What is E-commerce?
E-commerce is a term that is often listed in a Marketing strategy. So, what does E-commerce mean?
E-commerce stands for electronic commerce or Internet commerce, which is the process of selling and buying products or services using the Internet and virtual paying. The transaction of money, funds and data are also considered E-commerce.
E-commerce is usually being confused with E-business, which refers to the operation online business but not the stage of transaction.
In August 1994, a man sold his Sting’s CD for a friend through his website NetMarket – an American retail platform. This is the first example of purchasing goods on the Internet and is well-known today as E-commerce. It has brought many benefits for sellers and buyers. Independent freelancers, small businesses or big corporations are able to sell goods or services that is not possible with traditional offline retail while customers have a variety of options.
There are 4 main types of transactions between consumers and businesses.
- Business to consumer (B2C): when business sell products or services to an individual customer (a customer buy a shirt from an online shop)
- Business to business (B2B): when business sell products or services to another business (a business sell a software as a service for another business to use)
- Consumer to consumer (C2C): when a consumer sells products or services to another consumer (you buy a furniture to from an individual from Ebay)
- Consumer to business (C2B): when an individual sells their own products or services to a business (a photographer licenses their photos for a company to use)
E-commerce and E-business is predicted to take over traditional offline retailers in the future. However, the success of E-commerce depends mainly on how to attract customers and that is where marketer’s competition begins. Indeed, social media has a huge impact on how to drive sales yet it is not related to having as many social media accounts as possible. Play smart, not play hard. Having a social media agency who knows how to link your goals and your customer’s expectation is the key.
Through several research about how to attract audiences in most effective ways, we make some bullet points here to help you get your brand awareness.
- Go live
Today is not about one side of business anymore but it’s all about 2-sides of communication. Facebook and Instagram both have stream functions since a few years ago and it has been a crazy change for the interaction between sellers and buyers. Customers feel more involved and connect, which is already a big deal to be able to get their attention. Besides that, the newest function of stream even allows customers to buy directly with just one click from the live.
- Using Facebook messenger
Facebook messenger is not just a communication tool. It has pretty much all the updates and upgrades as Facebook. After setting up messenger, you can link it to your site and it will show product updates, price changes, and give you the ability to provide customer support.
- Invest on ads
Paying for online ads is a real game. It is a long way to raise brand awareness and sales but it’s all worth it. Even though there are some exceptions such as PupSocks, who spent $1 million in 30 days to gain $4 million in sales.
- Followers and followers
Instagram is a brand new business market and it’s growing fast. Marketers are trying everything to gain followers by making catchy posts, impressive design theme, active stories and more IGTV. Instagram has the latest function called ‘shoppable posts’ launched in 2018 that allows users to buy products directly just by clicking the post.
- Pinterest’s product pins
With the constant updates from time to time from Facebook and Instagram, it might be easy to forget Pinterest. However, Pinterest has its position in the beginning and still stands strong in the e-commerce market. These Product Pins display pricing, stock information, and the ability to go to the product to buy in just a few clicks. In the past quarter, Pinterest saw a 40% increase in clicks on products to retail sites.
- Strategy videos on Youtube
Youtube is taking its popular advantage by cooperating with many brand commercials because reported that 63% users use youtube, 61% use Instagram (2017 and 2018) compared to more than 51% use facebook (2019).
Social media is not just a sale channels
Marketing is not only about calling and selling in this modern time. Social media agencies like Werbepresse understand social media is a way but not the destination. It takes a lot of effort and lessons learned after unsuccessful experiences. Around 84% of customers said that they don’t buy the products after they have seen it a couple of times. So choosing the right channel, making an effective strategy, and clearing the goals to be able to meet the needs of customers define a good social media agency.
Author Bio: Rehan Sardar is an enthusiastic blogger and marketing manager of technoflavours.com. He maintains a keen interest in progress and development in the marketing and business space.
