Mainly, this growth is caused by the global rise of the wholesale vertical, including eCommerce and retail, especially after the pandemic hit in 2020 when nearly all the eCommerce businesses have experienced a huge rise in sales and revenue.

At present, it becomes even more obvious: the industry requires more and more innovative digital solutions targeted at business automation and further sales increase.

One of the newest efficient solutions for eCommerce is implementing order management software. This technology not only allows automating the core online business processes but also reduces the manual options for order management.

In this article, we’ll explain what order management software is, its essential features and benefits, and how it can improve your business performance from day one. Let’s get started!

What Is an Order Management System in eCommerce and Retail?

In eCommerce, the order management system (OMS) refers to the software for securely processing client orders across every step of their journeys in an efficient yet cost-effective manner. In other words, it allows delivering the perfect customer services across the brand’s various sales funnels.

With this technology, operators can effectively manage the orders coming from multiple eCommerce channels at a time and use the advanced sale order processing technologies for online orders fulfillment.

For instance, it covers the processes of order routing, shipping label printing, order returns, subscription management, and more – all those that used to be handled via manual updating.

In general, eCommerce order management is responsible for effective product delivery from the time customers add it to the shopping cart till they have received the delivery. Though this process is adapted individually to the specific business needs, the common steps of eCommerce order management process flow consists of the following steps:

• eCommerce company receives the order receipt from a customer
• The company sales manager enters the order details into the system
• The customer gets a notification regarding the order processing
• The order is transferred to the eCommerce warehouse/order fulfillment center
• The products are packed and prepared for the shipping
• The order is shipped according to the information on the shipping labels
• The customer receives the order status notification: shipped
• The order is delivered due to the preferable address or postal service

Instead of handling all these steps in a separate system and manually filling in the order status data, the order management system allows unifying these processes within a single order fulfillment system to ensure efficient order processing and product delivery.

Does an eCommerce Business Really Need Order Management Software?

The eCommerce order management software is a must-have technology for both small retail businesses and large eCommerce companies.

First of all, it facilitates the order fulfillment process by making it much more streamlined, cost-efficient yet automated. This software minimizes the time needed to prepare the order for shipping.

Besides, it optimizes the overall time needed to deliver the order to your customer, which has a direct impact on the customer experience.

At the same time, the final consumers get up-to-date information about the order status, are less likely to ask for any order information in customer support service, and are way more loyal towards the service: it has a transparent order processing system that clearly states the order delivery info.

For businesses, implementing the order management system allows them to automate and upgrade the key order completion processes. Some types of OMS software even enable tracking the order shipping by integrating with the carrier’s system like FedEx or DHL until the order is delivered.

Main Advantages of Order Management Solutions Implementation

Now that you know what the eCommerce order management software is and whether it’s worth using for retail businesses. Here, we’ll uncover the core benefits of this technology implementation, and whether or not it corresponds to your business developing strategy.

Improves the Delivery Speed

The most critical benefit of the eCommerce order management software is the faster order delivery, which can have a huge impact on the overall customer experience.

According to McKinsey, in recent times the speed of delivery has become equally important to the product price, which makes it an important aspect of building the business competitiveness. In times of a same-day or two-day delivery, consumers simply don’t want to go back to weeks and months of waiting.

That’s where the order management system for eCommerce comes into play: a single order management system can significantly eliminate the time needed for order processing and delivery.

Eliminates the Human Error

With having multiple order management systems for different stages of order fulfilment, it often happens that the worker filled in the wrong data or has chosen a wrong product article when processing the large orders, or else — didn’t send the order invoice to the client. As a result, the eCommerce platform has a poor customer experience and low customer loyalty rate.

The Salesforce research has shown that around 89% of customers are more likely to make another purchase after a positive customer service experience.

The eCommerce order management solutions allow eliminating human errors with automated order processing. In other words, the lesser the workload, the fewer steps a manager needs to fulfill, the better quality of the services the business will perform as a result.

Enhances the Business Scalability

The eCommerce order management can grow and develop along with your business, and result in a feature-rich omnichannel system. Such management software can be successfully used for multiple platforms and different products and is able to keep the pace and scale along with your business growth.

Enables the Multichannel Management Opportunities

Last but not least, to stay competitive in any eCommerce scope, it’s important to develop an online presence at different sales platforms. For instance, it’s a great opportunity to enhance the business performance with the eCommerce website, popular retail platforms, and social media.

At the same time, with having the orders flow from Facebook, Pinterest, Instagram, and Amazon, it becomes more challenging to track the orders and fulfill them in time.

eCommerce order management software is the right technology for ensuring high-grade customer service for any sales channel yet tracking all the orders within a single system. With the developed order management system, you can also generate the reporting and analyze the sales trends to build a strong and effective business strategy.

Core Features of eCommerce Order Management Software

Setting up the powerful order management in eCommerce implies also the deep analysis of your business goals, pains, and needs. It’s essential to find the most suitable technology that works best for your specific eCommerce project type and is able to optimize its existing performance.

Instead of trying to adapt your eCommerce workflow to the existing software solutions, it’s more efficient for the business owners to develop the brand new eCommerce order management software that will include all the features needed for this type of software. The main features to include in this system are:

• Order automation – to facilitate the verification and processing, as well as eliminate the need for manual data entry.
• Pre-made templates for the specific order forms – to minimize the time needed to fill in the customer data, preferable delivery methods, order details, and more.
• Electronic data archiving and management – to reduce the paperwork and optimize the time needed for the hard copies of invoices, order reports, and receipts.
• Inventory management – to keep the sales team always informed about the products in and out of stock, this feature is simply a must for an eCommerce order management system. It also benefits the correct goods reservation and effective stock levels update.
• Customer support  – to effectively track the order processing incidents, inform the managers about the specific order issues that need checking and create a powerful algorithm for their effective resolving (for instance, the use of chatbots can benefit in automatically tracking the orders, checking the order details and redirect customers to the specific manager according to the type of problem they’ve experienced).
• Multiple payment gateways and fraud checks – to block the fraud accidents, abort the suspicious transactions and minimize the cost losses. At the same time, you’ll attract more clients with the various payment methods and safe transaction processing.
• Reporting and analytics – to define the customer preferences, seasonal trends, and popular products, as well as track the employee’s KPIs and define the weak points and possible improvement strategies of the order management process.

Other great functions to consider when developing the order management system for eCommerce are:

• Order tracking – to let consumers personally track the status of their order without the need to address customer support or the shipping team. For the advanced eCommerce businesses, it would be also great to include real-time shipment tracking, which will not only reduce the order management team workload but also will be a great bonus for customer service.
• Contact database – to store and use the important clients’ data, and automatically fill it in for the next orders of your clients.
• Automated order status notifications – often ignored or forgotten to handle by order managers manually, it takes only a few seconds to complete using the eCommerce order management software. This feature can easily inform customers about the order details, send the shipping status updates, and remind them about the abandoned shopping cart using any suitable channel: using SMS reminders, app notifications, or classic emails.
• Shopping platform integration – to ensure quick yet effective data import and export, it’s essential to build a flexible OMS system that works well with multiple shopping platforms and ensures simple yet smooth performance.

Summing It Up

To sum up, eCommerce order management software is a must for businesses looking for order fulfillment optimization and automation.

By employing these retail applications and software, the eCommerce companies of different sizes and product types can enhance the significantly minimize the time needed for the order processing and preparing for delivery, manage multichannel and omnichannel sales across different platforms and marketplaces yet increase the quality of customer service and boost the clients’ loyalty.

Intellectsoft knows how important it is to develop the right software with advanced technologies that perfectly fit your business goals and needs. We’re empowering numerous businesses with premium yet effective solutions to improve their performance and enhance their workflow.

Talk to our experts to get the expert consultation regarding order management solutions development and whether or not this technology matches your business strategy right now!

The post Order Management Software: Benefits for eCommerce and Main Features appeared first on Intellectsoft Blog.

