Brick and mortar stores are being pushed to make their presence felt in the online space due to falling in-store sales, increased consumer engagement online, and the convenience offered to the buyers in terms of home delivery, product variety and better deals. Such was the case with Company ABC, a prolific retailer of nutraceuticals and essential oils based in Surrey, Canada. Alex, the owner of the store, sensed the need as well as the opportunity. He took the plunge to foray into the eCommerce space. “Perhaps we could adopt Click-and-Mortar strategy and have an online solution – a website to help our customers order online as well, and have their products delivered at their doorsteps. It will increase my profits too!,” he thought. With the help of a local organisation, he created an eCommerce website for his store, and hoped to get more business. He even began stocking his store anticipating high demand. He was very optimistic about his business prospects. But contrary to what he thought would happen; extra business from the website didn’t come. He was concerned and confused wondering what had gone wrong till he received a call from his friend Luis.
Problem Identification:
“Hey Al, I’m trying to find this brain tonic, but I’m getting all sorts of other products in the search results.”
“Hi Luis! Really?! I’ll take a look.”
“Also, the site’s really slow. Yesterday I saw this Biotin supplement on discount, and I had a coupon too, which I applied. But it took forever to checkout. I gave up eventually. They’re probably still there in my cart.”
“I’m sorry to hear that Luis. Although, it’s unusual that it was slow. I’m NOT getting much traffic for it traffic for it to be slow. Also, it’s strange that you mentioned you could apply a discount coupon to an ALREADY discounted product.”
“Yeah I found that strange too. Anyway, I thought I should let you know.”
“Thanks Luis, I appreciate it.”
So, what happened?
The intention of creating a website was noble, but the execution was sub-optimal. It resulted in a glitch-riddled website that put off ABC’s customers. They were faced with a situation wherein they ran the risk of losing market share and becoming irrelevant, unless they took a dramatic decision.
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What was needed?
What ABC needed was an intuitive interface which offered provision for searching products effectively, enable faster transaction times, possess the ability to handle high traffic, along with cross/up-sell functionality. Additionally, it needed to maintain efficiency in order and inventory management with provision for automatic updates of product details. Most importantly, the website needed to be glitch-free, with low server downtime.
Upon determining these issues, Alex understood he needed to do something about it quickly. He decided to call his friend again for help.
“Hi Luis! Those problems that you told me about, we’ll need a professional eCommerce website development company with Healthcare and Retail domain knowledge to sort it out.”
“Hey Alex, don’t worry! We know an agency that can help you with this. We have worked with them in the past, we were completely satisfied with the output.
I’ll send you their contact details.”
“Thanks Luis! You’re a lifesaver!”
How did it happen?
Alex roped in an agency that his friend Luis had suggested – us. The next few weeks were spent revamping the eCommerce site. The search function within the site was optimized, and more emphasis was placed on customer experience. Features such as auto-filling of details, improved page listings, and faster load times were introduced.
From ABC’s perspective, the backend system was also improved with multi-channel integration, and efficient inventory management. Analytics tools were put in place to enhance product stocking. Self-designed banners could be uploaded by ABC itself on the site to further their topical business interest.
Upon implementing these solutions, we realized that ABC’s blog was underutilized.
“Mr. Alex, why don’t you integrate the ABC blog on to the site? It’s got great content. A lot of people are reading it. If it’s on the site, you might get more conversions, and it’ll definitely create better engagement with your customers.”
“Sure! That sounds like a great idea!”
Mindfire Solutions is a 18+ years old company specialising in offshore small team software development work. At Mindfire, we have been helping people small startups, Small Business owners and entrepreneurs like Alex to grow. We help our esteemed clients to develop custom applications tailored for their needs and also provide strategies for existing application modernization.