a certain feeling to shoppers — and ups the beachy charm of their product.

The Future of Ecommerce

Sales tax is a hot topic in the news right now — and theSupreme Courtmay be making changes to the policies for ecommerce零售商。确保遵守最新法律法规。

The future of ecommerce is a bright one, and with the right strategy and tools, launching an online business can be easier than you ever imagined. Tap into the audience of engaged online shoppers and get your piece of the growing ecommerce pie.

Editor's note: This post was originally published in July 2018 and has been updated for comprehensiveness.

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Originally published Mar 9, 2021 6:28:32 PM, updated March 09 2021

Topics:

Ecommerce