At the same time, meeting the tendency requires careful consideration. According to Deloitte 2021 Retail Industry Outlook, only 23% of consumers think the industry is trustworthy in terms of safety, and only 5% ranked it as a top-three one for data privacy. That means the importance of finding a reliable tech partner and using safe technologies for digitalization.

What’s more, eCommerce customers prefer to interact with online shops via smartphones. The mobile traffic surpasses all other types, reaching 54.8% of global website traffic in the first quarter of 2021. This situation calls for investing in mobile apps, but the cost of this type of app development isn’t affordable for any eCommerce business.

That’s why industry players have started searching for reliable technology to address the industry and customer demands. In this regard, progressive web apps attract wide attention.

These affordable platforms combine the latest web functionality with a native app-like experience, letting businesses take the desired advantage of the service.

In this overview, we’ll describe what good brings this type of eCommerce web development and explain why it’s worth a try.

What Is Progressive Web App (PWA)?

A progressive web app is a technology that unites the best parts of mobile apps and mobile websites. In practice, it lets customers open your app in a web browser and interact with it as if it’s a native app installed on their smartphones.

By resembling mobile apps as so, these platforms don’t require such a heavy investment and numerous complicated development stages.

Google introduced the progressive web app technology in 2015. These days, the search engine giant still supports PWA web pages. It lets your clients access the Google web page and install the icon app on their phones’ home screen.

That’s why the technology possesses several SEO benefits, including website loading speed improvement.

Besides, progressive apps are a great digital marketing tool. In this regard, the platform possesses several visibility opportunities. Because of that, progressive web app development includes access to smartphone features to improve the user experience.

For example, your eCommerce marketing can benefit from the technology by sending push-notifications and providing offline support to your clients.

Why Does your eCommerce Business Need Progressive Web App Development?

The greatest benefit that progressive web apps bring to eCommerce is the ability to have an app without heavy investment in native mobile app development.

You won’t need to adjust your app to fit different requirements and receive app store approvals, a must-have stage for publishing Android, iOS, and Windows apps. Moreover, you won’t need to invest in app store optimization (ASO). Progressive web apps are SEO-friendly, and your clients will use them without entering app stores.

Your PWA will look like a mobile version of your website, but the cloud-based technology behind it will create a native-like experience for users. This is the shortest way to achieve the needed extent of digital acceleration by maintaining high safety standards and meeting your customers in their smartphones.

Even if your business already has a native app (or any other eCommerce web application), going for a progressive web app will improve the key engagement metrics.

As for the main indicators, businesses investing in the technology get the best results in terms of app size, loading speed, conversion rate, bounce rate, and reaching areas with poor Internet connectivity.

For instance, Twitter decreased its app size by 97%, which resulted in a 20% reduction in bounce rate. In their turn, Starbucks has doubled its number of daily active users with an app that became 99.84% smaller than its already existing mobile iOS app.

5 Key Benefits of Progressive Web App to eCommerce

1. Safety and efficiency. Progressive web apps rely on HTTPS communication protocol, which lets your customers process their payments without the need to switch between a mobile app and a desktop. Skipping this obstacle will have a positive effect on the key elements of your sales funnel, including retention rate, conversion rate, and the number of returning visitors. What’s more, it addresses the current concerns of retail customers.
2. Lightweight. Progressive web apps are lighter than native apps, which results in faster loading speed, automatic refreshments, and a greater user experience. It’s easy to find and quick to download, free of lagging, and can work offline. Most businesses using this technology have reduced their app size by 80-99% of the initial mobile app size.
3. Cost-effective cross-device nature. A progressive web app is compatible with various operating systems and fits the screen size of different devices. This feature is useful for developing an omnichannel business strategy. Given the need to invest in native app development for each separate platform and device, eCommerce using progressive web apps makes the decision with true value-for-money.
4. Attracts web traffic. Progressive web apps have their own URLs, are available in search engine results, and let your SEO specialists work with their performance. Thanks to this, it’s an effective solution for eCommerce web development. Also, it cuts the app maintenance cost, eliminating the need for creating a separate budget for ASO activities.
5. Browser-based fully functional app. A progressive web app looks like a native app but is easy to reach as if it’s a mobile web page. At the same time, this feature doesn’t need technical complexity to deliver a satisfactory user experience. Progressive apps don’t use much data and can work even in areas with poor Internet connectivity.

4 Main Attributes of a PWA for eCommerce

Even though progressive web apps look like mobile web pages, they should possess extra native-like functionality to guarantee the required quality level for user experience.

For example, push notifications and app installation are must-have features, while GEO fencing is an optional one. In this section, we’ve collected the key attributes of these apps for guidance if you decide to invest in eCommerce web application development of this type.

Low Development Cost

With a progressive web app, eCommerce should significantly save on app development. At least, because this tool doesn’t need separate creation, maintenance, and promotion for various app stores and platforms. Your web app can use your website as a basis.

Nevertheless, the cost-effective solution should link your website and mobile experience in an elegant manner. The new platform shouldn’t look like a poor-quality version of your mobile website.

The aim of PWA development is to provide a unified platform for several channels a sole team can work with. This means uniting key native app features in a single platform that works smoothly on any device and operating system and is in compliance with your current SEO.

And, of course, the platform should be safe to enter and process mobile payments like a great retail app.

What’s more, your clients should enjoy the user experience they appreciate the most. At least, this low-cost solution should still look nice to you and to them.

This way, you’ll get a cheaper solution for the same quality of service your competitors normally invest thousands of dollars.

Main Screen Installation

Your users should have an option to install the app on their phones. Otherwise, there’s no need to invest in eCommerce web application development.

Generally, people don’t like to download apps from app stores. Especially if they don’t see the true value right away. That’s why progressive web apps should possess all the needed attributes to actually make an installation happen.

The needed button should be easy to find and work smoothly. The aim is to provide your clients with an opportunity to window shop your eCommerce store in their browser as they like and then download your app to proceed with purchase smoothly and conveniently.

Ability to Send Push Notifications

The best thing your eCommerce business can benefit from native app-like traits of web apps is push notifications. You can use this tool for sending discounts, special offers, and promotions.

Even better, you can customize the messages to address the need for eCommerce personalization, the crucial tool for your company to stay competitive, increase revenue, and enhance the services.

For example, you can generate product offers, content, and specific suggestions based on a user’s browsing experience — and notify them in a push notification via an app installed on their home screens.

With push notifications, you can reach users who browse your web anonymously and without leaving any contact details. Web apps don’t require any other actions but to install them on a home screen in a couple of clicks.

Fast Loading Speed for SEO Optimization

You should guarantee your users an exceptionally fast experience. With an appropriate eCommerce web development approach, you can create an app that can load with a second only.

This is possible when you combine the speed advantages of websites and enable caching from their side, making a mobile web page look like a native app.

Another trick behind speed acceleration is the lightweight of a progressive app. By occupying less disk space, it needs less data to load and fills less storage space. Compared to native iOS and Android apps, it’s dozens of times smaller.

Web basis of progressive apps enables their discoverability in search engines. And their great speed characteristics.

Contact Intellectsoft for eCommerce Web Development Services

Our team stays tuned for more news in the retail industry, and we’ll be glad to create a web app for your business with the highest standards in secure payment gateway integration.

From our extended list of retail applications and software services, you can get:

• Marketing automation. Update your app on the fly with geolocation and navigation, gamification, content management, push notifications, and social networking.
• Mobile users engagement. Let your customers shop online and enjoy an offline-like experience with augmented reality, geofenced messaging, in-store navigation, recipe shopping, and other custom features.
• Turning data into revenue. Get a comprehensive software solution that includes POS, smart design, IoT, Big Data analytics, and training.

Interested in getting the details? Contact the Intellectsoft team! Let’s choose and build together the software solution that perfectly fits your exact eCommerce business needs.

