Category Archives: ecommerce

Woocomerce vs Shopify, which is the best E-commerce platform?

WooCommerce and Shopify are the two most common platforms in e-commerce, currently Woocomerce has approximately 1’000.000 downloaded online stores while the Shopify platform is used by about 800.000 users worldwide.

When an entrepreneur decides to create an online store, different factors about which is the best platform that fits his/her business model and needs need to be considered.

For instance, WooCommerce is an e-commerce plugin that helps to become a WordPress website into an online store. This platform is open source, which allows to be easily modified and also can be installed for free. However, users must pay for security and hosting.

Likewise, Shopify is dynamic, easy-to-use and a reliable platform with great design themes and templates. However, its premium versions and add-ons come at a cost. In the following analysis, I will show both platforms main features and advantages:

Themes and Flexibility.

Shopify has its own template store, which includes 180 designs both premium and free that are easily adaptable and customizable without the need to touch a line of code.

Similarly, Woocommerce templates are easy to tailor and modify thanks to its open source, functional structure and lightweight which allows the pages to look attractive and load quickly.

Ease of use.

Shopify is considered by UX/UI design experts as one of the easiest solutions available for online stores.

Shopify didactic installation instructions, guide users through a step by step process about all the necessary functions needed for each particular store, avoiding undesired technical coding details that could make its installation difficult.

Also, Woocommerce user friendly environment, allows a high degree of flexibility to create a versatile virtual store without coding skills needed for its installation.

Product presentation.

Both platforms offer easy options to upload images, add videos, create product descriptions, enlarge images and to add variations such as changing the color or size of the products.

However, as WooCommerce operates “inside” a personalized WordPress theme, some images or galleries may not work as well as in Shopify, which can create a negative user experience.

SEO Optimization.

Shopify automatically performs SEO optimization which can be ineffective in terms of improving the quality and quantity of the organic traffic because it displays some elements of the metadata such as article availability or user ratings which can lead to a loss of control over the SEO strategy.

Moreover, Shopify assign URLs to each page, avoiding users to choose the structure of the URLs and limiting accurate web page descriptions of strategic keywords.

Similarly, WooCommerce requires paid plugins such as MOZ or Yoast SEO to achieve optimal functionality and thus rank high in the search engine results page.

Finally, both platforms are the best ecommerce solutions for those who wish to create an online store because of their flexibility, diverse themes, price and ease of use.

Shopify vs Woocommerce

Facebook new compelling advertisement formats.

Away from the traditional advertisement formats developed in the beginning, Facebook has created new compelling ad formats that are changing the social media marketing landscape and its impact in brands, customers and advertisers.

Facebook Instant Articles ads

When a brand is looking to promote different kinds of content using mobile as an ad placement, the Instant Article ads enables publishers to create fast-loading and interactive content through Facebook’s app.

Moreover, advertisers can choose to place different ads within articles that communicate relevant information about the different products or services they offer.

The two available formats for Instant Articles are video and image in can be placed both in Facebook and Instagram.

Facebook Instant Article ads Format

Banners and interstitial ads on Audience Network.

Audience Network is a way to extend publishers ads beyond Facebook and Instagram social media to website and mobile apps.

The banners, interstitial and native ads of Audience Network, allow advertisers to use relevant ad spaces in other digital media outside of the Facebook network.

Also, this ad format, helps Facebook publishers to increase their reach, lower their cost per result and use multiple platforms and devices.

Moreover, it allows publishers to exclude some digital spaces that can damage their brand reputation such as websites related to Gambling, Dating, Debatable social issues or where mature content is promoted.

Facebook Audience Network, works similar to Google Ads Display. The two advertisement formats used in Facebook Audience Network, are images and video.

Facebook Audience Network

Facebook Collection ads.

Collection ads are an immersive format that allows customers to explore and discovery different products in a unique visual browsing feature all in one ad placement.

Similarly, Collection Ads are available in Facebook and Instagram and they feature a main video or image together with four smaller images below in a grid-like arrangement.

If a customer taps on any of the images or the video of the collection ad to learn more about a product, he/she will immediately go to a visual post-click experience triggered by an Instant Experience or Canvas.

Facebook collection ads format

Facebook Marketplace ads.

Facebook Marketplace is a space similar to Kijiji or Craigslist where customers can browse and buy different products.

However, listing an item for sale does not necessary means it will sell immediately. As a result, Facebook has created a business tool to help businesses reach more customers through paid ads.

