What is eCommerce

Short and sweet definition of e-Commerce is any transaction, buying or selling of products or services made through Internet or on-line medium is e-Commerce. However, it’s not only buying or selling goods and services, even if you transfer money from your bank to other bank, it is eCommerce. If you send promotional emails to your customers or to grab new customers, it is eCommerce. So eCommerce is not limited to only buying or selling online. Any transaction or exchange made through online medium is eCommerce. 

eCommerce has expanded very quickly as there is no obstacles of time and distance. One business from a country can do business with another company located anywhere in the world. For example: One person sitting in USA can buy anything online and get it delivered to India.

eCommerce in India is rapidly growing at huge rate and it is forecasted that it will grow further at the same rate or with more higher rate. In India many retailers are opting for online store where they list their products and selling them through their websites. There are many online supermarkets selling all category products from clothing to electronics like Snapdeal, eBay, Naaptol, Flipkart, etc. An Indian customer has many options to buy products online. They can compare prices, check reviews and select best products at lowest price.

With advance of technology and high speed Internet connection provided not only by ISP’s (Internet service providers) but also by mobile operators eCommerce is the most effective and useful way of conducting business.

Online Marketing - What is it?

On-line Marketing (Internet Marketing) term is used when you are using on-line medium to promote or sell your services/products. In today’s competitive market your presence on-line is very important. With the advance of Internet all have access of everything available in market. They can read reviews, compare prices and make final decision to buy any products or services. It may possible that they research on-line and buy products off-line. However, in their buying cycle almost 90% users use Internet to get information about products. Hence, your presence on-line is very important.

How to do it?

It all starts with a website. A website with detailed information about your products and services! A creative web page of your website with lots of product images and videos!

Your website should be user friendly and responsive. User should feel it smooth to go from one page to another and to return where he wants. It’s known as Navigation Structure. Once you have a complete user friendly website, you can start internet marketing activities to promote your products and services. Below are primary activities to promote your website:

• Search Engine Optimization
• Search Engine Marketing (Pay Per Click Advertising)
• Social Media Promotion

Search Engine Optimization:

Search Engine Optimization (SEO) is an activity to make your site technically fit according to search engine guidelines so that they can give you higher position when someone searches for your products/services. Major search engines are Google, Yahoo, Bing, etc. In SEO you can give title to your web page and a short description which will be displayed by search engines. Once your website is Search Engine friendly, you need to promote it by off page SEO activities like article submissions, social bookmarking, social sharing, blog commenting and many other activities. These activities help to improve your website ranking on Search Engines and increase free organic traffic.

Search Engine Marketing:

Also known as SEM or PPC (Pay Per Click) where you give some keywords to search engines and pay them to display your website advertisement in text, image or video format. Here you need to choose keywords wisely as you are paying per click for the keyword you have given. Also your ad copy should be catchy so that user can decide to click or not by reading the ad. You can also exclude some words for not showing your ads for those words. For example: If you are selling Digital Camera but not Sony Digital Camera, then you can add Digital Camera as keyword and Sony as negative. SEO requires more time to get your website on top but with SEM you can show your ads instantly.

Social Media Promotion:

Now almost everyone is using social media platforms to share their feelings, updates, data, etc. It is a best medium to make buzz about your products. You can promote any special offer through special media. Keep your audience engaged with unique and attractive content, contests, prizes, etc. If you are strong in social media your audience build a special bond with your brand and when there is a need, your brand will strike first. So it is must for brand awareness.

Apart from these activities there are many other activities in on-line marketing to promote your products and services on-line.

Email Marketing: You can send a promotional email to your registered users or can run paid email marketing campaign to attract new users.

Business Listing: There are many business directory and classified websites. You can list your business there and have good visibility on many websites.

Review Submission: Many review websites are mushrooming in the market. You can write review of your products and services and ask your users to write reviews on those sites.

Banner Promotion: This is paid promotion. You can place your website banner on other popular websites where there are many users visiting these websites, like Yahoo, Facebook or news websites, etc.

I hope the above article will give you a basic idea about Online Marketing and will help you to plan your activities. Do let us know your suggestions and feedback.