The post Progressive Web App Development in Ecommerce appeared first on Intellectsoft Blog.

Over the recent 4 years, the compound annual growth rate increased by around 14%. However, a huge growth of over 25% was recorded in a two-week period in March 2020.

That’s only one of the numerous reasons why the eCommerce businesses have suddenly switched their targets, and become highly interested in expanding their digital presence.

Now, shopping habits have also changed: over 78% of consumers prefer smartphone retail app usage for their shopping at least multiple times a week, and over 40% of them — do it on a daily basis.

So, what makes retail apps that popular, and what features do consumers look for in their retail shopping apps? Discover more with Intellectsoft!

Apps for Retailers: Key Benefits for Online and Offline Stores

Before you start investing in retail app development, it’s critical to understand what will you and your business get after its launching, and if the retail store app is actually worth its money.

In fact, there are numerous advantages of developing eCommerce shopping applications:

Enhance eCommerce

One of the prime benefits the retail store apps can bring to your business is boosting your eCommerce. According to the statistics shared by the Think With Google team, each second of shopping apps installed on user’s smartphones are used at least weekly.

So, after you’ve launched a retail app, your business can easily get the additional customer channel with tons of traffic and purchases!

Launch Loyalty Program

Around 80% of companies agree that customer retention is cheaper than acquisition, and increasing customer retention by only 5% can boost the business ROI by 25% to 95%. One of the easiest ways to establish a strong and trustful relationship with your customer is to always keep them engaged via the retail store app.

The trick is quite easy: consumers are more likely to become your loyal customers and recommend your eCommerce business to others if you can offer some valuable offers to them!

Establish Better Connection with Your Customers

Needless to say, that retail store app is important not only to sell the products online but also to always stay informed about the customer feedback regarding the service itself, product quality, and its delivery.

By regularly reviewing the comments and analyzing your customer behavior and trends shown in the mobile retail store, it becomes way easier to find out what products you should focus on, and what strategy works better for your business.

The retail app can also become a powerful tool for keeping in touch with the clients and reminding them about the special events, deals, and limited sales available at the moment, which can also generate additional revenue for your business.

Features of an Excellent Retail Application

After we’ve covered the main benefits eCommerce can get after launching a retail store app, it’s time to learn the basic features customers always look for in the retail mobile apps.

In fact, these include not solely the sign-up and payment features, but also plenty of other details eCommerce businesses usually ignore when they start developing their retail apps.

Product Review and Detailed Feedback

Over 90% of consumers make the purchase only after reading the review section, as it shows the real customer experience during the product utilization.

For sure, no one wants to buy a pig in a poke, so now consumers are greatly oriented at the real product quality, check the order delivery and the product rate as well. By including this in your retail mobile app, you can significantly increase not only the UX but also improve sales as well.

Easy Registration and Checkout

According to the marketing best practices, the two core points that can prevent people from leaving your app without any purchase are the quick signing-up procedure and cart checkout.

If you require too much information during the registration, the potential customer will be more likely to leave your retail app without even browsing the categories in it. Some eCommerce platforms tend to ask for the information they won’t even use, for instance: “Do you have children/ a car?”

Offline Performance

Setting up the offline capabilities for a retail app can be a perfect chance to engage more clients with it. Many smartphone users want to use the app anytime and anywhere, even if the network connection is lost, and that’s where the retail shopping apps can be a key option that enhances sales.

The opportunity to browse various products with limited data usage can significantly improve the overall user experience and app performance. One of the most effective examples of it — Spotify Music or Google Maps, since they can provide an excellent user experience and effective app performance the retail apps need to include as well.

Mobile Payments

Since the Covid-19 pandemic hit people have become more and more interested in online shopping: the share of adults who shopped more online in May 2020 has reached 52% according to Statista, and this tendency hasn’t lost its popularity in 2021.

The highest client traffic worldwide last year was obtained by Amazon.com, one of the world’s most famous retail store apps.

Including the multiple payment options to your retail app can significantly enlarge the visitor’s conversion into your clients or even loyal customers. That’s why it’s critical to make sure your app can provide users with the various payment options that are secure and fast — after they’ve had a great buying experience, they can definitely come again later.

And vice versa, after they didn’t manage to buy a product because of the payment issues or the payment methods unavailable, they’re close to leaving a retail app without any purchase.

Push Notifications

Last but not least among features of the retail app is the ability to notify users about the new products available, attractive sales and great deals, holiday reminders, and events they might be interested in.

With regularly keeping them updated, your retail store app can greatly enhance sales and provide a much better user experience for your clients as well. Just make sure your app is not too obsessive with the notifications and can provide value to its users — it’s the key point of the push notifications: to inform, not to bother.

Retail Shopping Apps: From Idea to Launching

Those who are interested in how to create a retail app should also be aware of the key points that define the cost of retail application development.

Depending on what features you expect to get in the final product, the cost of a basic retail app can vary from a few thousand dollars to tens of thousands of dollars. As a rule, the basic features include:

• Size and Scale of Your Retail App. Needless to add, the more devices you want to run your app on, the more advanced features you’re going to cover in it, the more elaborated app management system is required — the higher are the costs for retailer app development.
• Unique Design and Comfortable Interface. The design concept and comfortable user experience are as important as the functional part of the retail apps. This is why, your team of developers should look for opportunities to present the features of the retail mobile app in a new way, which usually requires additional spendings for creating multiple variants of the idea presenting.
• Timeframe and Quality Rates. Having involved a dedicated team of developers from different countries, business owners should be also aware of their service costs. For instance, it often happens that the US/UK developers are a few times more expensive than the talents from East European Countries such as Belarus or Ukraine, with the same or even more qualified experts in creating retail apps. Such a little difference at first can lead to higher expenses for the retail mobile app development as a result.
• Testing and Improving. After you’ve completed the app creating, you definitely should also include the QA testing in your retail mobile app development budget. That’s one of the most critical processes that help you to monitor the retail app performance, fix the bugs, and add the missing features to the final product before its release. Additionally, it can greatly help in detecting any retail app issues and checking all the functions listed in the requirements to deliver the right product to your consumers.

Knowing all these pitfalls when making the budget plan for your retailer mobile app can assist in better understanding how to create a retail app and what are the key points you should consider before starting the app’s actual development process.

Conclusion

To sum up, creating retail apps is a complex and challenging process that requires not only the product’s detailed planning, analyzing and testing. It also needs a deep understanding of the marketing trends and user experience for creating high-quality and functional retail applications and software.

Here, at Intellectsoft, we know how important retail application development is. Furthermore, the teams of our best developers empower hospitality companies and their workforces with innovative solutions and approaches.

So, if you and your organization are looking for the right team of dedicated developers to start —talk to our experts and find out more about creating a retail app and how your business can start benefiting from it today!

The post How to Create a Great Retail App: Main Features, Characteristics and Tips appeared first on Intellectsoft Blog.

Needless to add, these numbers will only grow in the future and are expected to reach 5.4 trillion US dollars in 2022.

Among the most common reasons that have forced various businesses from different industries to improve their online presence, marketers usually mention digital transformation and the recent pandemic hit in 2020.

However, along with eCommerce’s rising popularity, it still has a lot of vulnerabilities that make customers doubt its reliability. For instance, a large survey by PwC has shown that over 47% of organizations have encountered fraud in the past 24 months.

But what are the most common types of these security vulnerabilities and how can they be prevented in eCommerce? Intellectsoft experts are ready to share the best practices!

What Is a Security Vulnerability in eCommerce?

In the eCommerce industry, security vulnerability stands for the weak points of the system that can be easily attacked by scammers or prone to various fraudulent activities for getting money, products, and personal information from clients’ bases for the purpose of profit.

To prevent this, eCommerce units need to test and improve their online systems regularly to detect any security vulnerability (for instance, bugs, system errors, etc.) before scammers can use them for personal gain.

