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How social commerce is changing the face of online shopping?

How social commerce is changing the face of online shopping? 

Pinterest initially emerged as a platform for budding artists and creators to post their work for social recognition and community building. But at the heart of it, this visual search engine is a marketing goldmine. MVMT, a leading American watchmaker, realized this and smartly leveraged Pinterest to ramp up their customer orders. They pinned the images of their latest watch collection and cross-promoted them across other social media platforms. This 3-month campaign closed more than 11000 sales and generated 12x traffic to the page.  

This is just a miniscule example of how social commerce can transform online retailing. In today’s age where people spend a big proportion of their time online, you cannot rule out social media from your marketing strategy. According to a report by BigCommerce, 43% of shoppers research products online through social media sites. Out of which, 19% of them are millennials and Genz’s. Imagine if your brand lacks social media presence, you cannot target these 43% users and convert them into customers. Missing out on a potential consumer base means losing a big revenue stream. This can prove fatal to the long-term growth of your business.  

By adding social media commerce channels to your eCommerce platform, you can 

Tap into impulse buyers 

Consumers have short attention spans. Given that there are thousands of ads floating across social media, users only respond to the ones that offer personalized communication. This is how you can target impulse buyers which comprise a big segment of millennials. While copy and design play an important role, seamless platform interaction also remains a strong deciding factor. Imagine consumers clicking on your Instagram ad but failing to navigate smoothly on the channel. They will leave the site immediately. To prevent this, you need to make the buying process as smooth as possible so that customers can check out without disruption.  

    b) Unlock the power of influencer marketing 

If there is one thing that has proliferated social commerce platforms, it's influencers. According to a report by Shopify, more than 58% of consumers shop through recommendations by influencers. Usually, when people think of influencers, they think of celebrities or athletes. But that’s not always the case. Micro and niche influencers are growing popular among consumers. Not only is the content they are offering relatable, but it is also authentic and caters to the exact needs of their target audience. By collaborating with an influencer, you can effectively capture their target market.   

  c) Enable frictionless purchasing 

The ultimate aim of having social media channels is to direct consumers to your eCommerce platform. You can attach the link of your site to your social media profiles. Even better, you can set up a shop on Instagram and Facebook that comes with a buy button and in-app checkout options. Consumers can purchase directly from the shop. Or if they want to know more about the product, they can go to the main website through the link. There is always a greater risk of losing your consumers at every point of the sales funnel. Enabling seamless purchasing behavior can resolve these issues and result in increased sales. 

d) Build social proof 

Creating your own digital footprint is the need of the hour. Imagine someone visits your eCommerce platform, loves your products and wants to know more about it. But you do not have any other social media platforms other than your website. Lack of online presence is also another way of losing potential customers. Social commerce means social proof. When you are on leading platforms like Facebook and Instagram, you not only create brand visibility but also start a conversation. Through comments, likes, follows, shares and reviews, consumers become involved at every step of your brand. Using word of mouth, these users can attract others to your platform. This is a cost-effective and organic way of getting customers. Some of the tangible ways to create brand communication are to offer coupons, discounts, vouchers and giveaways. Or create hashtags and contests where people post user-generated content. 

Since social media platforms come up with in-built analytics tools and metrics, you can track your performance. Moreover, you also get fascinating customer insights to know what’s working and not working with your users. The geo-targeting of ads has become easy now that these channels come with specific demographic options. 

Each social commerce channel comes with its unique strengths and qualities. It’s best to study the features in detail and decide what’s effective for your business. 

Connect with prospective buyers on leading platforms like Facebook, Instagram and Pinterest. Get ahead with Concord Commerce. Grow your business into new marketplaces and offer unique eCommerce customer experiences across different touchpoints with MACH-X architecture. 

Schedule a demo today. 