Facebook Marketplace ads promote relevant products and services on Facebook Marketplace.

Thus, customers interested a certain product or service can click to an app, a website, or view details of the product for more information.

Marketplace is available as a placement option only for certain campaign objectives such as Traffic, Reach, Catalog Sales, Conversions, and Video Views objectives.

Facebook marketplace ads

What is Landing Page Optimization?

Landing page optimization is the strategic process of increasing the efficiency of a web page designed specifically to generate leads and sales in a digital marketing context.

Landing pages are the target destination of paid online marketing campaigns and usually large amounts of money are invested in driving traffic to these pages.

As a result, there are different methods to make landing pages more efficient and relevant for users, here are some of the most common optimization methods and characteristics:

Main features of a Landing Page Optimization strategy.

Relevance: Optimizing a landing page requires that the message you are delivering is synchronized with the expectations of your target public.

Features such as concise headlines, intuitive layout design, correlation between the ad copy and the landing page copy and visible and clear calls to action help in landing pages optimization process.

Brand unit: It is important that your target consumers find consistency among the brand landing pages and all the pages of the brand website.
Aspects such as images, colors, fonts and navigation help to build brand recognition and make the landing page more usable and optimized.

Texts clarity: Optimized landing pages need clear, captivating and impacting headlines. Moreover, the texts should avoid passive voice, unnecessary prepositions, redundant words and phrases.

Product/service value proposition: Brands need to showcase the advantages of their products over their competitors and highlight what make their products unique to address customers’ needs.
Also, brands must integrate the product value proposition in all the content (images and text) of the landing page.

SEO Strategy: Brands can bring organic traffic to a landing page with the right set of keywords, enhanced links and a precise meta-description that provide value to customers.

Landing page optimization helps not just to increase sales and generate leads but to learn more about targeted audiences, product and services preferences and to design clear strategies that better convey the right message.

Landing page optimization

What e-commerce technologies are redesigning the digital landscape?

Ecommerce technologies and online shopping only became a reality when the internet began in 1991. However, those ecommerce pioneers of the 1990’s did not survive the technological changes or did not adapt to the new dynamics of ecommerce.

Amazon.com can be considered one of the first ecommerce sites that has favorably adapted to the always evolving internet landscape until now. The following ecommerce technological developments and trends will influence the future of ecommerce, the way businesses adopt them will determine their success or failure:

Artificial intelligence and Machine Learning.

These two factors are creating a tremendous impact on ecommerce. Machine learning and its applications are improving user experience based on customers’ buyer behavior and previous data. It is helping ecommerce companies to understand customers’ preferences and choices. Similarly, Artificial Intelligence and Machine learning are helping businesses to predict what kind of products and services their customers prefer.

Ecommerce Mobile Apps

Trends and studies about ecommerce consumer behavior show that customers are buying more from mobile phone than from personal computers. As reported by SearchEngineLand, approximately 60% of Google’s total searches come from cellphones.

In the same way, Google is recommending ecommerce businesses to design their websites for mobiles and to design mobile apps as in 2018 consumers browse 286% more products on apps than mobile web.

Animation applied to ecommerce technologies.

Different technology developments are being adopted from the video games design industry and introduced to ecommerce sites. Motions are a key factor to design video games that help to attract players and give them helpful feedback. For instance, the design of video games take into account aspect like when players are doing well, what do they pay attention to and how they could improve.

Such aspects, help ecommerce websites and apps to discover how motion can be a signal of pleasure, personality, or urgency when buyers are interacting in a virtual store. Motion makes buying experiences feel more alive.

Finally, the abovementioned ecommerce technologies, will radically redesign the digital business landscape and make online shopping different and more enjoyable. However, choosing the right ecommerce technology for each specific business need, will improve the user experience and determine its success.

ecommerce technology trends

What are the benefits and disadvantages of the dropshipping business model.

Since the inception of e-commerce as a new way for entrepreneurs and customers to participate in online marketplaces, drop shipping became one of the most popular methods used by consumers to make their purchases.

Drop shipping is defined as a retail fulfillment method in which a merchant sells products without having a physical store or keeping a large inventory but still getting a wholesale price from a supplier. Moreover, when the merchant sells a product, it purchases the item from a third party and ship it directly to the customer.

Although this online business model has been expanding exponentially in the last few years, there are some benefits and disadvantages entrepreneurs need to consider before starting a drop shipping business.