Knowing the basic types of security vulnerabilities can significantly assist in improving eCommerce web systems and applications, prevent cost loss, and prove to your final consumers your business is secure and can be trusted.

What Are the Most Common Types of eCommerce Security Vulnerabilities?

As we have already discussed, being aware of the most common security vulnerabilities in eCommerce will help you make sure you won’t lose any investments, or, what is even more important — your authority and customers’ trust.

That is why let’s now dive into the typical eCommerce security threats you should definitely be aware of when developing your eCommerce platform.

1. Financial Frauds or Payment Frauds

This type is one of the most typical for eCommerce and dates back to the very first attempts of the businesses going online. Often, scammers used to make unauthorized transactions and immediately wipe out the trails. Or else, they can use the fake emails, accounts, and names, and even IP addresses to look like the real customer.

After they have requested a refund with, for instance, a fake screenshot, most eCommerce platforms basically give them money for nothing, especially if they’re not aware of this financial trick.

With being reported in over 70% of all attacks, payment frauds are still one of the top reasons why companies experience huge cost losses.

How to Solve the Problem

Make sure your eCommerce platform cooperates only with verified and authoritative payment systems. Additionally, some companies make it possible to conduct a transaction only after logging in to the individual account before any purchase, which minimizes the risks of financial fraud and prevents common security vulnerabilities as well.

2. Spam Attacks

Though emails are considered to be the most powerful marketing channel for eCommerce, they are also the typical web security vulnerabilities hackers can easily take advantage of.

The random comments left on the product pages, under your blog posts, or the contact forms can not only harm the customers’ trust but also slow down your platform as well.

Needless to say, that one infected link left by a spammer is more than enough to affect your site’s speed, provide access to personal customer information and other sensitive data.

Additionally, the spamming activity can become a serious threat to the customers’ security as well, which can easily undermine your site’s credibility.

How to Solve the Problem

Use anti-spamming software for security vulnerabilities detection and its successful removal. Such software can easily spot the infected URLs and safely remove them from your site so that no one can see them.

Typically, such software type uses various algorithms to filter the comments and detect the computer-generated links which can be potentially dangerous for your site’s security, and even provide you with the details about the email of the actual sender if it is possible.

3. Triangulation Fraud

One of the most recent and large-scale security vulnerabilities detected nowadays is triangulation fraud. This stands for creating a fake site with an identical interface and products at a cheaper price.

After the customers complete the transaction, they basically donate the money to the criminals, as the products they wanted to purchase simply don’t exist and never be shipped to them.

The reason why this type of fraud is harmful to your eCommerce platform is that you can lose your new clients, loyal customers, and their trust as well: no one wants to go back to the site (even with the slight differences in a brand’s name or interface) after being cheated there at once.

How to Solve the Problem

Basically, no one can stop scammers from creating a platform that looks just like your online store. However, it’s possible to prevent your customers from being fooled by simply informing them about this issue and pointing out the real domain of your eCommerce platform.

Even a simple information letter can in fact prevent your customers from money loss and also strengthen your store’s authority as well.

4. Web Application Security Vulnerabilities

At present, the level of competition in different business areas makes companies do their best to meet all the customers’ needs. For online stores, web applications are simply a must to attract more clients to their platform.

For instance, it’s essential for eCommerce clients to create the wish lists of the products they want to buy next, look for the featured products, check the special offers and get the personalized list of products they are probably interested in.

The use of smartphones has only enhanced the demand for web app creation. However, having created one is still not that easy as to maintain and update it regularly.

Developers should not only focus on the customer experience and comfortable interface but also on the software security vulnerabilities as well. Having omitted this stage of web app development, you can easily give a green light to the criminals for the attack. They can easily play with fake transactions and refunds, gift cards, and even the critical data of your eCommerce platform.

How to Solve the Problem

Find a dedicated team of developers you can trust, and ask them to conduct the app checking for the bugs, error codes, and other software issues that need to be fixed.

Additionally, professional app developers can try various scenarios of hacking, such as cookie poisoning, remote command execution, cross-site scripting, etc to check the specific software security vulnerability of your app and easily resolve it.

5. Bot Attack

Some criminals also attack eCommerce sites with bots, that basically act like real users and can hardly be detected by the security system.

This is why bot attack is considered to be one of the common security vulnerabilities you should always keep in mind. Usually, you can check the bot traffic in the site’s analytics and get the records about the exact time and details of their behavior.

However, bots are not just fake users that can boost your traffic to slow down the site’s speed. Instead, they can also steal the personal information of your customers, record their log-in credentials and bank information, manipulate the products’ prices and randomly block them, thus making your eCommerce platform less secure and user-friendly.

How to Solve the Problem

To make sure your site is secure enough and won’t go down during any of the hacking attempts, always introduce a CAPTCHA test for critical actions such as logging in or products’ purchase.

In addition, track the traffic and block the one generated from the suspicious sources, analyze the failed log-in attempts and protect your mobile apps.

Large companies also consider employing bot migration software – the perfect solution for minimizing IT security vulnerabilities.

6. Brute Force Attacks

Brute-force attacks refer to the hacking method of guessing the system passwords. So far that’s one of the most dangerous security vulnerability types that can attack your online store’s panel and attempt to get full access to it.

During this attack, the various programs and complex algorithms are used to generate any possible combination to crack your site’s password. After that, any scenario is possible: criminals can ask for the reward or steal the client’s personal data, send spam offers, etc — all they planned to do since the site owner has lost access to the admin panel.

How to Solve the Problem

This attack can’t be predicted but can be prevented instead. For minimizing the site’s security vulnerability, developers recommend using strong, complex passwords and do not store them on your digital files, computer documents, browsers, etc.

In addition to that, you can protect the site by changing the password regularly (for instance, on a monthly basis or once a quarter).

Basic Principles of the eCommerce Security

After we have covered the typical security vulnerability examples and the ways they can be solved and prevented, it’s time to figure out the 4 essential basics you should know for ensuring your eCommerce security.

#1 Privacy

It’s pivotal to secure any activity that can lead to the customer data leak. Remember, that the data entrusted to you by the clients can never be accessed by third parties or shared with them as well.

To follow this statement, a seller should take the necessary measures related to the anti-virus, firewall, data encryption, and other software to protect critical data.

#2 Authentication

This means that eCommerce security requires both the seller and the customer to be real, as well as both of them should act under their personal names.

In some cases, clients should give proof of identity, or provide the bank information needed for the successful transaction payment. If you’re unable to organize this process as a seller, feel free to hire an expert to figure out how to make this correct and safe.

#3 Integrity

The eCommerce concept of integrity implies using the customer information without changing it, but as it was given by your customer instead. By altering any part of the client’s personal data you can simply lose confidence in the security and integrity of the online enterprise.

#4 Non-Repudiation

This particular aspect refers to the inability of the parties to deny their actions in the transaction. Thus, each of the parties should pass the transaction part they have initiated, and can’t deny any signature, email, or purchase.

The non-repudiation principle is needed to ensure that two parties have confirmed the transaction actions from their side and are ready to complete them.

All these eCommerce principles stated above are also as important as the software security vulnerability is. By taking all the needed measures to prevent the security vulnerability, you’re also making sure both parties (you and your customers) are secure, and can easily share the benefits.

Conclusion

To sum up, there are various types of security vulnerabilities the eCommerce owners should keep in mind for their business’ successful development.

Being aware of the most common practices used for preventing fraudulent activities can not only significantly increase the ROI, but also ensure your online store, its customers, and personal data are always safe.

Using the retail applications and software for eCommerce, you can significantly minimize the chance of any security vulnerability appearing, and save up lots of time, costs, and resources. What else can be better?

Our team of developers, at Intellectsoft, empowers eCommerce companies with innovative solutions that help to ensure strong security and a high level of services provided. Is your organization looking for professional assistance?

Talk to our experts right now and let’s take your business to the next level together!

The post Types of Security Vulnerabilities in eCommerce and How to Solve Them appeared first on Intellectsoft Blog.

