God often dwells in small things and so does success for e-commerce brands. After the first two COVID waves, on one hand, e-commerce saw many big challenges on various fronts while on the other hand, even bigger opportunities opened up. No matter how big these challenges are, more often than not, the solution is simpler than one thinks. These simple (tech) solutions are usually a result of intelligent applications that aim to cut the confusion, the number of clicks, steps and difficult processes, leading to shortening and simplifying of the whole process and consequently, the time taken to get the result.

Humanizing technology is the key that ensures e-commerce goes beyond barriers of language and literacy, benefiting both the brands and consumers in a win-win equation. The consumer journey in and around e-commerce can be categorized into major sections of pre-visit, visit and post-visit exposures. Each of these major exposures can further be divided into more insightful functions and some brilliant yet simple tech solutions do and can make E-commerce sell more and earn more.

While most of these simple tech applications are found when you are using e-commerce, a few come in handy to drive the traffic to the e-commerce, strengthening the chance to increase the sales.

Right at the moment, you land at e-commerce, verification or log-ins are made easy by a one-step process. Log in through your Gmail, social media accounts or OTP verification cut the distraction, helping e-commerce and its consumer focus exclusively on buying and selling. Lately, the majority of e-commerce sites don’t even distract you for log- in, etc, allowing you to search and browse as much you may want and prompt for the login only before the payment gateway.

A simple search for a product has seen many intelligent applications of these simple technological innovations that increase sales tremendously. While Voice Search, Bar Code Search, and Image Search by BuyingEngine help the e-commerce aggregator jump across the barriers of language and literacy, Map Search by hotel aggregators helps the customer spot what they want fast. Other search methods like Multi-Search, Scan-Read-Search-place order by 1 MG, AutoComplete with image are a step ahead to ensure customers get and buy what they want.

Location Messaging like ‘get it at your pin code tomorrow’, ‘we deliver in Bangalore’ flashed to catch attention on e-commerce pages can pivot consumers’ decisions favorably. Knowing the location of your online customer and showing suitable Reviews on the product page, preferably from the same neighborhood or city as that of the browsing customer also helps boost sales dramatically

Sticky Call to Action, like a snapshot of your cart with the ‘check out now’ button, in one corner of the e-commerce page is becoming increasingly popular, helping increase sales. Upselling and Cross-selling through suggestions are not new and can be seen on all of your favorite e-commerce sites. It is very effective and not only does it create new demand but also offers to fulfill the same in a gratifying way, usually attached with an offer or discount.

Link build in a word and hover over in an image to know more without going to the next page or tab is one of the oldest and most reliable steps, cutting the number of steps/clicks the consumer may need while deciding to buy, adding product to a cart or handling information during the payment process.

Price has always been one of the most important concerns of any customer and purchases where there is an apple to apple comparison, like, in consumer electronics or brand new automobile segment and price matching in the game help the consumer decide faster.

Buying on the mobile app has increased tremendously but many sites don’t allow touchscreen mobile users to use pinch and tap gestures for product images. Some allow tapping and zooming of product images for mobile users, making it a lot easier for mobile shoppers to decide on a purchase.

Automatic switching between Numeric and Alphanumeric Keypad while filling fields like name, credit card, mobile number, address, etc., helps doing the transaction faster with the ease of making the payment process hassle-free. Credit Card Scanning helps cut the noise from the buying process and aims at improving sales. In-line/real-time validation of fields while entering your vital details during the shopping completion stage is a must-have for all consumer-friendly e-commerce brands. 

‘Don’t leave yet’ pop-ups are popular and can get you a customer back, just in case they are leaving the e-commerce website or shopping cart without shopping or completing the transaction.

In the Pre and post-visit to the e-commerce by the customers, some more simple technologies can be quite helpful.

For spreading awareness about a product, offer, deal, or launch, Emailers work well and are one of the most reliable ways to get traffic to e-commerce. Emailers sensitize and make the customer half-ready to buy the product, increasing the chance of a sale.

Used as a post-visit tool to encourage sales, retargeting helps to remind and rekindle the need to buy a particular product or service from particular e-commerce, using a series of content through various messaging sent at an opportune time.

Sending the ‘Complete your purchase’ link through Whatsapp, SMS, Emailer, works very well to reduce the number of abandoned carts. Many times, when laced with lucrative offers, such prompts can lead to a quicker sale, benefiting both the e-commerce brand and the consumer equally.

The application of simple tech in e-commerce has always led the sales from the front and will evolve through the years in the coming times, alongside redefining what is ‘simple tech’. Time is not far when AI, AR, MR will very well be considered as simple tech and shopping on e-commerce will be a different ball game altogether.

Source: https://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/blogs/voices/how-the-simple-tech-solutions-enhance-e-commerce-sales/

Article is authored by Ranjan Das, MD Apppl Combine