Sibabaliwe Ruga
402308528
E-Commerce
Assignment
Page | 0
TABLE OF CONTENT
i. QUESTION 1 2
ii. QUESTION 2 3
iii. QUESTION 3 4-5-6
iv. QUESTION 4 7-8
v. Reference List 9
1|Page
QUESTION 1
A. A Payment Gateway is a merchant service provided by an e-
commerce application service provider that authorizes credit card or
direct payment processing for e-business, online retailers, bricks
and clicks or traditional brick and mortar.
- Payment Gateway are services that process your business card
transactions, they’re an asset to your business because they ensure
safe and smooth transactions and reduce losses associated with late
payments.
- Convenience
- Faster payments
- Better security
B.
Hosted payment gateway
Self-hosted payment gateway
API-hosted payment gateway
Local bank integration gateway
C. Encryption
- It is a very effective and practical way to safeguard the data
being transmitted over the network.
- Sender of the information encrypts the data using a secret code and only the
specified receiver can decrypt the data using the same code.
2|Page
QUESTION 2
A. Inventory Level Management
- Ecommerce Inventory Management is simply the act of tracking the Location,
Amount, Pricing, and mix of inventory available from your business.
- Inventory Management is sourcing, storing, and selling stock. It is knowing
how much stock you have, how much it should sell at, where to keep it, and
how long to keep it for.
B. Product Description Handling
- A Product Description is a form of marketing copy used to describe and
explain the benefits of your product. It provides all the information and
details of your product on your e-commerce site.
- These product details can be one sentence, a short paragraph or bulleted.
- The description allows customers to see and read up on what they purchase
before deciding.
- Having a good product description includes increased conversion rates, better
customer loyalty, and improves relationship strength between you and your
customer based on transparency.
C. Usability
- The ease with which a visitor can read, navigate, and interact with a web
application or web site.
- When setting up an e-commerce ventures, the usability of your site is of vital
importance to you, a site which is not easy to navigate around will experience
a higher bounce rate and a lower conversion rate.
D. Flexibility
- Flexible e-commerce is all about brands being able to meet customers
wherever they may be, across any device or touchpoint.
E. Service delivery and Customer retention
- For an e-commerce brand this means making sure your customers find what
they are looking for, making it easy for agents to talk to customers, enabling
customers to contact you via preferred channel while keeping an overview of
all conversations and providing personalized service.
- A company’s ability to turn customers into repeat buyers and prevent them
switching to a competitor.
3|Page
QUESTION 3
3.1 Advantages of E-Commerce:
Online stores are always open.
- An online shop never closes. Whether it’s a holiday or some other event keeping
people home, they can place an order around the clock from anywhere.
E-Commerce customers aren’t limited by geography.
- Whether it’s someone from the next town, the store has the potential to reach
customers worldwide.
E-Commerce overhead is low.
- The cost of rent, utilities, and employment makes retail space expensive. Lower
operation costs make it possible for many ecommerce sellers to beat out brick-
and-motor prices.
Promoting featured products on ecommerce is easy.
- Making changes to a website is simpler than rearranging a physical space.
Faster buying process
Disadvantages of E-Commerce:
The Internet can break, severs crash and website’s go down.
It takes effort to accurately portray your products.
There’s a lot of competition online.
Customers expect instant service.
Shopping can be unpredictable.
3.2 Types of sales channels for E-Commerce:
1. E-Commerce platforms
- E-Commerce platforms (or web shop system) are any online shopping platforms
where a customer can buy any product they need.
2. Marketplaces
- Marketplaces are channels that bring various sellers and customers to one place.
This is a preferred channel by many shoppers as it acts as one-stop shop where
they can purchase products in different categories all in one.
3. Social Commerce
- Social commerce has seen a crazy growth over the last few years as many
customers enjoy the part of shopping while on social media. It’s a beneficial sales
channel for businesses as more people are joining social media platforms every
day.
4. Comparison shopping sites
4|Page
- Comparison shopping sites gather information about products from various
websites and compare them against one another. This type of sale channel is
ideal for customers who like to shop around for discounted prices or simply want
to compare prices before they make a purchase.