According to the research, 54% of all e-commerce sales will be made through mobile devices in 2021.

For customers to be able to seamlessly make purchases through your website or program, it is vital to have a convenient and secure payment gateway in your program.

After all, as evidenced by the data of various studies, an inconvenient and dangerous payment system forces users to make purchases from your competitors, even if your product is much better.

According to the study, 11% of users abandon their order through a complex checkout system. 12% – if they need to enter too much personal information, 7% – if the list of payment methods is too small and the user cannot find the one he needs, another 14% – if there is no guest payment option on the site or in the program.

But integrating secure payment systems is not a very easy process. There are several factors to consider. Payment gateways must be secure, also include several payment methods, as well as support the ability to pay in multiple currencies.

What Is a Payment Gateway?

Before you learn how to make a secure payment gateway to ensure secure payments, let’s discuss what exactly payment gateways are and why they are so important.

A payment gateway is a technology that collects and transfers data from a client to an acquirer and then sends a notification to the client about the acceptance or rejection of the payment.

A payment gateway process involves verifying the customer’s bank card details, ensuring the availability of funds, and allowing the merchant to receive payment for a product or service.

This technology acts as an interface between a merchant’s website and its acquirer. Another function of the secure payment gateway is encryption of the confidential data of the client’s credit card in order to enable the anonymized transfer of the client’s data to the acquirer.

In simple terms, the secure payment gateway is a virtual analog of a point-of-sale terminal, which we can see every day in different offline stores.

The payment gateway process acts as a middleware between buyer and seller, providing secure payments. Using a secure online payment gateway simplifies the process of implementing the necessary software for merchants several times.

As noted earlier, this technology also manages the user’s confidential information, such as bank card number, expiration date, and CVV code.

Why Do Companies Need a Payment Gateway?

But still, why should you use a secure online payment gateway if it only serves as an intermediary? The problem is that secure payments through a website or program do not work the same way as through a terminal in a regular store.

It is impossible to physically swipe a bank card through the terminal, you can only rely on the data of the card that the client enters on the payment page.

But it is impossible to be completely sure that the user’s card is their own. That is why in such secure payments, where it is impossible to provide a physical card, the risk of fraud is very high. In such situations, payment gateways come in handy.

If you do not use a secure payment gateway to flow your online payments, it will be much easier for fraudsters to gain access to your customers’ bank card details, which will make your company very vulnerable and cause irreparable damage to your reputation.

By using a secure payment gateway, you can keep your customers’ bank card confidential information out of threats. In addition to protecting against fraud, the secure payment gateway also protects merchants from expired cards, insufficient funds, closed accounts, or exceeding credit limits.

How to Make the Payment Gateway Secure and Protected?

Payment gateways must ensure that merchants always receive funds from customers upon purchase and that they do not have to worry about credit risk and the possibility of fraud.

Still, it is almost impossible to completely prevent fraud. Fraudsters always improve their methods, and therefore such a disaster can befall anyone.

But by using a secure payment gateway, you can significantly reduce the possibility of fraud and prevent theft. Below are several ways that you can use to provide secure payment on your website or program.

SSL for Secure Connections

Every transaction that takes place through your company’s website or mobile application must be protected by SSL. With the help of SSL, it becomes possible to encrypt the confidential data of your customers’ bank cards, which makes this information protected from fraudsters.

The use of such technology not only increases the security of payments but also makes customers more inclined to purchase. SSL is indicated by a padlock icon in the address bar, and web addresses start with HTTPS.

When a user sees such an icon, he understands that he can safely make purchases through your site and not worry about the security of his data.

The secure payment provider you are using must be sure to use HTTPS for all of their services, and therefore you must make sure they also have an SSL certificate.

In addition, you should also regularly check the information about the certification authorities that you or they use. This will help keep your secure payment high.

PCI Certificate

When processing payments on your site, PCI is required. The Payment Card Industry Data Security Standards (PCI DSS) include guidelines that merchants must follow to protect sensitive user data when processing payments. Some of the requirements of this standard include:

• Use validated payment software at the point-of-sale or website shopping cart;
• Do not store sensitive customer data on computers;
• Encrypt transmission of customer data across any open public networks;
• Use a firewall on networks and PCs;
• Teach employees about security measures, such as protecting cardholder data.

One of the best news is that merchants do not have to adhere to and comply with PCI standards. All they have to do is choose the best service provider.

Sellers can leave it up to the payment gateway to follow the industry security standards and provide data encryption, which is required by PCI.

That is why the merchant can be confident in a secure payment gateway if he adheres to these security standards. Thus, payment gateways act as third-party solutions that provide merchants with the latest and greatest security measures they need.

Tokenization

Tokenization replaces all sensitive user data with a set of characters that were randomly generated. The use of this technology significantly reduces the risk of data loss.

One of the best methods is to use a token, which is a real bank card number. After the transaction, the user’s confidential data is sent to a special server, where they are securely stored.

Along with this, the seller receives a unique number. Using this number, the client can make purchases on the website or in the program. He does not need to enter all his data again, he can make payment in just one click.

If you use payment gateways with tokenization this will help you minimize the risk of payment fraud. You do not need to store all of your customers’ information, that is, the data of their bank and credit cards, on your server.

It is also important that the data is encrypted even before it reaches the database server.

3D Secure Authentication

3D Secure (Three Domain Secure) is a messaging protocol that involves three domains: bank, technology that processes the transaction, and the issuing bank.

This is an additional layer of security that helps prevent fraudulent transactions without a physical bank card. In addition, by using such technology, you automatically transfer responsibility from yourself to the issuing bank.

That is why, when a user wants to purchase on the Internet, he must necessarily confirm the transaction with a generated password, or a one-time PIN, as sent from the bank via SMS. This will help to significantly increase your defense.

Conclusion

It’s worth noting that there are several rules that both sellers and customers should follow to secure their business and carry out secure transactions.

Companies must use all of the methods described above if they want customers to be able to securely purchase their products or services directly through their website or mobile app.

As for customers, they should check the websites on which they make purchases so that their personal information does not get to scammers.

It is also important to enter only the information that is associated with a bank card and in no case send scanned documents or copies of bank cards.

It is usually quite difficult for companies to develop their payment gateway themselves. Today there are many companies involved in financial software development. But not every company can provide quality services and make a truly quality product.

If you consider integrating a secure payment gateway, make sure to work with an experienced software development vendor as Intellectsoft.

We have years of experience helping businesses secure their payment processing and would be glad to work with you on your project. Contact us today and we will discuss your project in all the details.

The post Secure Payment Gateway Integration: How to Make It Work appeared first on Intellectsoft Blog.

In addition, the abundance of tools and tech solutions available allows companies to reach a broader target customer pool and provide services better than ever.

Technologies make it possible for the companies in the retail industry to pay more attention to their clients and analyze their needs, tastes, and behavior more precisely.

Customers are vital to driving businesses forward, so personalized online shopping is crucial for companies to stay competitive, increase their revenue, and enhance the services.

According to Statista, e-commerce sales accounted for 18% of all retail sales worldwide in 2020. This figure is expected to grow up to 21.8% by 2024.

The demand for online purchases grows, so businesses should consider this information and make the best of it by offering better services to their users. The key to efficient customer service lies in personalization.

What Is E-Commerce Personalization?

E-commerce personalization is the practice of creating personalized offers for customers online.

It is a process of delivering product offers, content, and specific suggestions based on a user’s browsing behavior, previous purchases, demographics, and personal data.

Personalization has proven to be an effective way to retain clients. It shows them that the company considers their preferences and provides product suggestions that the customers most likely might like and buy.

Businesses should design personalization strategies for their companies to succeed with this practice. What can you do?

First, know your audience. It is a core aspect of the strategy. The more you know about the users, the more personalized offers you can create.

Second, group your users. Segmentize the users according to their needs and tastes, so you can provide them with the products/offers they are looking for.