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Headless Technology and How It can Help You Revolutionize Your eCommerce Online Store

Headless Technology and How It can Help You Revolutionize Your eCommerce Online Store 

The advent of digital transformation is changing the trajectory of the eCommerce industry. According to a Statista report, the global spending of major brands on digital transformation is projected to be $2.4 trillion. To accelerate digital innovation and reimagine shopper experiences, you need to revamp the behind-the-scenes starting from the software and ERPs. This is where headless commerce solutions come into play. You can make your eCommerce platforms adaptable to digital transformation and scale with benefits like:  

Driving Omnichannel Shopping  

 To adopt a multichannel approach, you need advanced technologies to deliver customer-centric experiences across multiple touchpoints. This is possible by leveraging an effective omnichannel marketing strategy. With API-driven software, you can offer robust omnichannel experiences. Scale up your eCommerce platform for content management, commerce and other innovations. Headless technologies ensure that you can customize the front end in your own way to bring consistency and variety in shopping. 

Creating Engaging Hyper-personalized Experiences 

Companies are turning the tables on innovation. They are capitalizing on Machine Learning and Artificial Intelligence to predict consumer behaviors and offer unique products to the users. Headless commerce solutions fuel hyper-personalized experiences through API-driven software. This software collects customer information from different marketing channels and uses AI-enabled analytics for insights. Hyper-personalized experiences can spearhead great conversions and retain customers. 

 Innovating your eCommerce platform 

 Headless commerce solutions employ best-of-breed technologies to facilitate online experiences. For quick digital adaptability, brands can change applications within the commerce stack to meet the changing business requirements. Unlike monolithic platforms that are resistant to innovation and take days to implement anything new, headless commerce platforms can accelerate digital innovation. 

 Start with an eCommerce microservices architecture that decentralizes your online platform and empowers teams to collaborate for business results. Kickstart with Concord Commerce. Get eCommerce microservices that are built around different business capabilities such as pricing, payment, catalog, checkout and customer service.  

 Schedule a demo now. 

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Headless eCommerce Solution vs Conventional Ecommerce

According to a Google report, 80% of shoppers use two or more touchpoints while buying a product. Not to mention, 73% of buyers purchase through their smartphones. All these figures prove that consumers have become tech-savvy and evolved. In addition to this, they demand fulfilling and gratifying experiences that offer them a sense of purpose or reason to shop. It's evident that consumers will drive the future of online shopping. To keep up with their pace of change, enterprises need to switch to headless eCommerce platforms. 

Most brands use monolithic platforms that cannot support nor deploy changes or new features easily. This is why headless eCommerce is a feasible solution. It's because in a headless eCommerce platform, both front-end and back-end work independently which boosts agility and scalability. Apart from this difference, there are other factors where headless eCommerce fares better than conventional eCommerce. Let’s find out. 

Headless e-commerce is flexible 

In a traditional eCommerce platform, a small change in the front-end system affects the backend too. If you have to add some new features or products, you have to also change the code and database at the backend. This may put your business at risk and cause higher chances of downtime. In headless eCommerce, the front-end is completely decoupled from the backend. You can create user-centric, tailor-made experiences on the front-end without having to update the database.  

Headless e-commerce offers immense scope for personalization 

In a monolithic traditional eCommerce platform, it becomes difficult to scale the entire system if you have to offer new consumer experiences. As it comes with pre-defined themes for both end and administrative users. This is something you won’t face with headless eCommerce. You can easily scale your platform to create customized messages for your users. Because it comes with in-built CRM tools that offer real-time information on purchasing behaviors.  

Headless e-commerce enhances your time to value 

You can launch an online store easily on a traditional eCommerce platform. But making changes on the front-end, code and dataset generally consumes more time and charges huge costs. On the other hand, headless eCommerce may initially take time to configure an online store as you have to build it from scratch. However, you get more time to invest in front-end development and offer customizable solutions that take up less time, effort and cost.  

It's time to take your eCommerce journey to greater heights. Start with Concord Commerce. Leverage headless and modular eCommerce solutions to scale your platform with speed, agility and flexibility. 

Schedule a demo today. 

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What can Headless eCommerce do for your Online Business?

Imagine you are building an online store on Woo Commerce. The front-end of the platform is linked to it’s backend. This means that any change in the front-end will also require a change in the backend. Such is the limitation of traditional eCommerce solutions and monolithic systems. With new technologies and trends disrupting online shopping, your business needs to adopt them into the platform. But the question is how should one go about it? The answer lies in headless commerce.  

Headless commerce delinks the front-end system from the backed. You can optimise the front-end to deliver unique customer experiences without affecting the functionality and performance of the back-end. According to a Forbes study, major eCommerce platforms have raised £1.6 to opt for headless architecture and digital transformation.  