5. Daily deal sites
- Daily deal sites gather information about promotions across the internet. Like
comparison shopping sites as they both target customers who are looking to
shop for products at a discounted rate.
3.3 Strategies to increase profitability/sales revenue:
- Increasing products price.
- Finding new customers.
- Selling more to existing customers.
- Offering sale promotions to boost the volume of sales.
- Developing new product or service lines.
- Selling in new markets.
3.4 E-commerce functionality and specifications for Shopleft Retail:
User-Generated Reviews
- 93% of customers read online reviews before buying a product. Reviews are
one of the only way a customer can trust a brand and its products and be sure
they are not scammed. Positive and/or negative reviews about a product is
important because it shows that you’re being transparent with your customer
and about your product or services. That way you gain trust in your brand and
product, also attract more customers.
Product Recommendations and Push notifications
- Product recommendations use machine learning and predictive intelligence
to make sure the customer is only seeing \what they are interested in, which
is more likely to increase the chances of more purchases. Mobile application
push notifications treated as a normal email marketing campaign that sends
details regarding product/service discount offers, promotions and updates for
the product and store services. Personalized suggestions are a proven success
strategy.
FAQ Page
- A frequently asked question page is a key strategy to ensure that a customer
feels confident in their purchase decision. FAQ pages can instantly answer a
question in detail, and that can be the push a customer needs to checkout.
Multiple Payment Options
- This is another strategy to make customer’s checkout process simple and
hassle-free, which will inevitably contribute to more purchases. The more
advanced payment options you can offer such as PayPal, Credit card, Apple
pay etc, the more of an advantage you will have.
5|Page
Wish Lists and User-Profile
- Regardless of the reasons stopping a customer from buying a product they
genuinely want; wish list ensures that products a customer is likely to buy
aren’t lost or forgotten. Which also encourage a customer to sign up for an
account. A user profile allows users to purchase from customer profiles with a
personalized experience. User accounts provide personalized
recommendations and offers to the customer.
([Link])
6|Page
Question 4
4.1
4.1.1
Strategies to increase visitors onto their new E-commerce platform:
- Attract customers with a sales campaign.
- Target your audience and show off your business on social media platforms
such as Facebook, Instagram, YouTube etc.
- Learn into email marketing.
- Utilize content marketing.
- Engage influencers or brand partners.
- Improve public relations.
4.1.2
Strategies to convert website visitors into new and returning customers:
Maintain a simple homepage:
- A homepage is where visitors first see your brand (depending on how they
landed at the site), it may make or break your conversion rate. You won’t
convert your target audience if it isn’t set up to lead them through the sales
process. It will also deter users from exploring other area of your website.
- Your unique selling proposition (USP) should explain why visitors should stay
and conduct business with you rather than returning to the search results.
Visitors to your website should be able to figure out what your firm does and
what sets you apart from the competition using high-quality photos, and/or
concise explanations.
Make sure your call to action is crystal clear:
- A call to action is a marketing term for a message intended to elicit an
immediate response from the audience, generally employing an imperative
verb like “call immediately”, “find out more”.
Enforce methods for obtaining email address:
- You don’t want to lose someone who has visited your website, so gathering
their information is critical to keep in touch with them. One of the best
methods to collect email addresses, according to the Forbes, is to provide them
something of value, such as a digital report about your sector. Once you have
the visitors email addresses, do not spam them with emails or pressure them to
purchase.
Testimonials can help you gain customers’ trust:
- Best way to tell people about your company’s advantage is by using the words
of others. If you want to turn them website visitors into sales leads, featuring
7|Page
customer testimonials in still confidence and motivate your visitors to invest
product or service.
Ensure loading times are as fast as possible:
- The amount of time it takes a website to load is essential aspect of the user
experience. A user’s decision to like or dislike your website takes five seconds or
less.
([Link])
8|Page
References
June 9, 2022, by Kristi Hines
[Link]
JUN 20, 2022, by MARTIN PEREZ
[Link]
JUN 19,2020, by Ronald DoD
[Link]
October14,2021, by Shivali Anand
[Link]
clients/
2017.2012, by Gary Schneider
Electronic Commerce,12th Edition.
9|Page