Third, deliver product recommendations. You can display personalized recommendations of products or similar alternatives to the ones your purchasers are reviewing.

The Benefits of Personalization in Retail

Personalization in retail has proven to be an effective optimizing technique that helps businesses collect customer data, send personal messages or make personal recommendations. So, what benefits do you get with personalization?

Enhanced customer experience

A personalized shopping experience allows brands to give their customers what they want without spending hours on the internet searching for the right product.

In this way, you make your users’ experience more efficient and increase the loyalty level to your brand. In addition, by personalization, you show that you care and know your target audience’s tastes.

Increased sales

When you send out information about sales or promotions relevant to the customers, they are more likely to make a purchase on your website or application.

Increased order size

If you provide customers with specific and relevant information while they are shopping on your website, there is a high chance they might include additional products into their shopping cart.

For instance, if a user is looking for a dress, your services can suggest different accessories that might suit the look, including bags, shoes, jewelry, etc.

More relevant informational content

Customers do not want to receive dozens of messages a day about the products you have on your website and offering irrelevant content. Personalized suggestions will appear rarely, but they are more likely to drive customers to complete their orders and won’t push them away.

Better engagement

Website personalization increases engagement. Create targeted CTAs, not the same ones for all the users. Also, suppose your website remembers users’ contact information, delivery details, previous orders, and personal data.

In that case, the customers will be more inclined to return to your services and remain loyal to your organization for an extended period.

Efficient competitive level

Personalized offers will increase the interest of your existing clients in the products or services your organization offers. Thus, more of them will return to you, increasing the popularity of your brand.

This practice is significantly valuable in modern marketing, as it will grow your competitiveness level among companies that deliver the same or similar goods/services.

Lowered costs

Know your audience and what do they need at this particular period of time or location. In this way, you will focus on the products in demand, cut down on manufacturing, and decrease the chances of loss.

Apart from this, you can decrease amounts spent on advertising, as you can choose to advertise the products that are in demand and there is a higher chance that more purchasers will buy them.

Thus, one personalized ad can bring you more income than the one set to advertise everything and to everyone.

Nowadays, it is not a challenge to deliver relevant, personalized customer experiences online, as tech tools and solutions help companies enhance their services.

Instead, the challenge lies in the development and implementation of these solutions in the right way.

Some companies have managed to develop solutions that set bright examples for other businesses in the retail field.

7 E-Commerce Personalization Examples

AR, VR, IA, chatbots, etc., are means through which brands can engage with their customers. Nowadays, businesses pay more attention to the technologies they use to create online personalization, as they know what advantages they bring for the organization.

Check the examples of e-commerce personalization that you can use to enhance the services within your own company.

1. Use Chatbots

A chatbot is an excellent example of personalization. It can replace a shopping assistant with some common questions, help the user find suitable products, or connect with a live chat agent for further assistance.

For instance, H&M uses a virtual assistant that aims to provide personalized online shopping. The chatbot is available 24/7 and helps with great outfit possibilities in real-time. What is more, the chatbot guides customers to their online store shopping cart and the checkout page.

2. Use Personalized E-mails

E-mails can help companies boost customer returns to the services. For example, online stores use this method to remind their customers about abandoned shopping carts, encouraging them to complete their purchases.

Also, use e-mails to send out special offers to your customers based on their personal information from their accounts or inform them about upcoming sales on the products the customers showed the most interest in.

Include your customer’s name and generate different CTA’s to attract more users to your website. For instance, you can send out special offers before customers’ birthdays, giving them a discount or coupons for further purchases.

3. Use Geographic Location

Companies like Nike and Nikon ask the visitors of their websites to choose their location to provide them with relevant information and available products in their region.

4. Make Search and Visited Related Recommendations

Make search result pages more relevant by showcasing search and visit related product recommendations on the top of these pages.

By showcasing products that shoppers who have searched similar or the exact keywords have purchased, you can decrease the time and effort it takes for new shoppers to discover the same products. Merchandising search pages with product recommendations is one of the easiest ways to optimize performance.

5. Use Personalized Payment Options

Payment options can make or break for a lot of shoppers. For example, the difference between paying fully at the moment or having four equal payments over multiple months can make or break a shopper’s decision to purchase.

By offering personalized payment options on a cart page according to a shopper’s previous behavior, you can sell them on a decision they were unsure of with the opportunity to pay in full from the start.

6. Highlight Discounts

Showcasing your current discounts is one of the basic merchandising moves you can make. You can highlight discounted products to ensure they are at the top of category pages, so shoppers know they’re there and have no trouble finding and purchasing the products.

7. Have Custom Homepage Product Recommendations

At the core of personalization are product recommendations, and the first recommendations you deliver are your first impression with a customer.

Offering merchandised product recommendations to first-time visitors and personalized recommendations to those who are returning is a vital part of any optimal e-commerce shopping experience.

Deliver varying custom recommendations on your homepage using Nosto’s product recommendations and segmentation.

Personalization in Retail: Where to Start and How to Develop a Suitable Application?

As digital technology advances, retailers will want to invest in the right decision tools for their business model, enabling customers to make more informed purchase decisions. In addition, these tools will help recreate an environment that more closely mirrors the in-store experience.

The process of personalization implementation requires a lot of time and effort. Therefore, it is essential to develop a detailed and structured strategy to win in the long run. Here are the steps you can take to deliver efficient customer personalization.

1. Collect Necessary Data

At this stage, you have to analyze your existing website and know your customer’s journey. Then, think about where it is relevant to personalize the journey and how it should look like.

Try to use your website as a customer, so you can see where improvement is required. Also, you can start collecting data about your customers, so you know the average age of the users, gender, their locations, preferences, etc.

Finally, use website cookies or beacons to get authentic information. They will allow you to see where your customers have been on the website and what they were looking for.

2. Analyze Existing Solutions and Match Them with Your Requirements

Create a list of available solutions for personalization and your short- and long-term requirements. Then, think about which solutions will fulfill your needs.

Also, do not forget to consider the cost of the implementation and whether the features are difficult to use for the customers.

3. Create a General Profile of Your Customer

Detailed analysis of your audience will provide you with information about the average customer profile to know who exactly purchases your products or uses services.

If you cover different categories of customers, you can group them accordingly. When you know who your customer is, what groups of customers you have, so you can start developing strategies to personalize their experience.

4. Define Your Goals

Now you should identify the goals for your customer groups and your website.

For example, common personalization goals might include: increasing conversions, reducing bounce rate, facilitating product discovery, increasing average order value, increasing retention, improving upsells, driving repeat purchases, etc.

5. Build a Strategy

Now when you have all the necessary data and a list of requirements, you can start working on your personalization strategy.

First, prioritize the pages of your website and include some of the following: homepage, product page, search results, no search result page, and shopping cart page.

Next, you should outline personalization solutions for each page. For instance, you can show different banners to different customers once they are on your homepage.

6. Implement Personalization Strategy

Finally, you can start the implementation process. The cycle includes the following stages:

• Identification of campaigns
• Prioritization of campaigns
• Setup
• Test

Building a strategy is one thing, but it is also essential to have a team of professional developers and engineers who know how to tailor your specific requirements into profound retail applications and software.

Consider hiring a team of developers who have vast experience in software development for retail companies.

They know the specifics of the industry and can give you valuable information, guide you through the process, recommend the most suitable solutions for a personalized shopping experience, and allocate the necessary resources to complete a task.

If your business is a small- or medium-sized one and you do not have an in-house team of developers, then you can consider outsourcing.

It is a convenient and quick way to get an equipped team of professionals who have experience in software development for retail businesses.

We, at Intellectsoft, empower hospitality companies and their workforces with innovative solutions and approaches. Are you and your organization looking for some?

Contact our team and learn more about software development for the retail industry and its advantages for your business.

The post E-Commerce Personalization: A Complete Guide to Enhance Customer Efficiency  appeared first on Intellectsoft Blog.