Benefits:

Low financial risks: Usually the drop shipping business model offers an inexpensive manner to procure inventory which is not possible otherwise. This makes it less risky than investing large amounts of money on acquiring inventory.
Fast Profitability: If the drop shipping business model is executed following an insightful online marketing strategy, it will convert well, yielding at the same time immediate profits.
Location flexibility: A drop shipping business can be operated from any location that has internet connection. Moreover, it can be run from anywhere as long as merchants can communicate with suppliers and customers.
Wider Product Selection: In the drop shipping model, merchants do not need to pre-purchase items for sell. As a result, they can offer a wide variety of products, increasing the availability of items when suppliers stock a new item at no additional cost.
Time and money saving: As merchants do not need to manage a warehouse, plan the shipping of products or manage stock levels, they can increase their profit margins and save management time.

Disadvantages:

Low Entry Barriers: As merchants don’t need large amounts of capital to start the business, more people want to enter to the drop shipping business which increases competition.
Low Margins: In the drop shipping business, most market niches are highly competitive. As a result, merchants try to drop prices in order to draw customers decreasing at the same time their revenue.
Inventory Issues: As merchants source their products from different warehouses, inventories might change daily, making it hard to synchronize merchants store inventory with the supplier inventory.
Supplier mistakes: Due to the large quantity of business suppliers handle, very often they make mistakes when sourcing to merchants such as missing items, wrong shipments and low-quality packing.

The drop shipping business model comes with several built-in complexities. However, a well-thought digital marketing strategy and a comprehensive business plan, can help merchants to develop a thriving, profitable drop shipping business.

drop shipping business model

What is the importance of online brand communities in product design?

The concept of community has been defined as a group of persons that build through different signs or actions a sense of identity and belonging to such group. This definition has taken new connotations since the emergence of the web 2.0 and the rise of virtual communities.

Within the fabric of meanings that describe virtual communities, the “online brand communities”, have spawned great interest among product engineers and marketing professionals as the interaction generated in such spaces have become significant sources of market intelligence.

Some theoretical principles of digital anthropology, suggest that if a group of consumers admire and follow a brand in a virtual community, a process of class consciousness is developed through multiple rituals that reproduce the sense of belonging to the community and foster the affective bonds among members and the brand.

For some companies, learning about online brand communities’ rituals and traditions has been crucial in order to gather key customers’ behavior information. Moreover, such learning approaches have helped companies to exploit the affective bonds that connect community members with the brand, generating dynamics of active participation with mutual benefits for both parties.

How can brands interact in online brand communities to design products?

A successful business case of active participation happened between the Danish manufacturer of plastic toys, Lego Corp. and the followers of the brand who interact in the online community; Lugnet (www.lugnet.biz). The interaction between Lugnet and LEGO Corp. is determined by LEGO’s necessity to know what kind of products Lugnet members would like the company to produce and buy.

In order to capitalize the interactions created with Lugnet, LEGO corp. designed a strategy aimed to encourage Lugnet members to participate in a contest to design different products that they would like LEGO corp. to produce.

During the contest, LEGO provided a software of prototypes to the community so members could design a specific product online and share the design with other members. Once the leaders of Lugnet in partnership with the engineering department of LEGO Corp. choose the winning model, the company developed the product, rewarding the most active members in the contest.

LEGO strategy of empowering Lugnet members to take part of its product design process was beneficial for both parts: On the one hand, LEGO benefited from gathering key business information that improves product sales and customer satisfaction. On the other hand, Lugnet members buy products designed by themselves while reinforcing the affective ties with the brand and with other community members.

How is consumer behavior in ecommerce websites determined?

The business to consumer (B2C) e-commerce model is described as the most used business approach by companies and entrepreneurs when undertaking different digital marketing strategies. Therefore, some economists have tried to demonstrate the positive effects this business model have on consumers’ purchase decisions, arguing that consumers can process in a rational manner, large volumes of commercial information in order to choose the most logical option.

On the other hand, some consumer behavior experts dispute such theory explaining that in e-commerce platforms developed under web 2.0 interfaces, buying experience is determined by tactics of behavioral stimuli which trigger emotional reactions.

For instance, several e-commerce websites employ psychological motivators that exploit users’ feelings of fear or perceived risk with the idea of creating multiple interpretations of the situational reality at the moment of buying something online. Thus, these psychological motivators give a single subjective connotation to every purchase experience and therefore influence websites’ conversion rates.