The advantages that headless commerce solutions offer helps your business to  

Enhance flexibility: Say you are launching a new product collection. This may require you to overhaul the entire website. But with a headless eCommerce platform, that may not be the case at all. You can make changes without stopping the other operations on your website. Due to it’s flexibility, you can integrate or remove products, change or add prices and upgrade your website as per your convenience.  

Improve Performance: Headless Commerce solutions allow you to decouple the front end from the back end. This boosts your website performance. Whenever a user visits your eCommerce platform, it does not have to load the entire website.  

Guarantee security: With the separation of front end from the backend, your eCommerce platform remains secured than before. Even if your website gets compromised or hacked, your data and personal information will remain safe and protected.  

Promote scalability: In this changing business environment, you have to quickly adapt to the changes without any disruptions. Going headless allows you to scale your platform to incorporate these changes and also add more features and products. Your performance of the website will not be impacted as the backend works on a different server.  

Amp up customer experiences: Your eCommerce platform can connect seamlessly across various marketing touchpoints at the same time. Based on how customers interact across these channels, you can optimise the content. Your customers will always have the latest updates on new products and services.  

Start with an eCommerce microservice architecture that decentralizes your online platform and empowers teams to collaborate for business results. Kickstart with Concord Commerce. Get eCommerce microservices that are built around different business capabilities such as pricing, payment, catalog, checkout and customer service. 

Schedule a demo now. 

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Concordcommerce

Creating personalized customer experiences and enabling homogeneous shopping experiences across multiple channels are just a few reasons why headless commerce is popular in the retail landscape. Drive easy product discovery, order management and device agnostic checkout options. Enhance retail customer experiences. Get Concord for Retail: https://buff.ly/3JuHaMU

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–How small businesses are getting help with Online eCommerce Platform

Adopting an eCommerce platform is a smart move for businesses of all sizes. The most obvious reason is the rise of small business eCommerce platforms as a preferred method of purchasing goods and services. Despite the havoc that COVID-19 has wreaked on numerous sectors, eCommerce for small businesses popularity and effectiveness has only grown. 

As e-commerce technology has improved, more and more businesses are choosing to forego traditional storefronts in favor of an online presence. In addition, businesses can now provide their consumers round-the-clock support using these digital commerce platforms. Unfortunately, businesses operating in the usual manner were compelled to adapt quickly to meet the shifting market needs due to the disruptions produced by the COVID-19 epidemic.

The positive effects of online shopping for small enterprises.

As a result of not having to spend much money on a physical location or a sales crew, this business model has very minimal operating costs. Therefore, most small business owners choose to adopt an eCommerce platform since it allows them to forego the costs of physical location, security, upkeep, and labor.

Due to the low barrier to entry, even small firms with limited resources can launch and maintain an eCommerce platform with nothing more than a reliable Internet connection. With no overhead, a business owner may launch a slick, mobile- and user-friendly e-commerce website that also accepts payments and aids in stock and shipment management.

With an eCommerce solution and digital commerce platform, business owners may tap into a broader customer base and build a passive income stream from product sales. In addition, the value of a company's brand name rises when it adopts eCommerce and internet marketing, which allows it to reach a larger share of customers who prefer to shop online.

Web analytics can be used in conjunction with e-commerce to assist businesses in learning more about their clients and how to serve them best. However, Concord Commerce can provide more individualized service to its clientele by collecting data on consumer demographics, product popularity, user feedback, and other metrics.

Nonetheless, one of the primary benefits of eCommerce is that any company, regardless of size or location, may sell a product to a buyer anywhere around the globe. Due to eliminating geographical limitations, the company can reach a wider audience, increasing the likelihood of financial success.

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eCommerce platform vs Market place which is better for small businesses

It's no surprise that digital commerce platform has exploded in popularity over the past two years. Businesses' regular procedures have been altered because of the Covid-19 epidemic. This has led many companies to embrace digital transformation via ecommerce platforms, other digital marketplaces, and digital methods like search engine optimization (SEO) to boost their bottom line.