The retail environment keeps changing impetuously and it’s important to stay on top of also changing consumer buying behavior which consists of a shift to digital channels, products, and services.

These changes open entirely new fronts for retail businesses to recover after the pandemic.

The webinar devoted to these latest retail trends and strategies was hosted by our Intellectsoft colleagues Pavel Laktionov who has more than 15 years of experience as a tech solution advisor and Tim Kozak who has more than 10 years of experience as a solution architect and is the winner of The 19th Annual American Business Awards.

During this exclusive webinar you will explore:

• Industry overviews: from challenges to future opportunities
• Key strategies retail business leaders should consider to achieve sustainable growth
• Intellectsoft approach to developing a digital strategy

Here are some key takeaways from the webinar but we encourage you to watch the full version to get it covered in detail.

As the pandemic unfolded all over the world and lockdowns became the new normal, all this had a drastic impact on the industry and customer behavior in particular.

According to new data from IBM’s U.S. Retail Index, the pandemic has accelerated the shift away from physical stores to digital shopping by roughly 5 years.

Department stores, as a result, are seeing significant declines. In the first quarter of 2020, department store sales and those from other “non-essential” retailers declined by 25%. This grew to a 75% decline in the second quarter.

In Walmart’s case, the pandemic helped drive e-commerce sales up 97% in its last quarter. Target set a sales record as its same-day fulfillment services grew 273% in the quarter.

Both retailers have also invested in online grocery, with Walmart today offering grocery pickup and delivery services, the latter through partners. Target has also just now rolled out grocery pickup and runs delivery through Shipt.

So much has changed for the retail industry in a short period. Let’s review some of the most formidable retail industry changes retail business leaders are facing.

Here are the main trends in the retail industry you should keep a close eye on:

1. To stay relevant with the demand, retailers must make an investment in mobile technology, such as wireless payment terminals and receipt printers.
2. Consumers were forced to adapt their buying behaviors from traditional in-person payments to online-driven alternatives Merchants that had omnichannel payment strategies in place were able to adapt quickly with online storefronts, mobile ordering, delivery, and/or curbside payments.
3. For many retailers, COVID-19 has unexpectedly demonstrated the importance of managing critical supply chains and customer service using the right technology.
4. An increase in mobile technology and unattended or self-service kiosks will also create a demand for wireless infrastructure and network security.
5. With COVID-19 accelerating digital transformation and adoption across industry verticals, the Retail sector alone has invested in 3 years’ worth of digital transformation within a span of 6 months.
6. Global retailers invest in various technologies. Here is the list of the technologies that they consider: such as Artificial Intelligence (AI), Internet of Things (IoT), Cloud, Augmented Reality (AR)/Virtual Reality (VR), Big Data, Blockchain, and Cybersecurity.
7. There is a rising interest in strengthening inventory management systems with AI-based tools that not only make demand forecasts more accurate but also improve a retailer’s ability to satisfy a customer who walks in the door, whether physically or online.
8. More and more retailers are enabling in-store customers to scan their items and check out using an app, without the need for going through a checkout line.

To get more information regarding the retail strategies and industry trends, follow the link to watch the full webinar.

Start Your Retail Business Digitalization With Intellectsoft

If you are not sure where to start your digital transformation journey and what technology to apply in order to offer a new consumer experience then don’t hesitate to get in touch with our experts.

We have extensive experience with a wide range of technologies, and solutions to provide you a software consultancy and make your first step towards innovations.

Intellectsoft’s team has strong expertise in the eCommerce and retail business so we will be able to solve your particular business issues and offer the most scalable solutions. Find out more about your digital possibilities during the Discovery Workshop.

Feel free to contact us and discuss your future project with our best specialists today!

The post Webinar for Proactive Retailers: 5 Strategies to Adopt to Digitalize and Grow Business in 2021 appeared first on Intellectsoft Blog.

In brief:

1. Retailers are going to overthink how they use technologies to find new ways to get revenue and build up innovative business models amid pandemic.
2. Retail digital transformation has already started in some ways, and some companies already get some advantages from the changes they have made.
3. Right now, fulfillment and last-mile execution, transparency, workforce, and pricing — are four key areas COVID-19 hit the most. This is where retail CIOs must focus their attention and bring the full capacity of digitalization.

What is Digital Transformation in Retail? Inevitable Changes of the Future

Digital transformation is penetrating into every sphere and industry we know today, starting with finance, banking, mass media, education, manufacturing, healthcare, etc. Companies go digital to enhance their services and offered facilities in order to bring up the level of satisfaction of their customers. The whole idea behind it is based on the customers’ needs and involves other aspects like process organization within the company, its employees, external communication, and technologies used.

The same goes for digital transformation in retail. Retailers are going to overthink how they use technologies to find new ways to get revenue and build up innovative business models. It follows that as technologies and digital tools evolve, they are going to have a great influence not only on the services provided by the company, but also its inner culture, management, organization of the workflow.

In addition to this, it gives employees a number of opportunities, as they master new skills and obtain valuable knowledge. Overall, it’s a long-term process (life-circle) where one change leads to another and influences other components involved in the digital transformation process.

Digital Transformation in Retail: Benefits

The process of retail digital transformation is not an easy one, as for the other industries. But if you have a well-thought strategy in your hands and clearly see the results you aim for, then it’s worth putting your foot on this path, as digital transformation comes not only with challenges but brings a number of advantages.

• Easier Connection

Digital transformation makes it easier for retailers and their customers to connect and communicate via social media accounts, websites, chatbots, mobile apps, etc.

• Smoother Operations

The implementation of Cloud technologies will improve operations within the company as the external ones, reduce the time spent on sharing information with the customers, thus improving client support.

• More Convenient

Thanks to the AI (Artificial Intelligence) tools, now customers can shop without cashiers. AI automation of some processes will enhance the customer experience. Also, it enables retailers to sell their products not only in physical stores but via websites or mobile apps.

• Higher Revenue

Digital transformation is retail that enables providers to have more than one channel of income, thus gives a chance to reach a wider target audience.

• Better Customer Experience

All the changes that come with digital transformation influence customer experience and make it better. Technical tools facilitate the work of the employees, make services quicker and more efficient, thus customers get high-quality services, their journey of buying products becomes a more pleasant one, etc. As the whole concept of digital transformation is customer-centered, they get the most but help your business become better and prosper.

Digital Transformation in Retail Banking

Retail digital transformation also takes place in banking, as it is a part of the industry. Retail banks should take advantage of the customer data they get. It is especially important for their digital transformation journey, as it was already said, the process is customer-centered. The data that banks have access to can be used as a base for innovation and solutions that can enhance customer experience, make it more personalized.

Tools like IoT, AI, Blockchain, etc. help to analyze data in a sufficient way, automate some of the processes, as well as reduce the number of paperwork. For instance, thanks to online banking, people now don’t have to line up at the bank office to get answers to their issues or provide payments. In addition to this, technical tools make services more easy-to-use, thus improve customer experience and attract new customers.

In order to succeed and survive the competition with other retail banks or platforms that provide similar services, banks should take into consideration the security issue. Security is of a high priority as customers trust with their money and want their funds to be safe. Online banking requires high-quality tools to protect data, and thanks to digital technologies we have today, it’s possible.

Retail Digital Transformation Trends for Post-COVID-19 Times

Retail digital transformation has already started in some ways, and some companies already get some advantages from the changes they have made. Still, as we know the process of digital transformation is not a short-term thing, as we have a constant change of the technologies, innovative solutions occur regularly, and in order to keep up a track of the latest trends, we have come up with the list of top ones.

• Mobile Applications

A mobile app is a great connector between customer and retailer’s physical shop. Customers can check on the products, watch and read reviews, etc. In addition to this, they can easily contact the support group in case of inquiries.