Rationality or psychological stimuli when buying online?

A particular case, in which the paradigm of “rational purchase decision” might be challenged, happens in airlines websites. In these e-commerce platforms, the time factor (urgency) determines tickets’ price fluctuation, which most likely will be increased if the user performs a second search in the same website using the same device.

The aforementioned marketing strategy is based on a psychological stimulator called: “time-limited scarcity” and is supported by the installation of cookies in the users’ device by the airline website.

The implementation of different business to consumer (B2C) e-commerce models by some companies, have allowed users to access large volumes of relevant commercial information before buying a product in a website. However, users’ behavior follows a dynamic of psychological stimuli rather than the rational choice, “analysis – comparison” on the available information.

Psychology and conversion in e-commerce

Why is it important to generate trust for consumers in e-commerce stores?

E-commerce is an important enabling tool that helps businesses to expand their commercial operations beyond local markets. Throughout the world, small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) develop e-commerce platforms based on different business to consumers (B2C) strategies. However, the main challenge these SMEs might face when exploring markets overseas, is the trust perception of their e-commerce websites.

According to a survey carried out by the British digital consulting firm digital econsultancy.com about transaction credibility in SMEs’ e-commerce websites, 61% of the respondents, answered that they decline their intention to buy in SMEs websites, due to the lack of safe instruments that ensure reliable transactions.

How can ecommerce companies improve users’ trust perception in ecommerce websites?

Security certificates and safe electronic transaction check mark: These instruments are distinctive symbols that increase the perception of being in a place for safe commercial transitions, giving at the same time legitimacy to the e-commerce site. Companies such as Pay pal, McAfee or VeriSign offer handy and affordable security software to ensure safe SMEs’ e-commerce transactions.

Contact Information: This feature is an indication that there is a real person beyond the virtual environment that can help users in case something goes wrong with the electronic transactions on the e-commerce web site. A contact form, an email address, a phone number, and mailing addresses can help to increase the level of customer trust.

Consumers’ reviews and discussion forums: These two mechanisms give social legitimacy to the interactions that take place in the e-commerce site. When users’ comments and ratings are deployed, the level of trust and authenticity increases. Good and bad reviews help to build relationships of reliability with consumers and to improve the site reputation.

Trust perception might not be an issue that represents a risk for companies such as Amazon, ebay or Alibaba. However, the future of many SMEs that base their e-commerce business models on B2C strategies can be determined by their decision to implement mechanisms that enhance users’ perception of performing safe transactions in their websites.

trust in ecommerce image

Why is the concept of culture important when creating usable e-commerce websites?

The correlation between web usability and ecommerce is of greater significance as more companies from the developed world, seek to expand their operations into emerging markets.

According to internet usage data published by Nielsen//NetRatings, during the year 2015, 37.4% of the world’s e-commerce activity took place in the Asian market, followed by North America with a 31.7.9%, Europe with a 25.9% and Latin America with 6.3 %. Nevertheless, in the year 1996 most of the ecommerce activity took place in North America with 83% of the world total.

It is clear then, that the largest growth in e-commerce transactions occurred in emerging economies that are also more diverse in terms of cultural identity.

Similarly, with the overall growth of ecommerce business transactions in emerging markets, many companies are adapting their web sites to “local” versions. Such adaptation means a specific web design for each market niche that takes into account language and cultural context, preserving at the same the brand integrity.

For example, some studies explain that culturally adapted web sites crafted for each specific market reduce users’ cognitive efforts to process web information, making navigation easier and improving consumers’ attitudes toward the goods and services offered in such ecommerce site.

Why most companies are not adapting their ecommerce websites to each specific market?

The high costs of testing cultural-tailored websites, the obstacles to find key ethnographic elements that effectively contribute to the site’s visual layout and the propensity to cultural ambiguity are some of the reasons why most companies are reluctant to implement culturally adapted ecommerce websites. For instance, in nations such as China and India, the large number of languages and the different connotations images have in each region, may induce designers and web developers to make mistakes in the interpretation of cultural elements.

Even though the above mentioned issues can deter some companies to adapt their websites design to the cultural identity of each specific market, when companies undertake a comprehensive cultural analysis strategy, their ecommerce websites will become more profitable increasing at the same time, users’ satisfaction levels.

The local web