Electronic commerce, better known as e-commerce, is commerce through electronic means. It’s the process by which business and consumers connect to buy and sell products or services through a website. This website is known as an e-commerce website. It acts as a medium between buyers and seller to connect on a digital platform and conduct transactions.
Since its inception in the 1990’s, e-commerce has been growing at a rapid rate. All major companies have an online presence to ensure that they’ve got something to cater to this rising trend.
As of today, the e-commerce market is worth a whopping $22.1 trillion. At the moment, there are more than 1 billion websites on the web, out of which 1,10,000 are e-commerce websites.
With the advent of platforms like Shopify, creating an e-commerce website is easier than ever, since most of the tasks are already automated.
Types of E-Commerce Websites
Ecommerce websites can be broadly classified on the basis of the users.
Business to consumer:
These e-commerce websites are conventional and have the highest inbound traffic. They connect a business to their consumer. This means a retail business displays products on their website. The customer searches for the products they want on the site and make the purchase. This is usually an individual purchase at retail price.
Business to Business:
This is another type of e-commerce website that connects a business to another business. These websites have lesser traffic when compared to business to consumer websites. These are mostly service or support oriented businesses that works with other businesses.
Consumer To Consumer:
These websites are a bit more niche. But they’ve got a significant amount of incoming traffic and generate a lot of revenue as well. These websites connect consumers to consumers. Typically, these websites sell used products. They even involve in bargaining and auctions.
Components Of An E-commerce Website
Landing Page
The home page of an E-commerce website is one of the site’s most important landing pages. That’s because that’s the first page a user sees when they try to access the website from the domain. A landing page can broadly be defined as a banner that tries to catch the user’s attention and invite them to buy from the website. Additionally, the landing page is where the user is informed about featured products, offers, or sales running at the moment. It can also tell the customer about new products or services that the website is offering.
Catalogue Page
This is equal to the shelves that you’d find in a physical store. This page displays available products with their attributes. Users browse through these products and shortlist them. They can add them to a wish list or just purchase them by adding them to their shopping cart. Product pages have high-quality images of the product. There’s also a detailed description of the product that the customer can use to learn more about the product.
Cart Page
After picking the products they want to buy, a user lands on the cart page. This page is basically a checkout page before they make the final purchase. It can be compared to a billing counter in a brick and mortar store. Users can review their order and make any changes if they want to. They can choose delivery options like cash-on-delivery or prepaid. There are even options to select any EMI that the customer wants to go for.
After all of that, customer details like shipping address, contact details, and the delivery date are all recorded through this page.
Payment Page
Once the cart page is sorted, the user lands on the payment page. If it’s cash-on-delivery then there isn’t much of a procedure after checkout. When it comes to prepaid orders, users have a variety of options. This includes credit cards, debit cards, net banking, and more.
After the mode of payment is chosen, the customer is redirected to the bank’s payment page, which they can use to complete the transaction. This is known as a payment gateway. The primary purpose of this page is to provide a secure digital transaction gateway.
When starting your e-commerce website, start on a platform that offers all the features. Your website should be seamless, secure, and efficient. That’s what creates the best user experience.