If you still do not have a mobile application for the store, you should consider this option, as it has a great number of advantages, facilitates purchasing, and brings you closer to your customers. Also, mobile apps are a good start for further development, as it is possible to add new features and enhance the services you provide.

• Augmented Reality (AR)

AR in the digital transformation of the services is a great tool that allows customers to try and view things without leaving their homes.

For instance, IKEA came up with an awesome idea of letting its customers choose the best pieces of furniture by using their app. You just have to point a camera to the right place at home, and the app will offer you options that suit your interior. Another example is Toyota, where you can try different cars before making any decisions.

• Virtual Reality (VR)

Virtual Reality technology has great potential for the retail industry to develop and grow. This tech solution will definitely enhance customer experience, as they will be able to check cars, homes, etc. without even stepping inside of it.

Retail Digital Transformation Challenges: Managing risk and disruption

Digital transformation contains one more meaning behind this term, it’s — to be adaptive to the changes. It’s not a static process, so you cannot 100% predict further steps.

But the company can have a thoroughly detailed strategy that will help them to keep up on the path to digital transformation. Retailers should find ways to satisfy the needs of customers who have different preferences and expectations. It follows that businesses should learn to be agile and flexible. This is not only about customers, but the inner-company organization of the processes, communication between employees, departments, and customers, etc.

Another challenge will be to figure out which technologies should be used to turn your ideas into reality. The company should have professional IT specialists at their service who can consult, give their expert opinion, and complete projects within stated time frames. It’s possible to hire individual professionals with your own efforts, but also you can use outsourcing.

Also, retailers might face challenges with data analysis. There are numerous channels that help them get information about customers, but this data should be properly analyzed. Luckily, nowadays, there is access to numerous tools that can be of great help in this matter as personal data gives you a chance to learn more about your customers thus giving you a chance to provide more personalized offers and enhance their experience with your services and products.

Retail Digital Transformation Market: Going Digital

The process of digital transformation has already started and has an enormous influence on the retail market. New channels of revenue and deep data analysis thanks to the technologies we have today, make it possible for the industry to grow. For now, we know for sure that the process won’t stop, and we will see a major boost in the retail market thanks to digital tools and technologies.

The only thing to do is to set up a strategy and work towards your goals in order to enhance customer’s experience, optimize the inner-company processes, make shopping easier, and more fun. Nowadays, we have everything to make it happen.

COVID-19: Helping Retail Conquer Digital Transformation

Depending on the countries, categories, and customers’ mixes, the impact of the novel coronavirus is very different for every retailer. Right now, fulfillment and last-mile execution, transparency, workforce, and pricing — are four key areas COVID-19 hit the most. This is where retail CIOs must focus their attention and bring the full capacity of digitalization.

We, at Intellectsoft, empower companies and their retail workforce with digital transformation solutions and data-driven insights. Are you and your organization ready to shift the mindsets and get the most out of innovations?

Talk to our experts and find out more about the topic and how your business or project can start benefiting from it today!

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Facebook launched its chat bot platform back in April, inviting companies with a Facebook Page to add a bot to it — an automated, AI-powered service appearing through Messenger, using natural language processing to answer customer queries and provide help. Rather than placing orders through the website or over the phone, for example, users could get them through a branded chatbot instead.

Plenty of brands have already jumped on board with Facebook’s vision of a bot-filled future, particular retail outlets, where ordering and searching can be reduced to a series of simplified text commands.

Take the chat bot for 1-800-Flowers.com, for example, one of the creations Mark Zuckerberg showed off on stage at F8 as he introduced the new platform. As with most Facebook chatbots, the first interaction is a prompt to Get Started, which then leads to two options: order flowers or talk to support.

This is typical of a branded retail chat bot. Product ordering and customer support are two of the areas where the bot approach fits the best, because there’s a lot of automated input and output involved — bear in mind that whenever you ring up customer support on the phone, a lot of the time the human operator on the other end will be reading from a pre-approved script anyway.

Opt to order some flowers and you then get a prompt to enter a delivery address — it’s just like filling in a web form for a lot of the time. Users are then asked to browse through bouquets by category, with a simple scroll-and-click interface.

Ready to build a conversational bot for your business? We’ve already made successful bots for media companies and e-commerce businesses. Let’s move forward with your project. Contact Us.

Then there’s Tommy Hilfiger, more of a traditional retail outlet, now available via chat bot interface in Facebook Messanger. The Tommy Hilfiger chat bot puts more of an emphasis on conversation, so there’s some actual character behind the exchange, not just a list of options to pick from.

Like 1-800-Flowers.com, browsing through products and categories is straightforward, though customers don’t get quite the freedom they would on the Tommy Hilfiger website or indeed in an actual retail store. Photos and descriptions are included with all of the items shown, and you can add items to a cart right from the chatbot interface.

eBay has a messenger chat bot too, the eBay Shopbot. With just 1,100 likes on Facebook, it obviously hasn’t gone mainstream yet (the main eBay Facebook page has close to 10 million likes), but it gives shoppers a simple and fast way of browsing through some of the many products on offer through the auction site.

The Shopbot uses a simple Q&A system to help users arrow in on what they’re after: ask to see iPhones, for example, and the bot asks what capacity you’re after and then what network you’re going to be running the phone on — it’s not hard to see why some shoppers would rather use a bot like this rather than tackling the rather byzantine interface of the main eBay website head on.

Fynd, based in Mumbai, India, offers a more general shopping bot that will take you through options from a variety of retailers. The search options are broader than those offered by Tommy Hilfiger and eBay’s Shopbot, so customers can start with pretty much anything they like — a query looking for white t-shirts, for example.

The human beings at the other end of the chat have the option to search through brands or to see similar products, so there’s a good deal of flexibility here, even if it’s not quite the same as going through the main Fynd website. Indeed a lot of the ‘answers’ returned by the chatbot are just links back to certain pages on the Fynd portal on the web.

These four bots all have features of their own, but they’re largely similar, designed to get customers to products as quickly as possible, through a series of simple text interactions. Only the Tommy Hilfiger bot makes any real attempt to add some genuine character to proceedings, though all the chat bots we’ve tried here are friendly enough.

Retailers should be keeping a close eye on the chatbot space.

Ryan Bates, CPC Strategy

Remember too that these bots are built for mobile — users on smaller screens who don’t necessarily want to head off to a huge website for a pair of trainers or a jumper.

“Bots for Messenger are for anyone who’s trying to reach people on mobile — no matter how big or small your company or idea is, or what problem you’re trying to solve,” says Facebook’s Seth Rosenberg, and indeed the developer tools that Facebook has put in place seem to be flexible enough to allow for all kinds of implementations.

What’s not very clear is just how well these bots are working out for the retailers who’ve tried them so far. According to Facebook, there are 33,000 messenger bots out in the wild, which seems small considering the tens of millions of businesses that have set up a Page on the same platform. However, Facebook just launched some analytics tools for companies to use with their bots, which is going to make it easier for brands and retailers to measure engagement and click-throughs in the future.

Certainly the aim is to increase sales and conversation levels, but right now there just isn’t the data around to show just how much of a return on investment retailers can expect to see. While some brave souls are testing the water, the majority of companies remain standing on the shore, waiting to see which way the tide is going before committing to developing their own bot.

“Because chatbots are still so new, there’s not enough data to show if they are beneficial to retailers beyond customer service at this point,” says Ryan Bates, Digital Production Coordinator at marketing firm CPC Strategy. “Retailers should be keeping a close eye on the chatbot space.”

Ready to build a conversational bot for your business? We’ve already made successful bots for media companies and e-commerce businesses. Let’s move forward with your project. Contact Us.

Summary

Developing chat bots undoubtedly has its benefits: they can be available 24/7, which is a boon for retailers, and they work without the need to install another mobile app, which makes them convenient for users as well. The chatbots that are out there work well, or as well as can be expected at this early stage — but the jury’s still out on whether they’re going to transform customer interactions and permanently change the way we shop online.

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