The growth of online commerce has been meteoric. Consumers' preference for online purchasing continues to grow to realize its many advantages, including increased security and greater convenience. However, since the start of Covid-19, consumers have made more purchases. The change in consumer behavior presents an opening for new and expanding small enterprises.

Furthermore, the marketplace vs ecommerce platform war's winner is not necessarily prominent. That's because each provides its target market with enticing advantages. The onus is on you to prioritize the various characteristics.

When making your ultimate decision, think about the following points:

Do we prefer customizability and promotion of a specific brand over convenience and prepackaged answers?

Is one of our long-term objectives to launch our domain?

What approach do we want to take toward marketing?

When developing our marketing strategy, would we rely on the proven success of an already established system or the specifics of our target audience and their preferences?

Is what we're selling cutting edge, controversial, or heavily regulated (likely to be so in the future)?

How well do we think our company's values mesh with those of a potential vendor?

Do the people we're trying to reach use marketplaces like eBay and Amazon already?

When looking ahead to five years, do we need an e-commerce platform or a marketplace service?

Yet, the popularity of shopping online is only expected to expand, and the number of channels for doing so will grow steadily over time. If you're considering opening an online storefront, congratulations: you're already ahead of the game. You can choose either or use both to sell your wares. Many companies use a digital commerce platform strategy to reach a more significant customer base. Concord Commerce states that one can't go wrong if they sell something with reliable market data, provide exceptional customer service, and price your wares competitively.

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What to consider when migrating to a microservice

You have decided to move to a microservices model. You realize that it will be hard to provide your users with the application they want will be hard. Moving to an ecommerce microservice design is motivated by scalability concerns. Scalability also has little effect on components that are infrequently utilized. As a result, components with the most significant number of users should be prioritized for relocation to an ecommerce platform.

Users want their interactions with a system to provide accurate data to the best of their ability. A user can do multiple tasks connected to the same set of data objects with an ecommerce platform. Worker jobs, data objects, and actions must be considered. 

The following are typical steps in the transition to an ecommerce microservices architecture-based system:

Make a list of all the logical parts.

Reduce and restructure parts.

Identify the interdependencies between components.

Make a list of the various parts that make up the system

The remote user interface should have an API built in.

Component groups should be converted to ecommerce microservice (move component groups to separate projects and make separate deployments).

Implement a microservices architecture instead of macro services one.

Even though their developer teams lose knowledge with even tiny levels of churn and great code never gets reused, a lot of under-documented software performs incredible things for people. Things may be made far better with a small amount of effort, which essentially boils down to having a clear head about what you want to capture. People will be able to learn new code more quickly and with the same benefits as the rest of their colleagues. It is possible to significantly reduce the symptoms of imposter syndrome and ensure that essential knowledge is not lost as careers progress and people transfer between different positions on ecommerce platforms.

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Headless commerce vs traditional ecommerce platform?

As with any coin, there are always two sides to every story. Customers see the front end, whereas the back end is used to develop and maintain the website (back end). ecommerce platform and functionality are the results of a combination of traditional and headless e-commerce.

This is like buying a house and making the last adjustments to fit your needs.

Every small business is unique and must be considered when developing a marketing strategy. eCommerce without a human touch requires a high level of technical expertise. Traditional eCommerce may be better if the store has several systems that need to be integrated into the front end.

Front-end configuration is more straightforward for traditional eCommerce. On the other hand, customizing the platform's moving parts can be challenging. Only a suitable theme and your products and content will be required when using any of the different ecommerce platforms.

The front end of the headless ecommerce platform should be built from scratch by businesses. Therefore, having an online store that matches your expectations can take some time. With headless commerce solutions, you'll have more control over the look and feel of your site and its content than with traditional techniques.

You can also enhance your adaptability to meet the demands of your organization; it is essential to know how to program to ensure everything works as expected. The engineering and design capabilities of traditional eCommerce are constrained. Making and deploying it is easier. Headless commerce provides more freedom for front-end development but takes longer to install.

The front end can be built more freely with the flexibility provided by headless eCommerce. What happens to the back-end and e-commerce capabilities in this scenario? Traditional eCommerce business owners use a template that ties directly to the back end.

Despite the ease of the template, it restricts what you can accomplish. Selling high-end products on your website is easy. It becomes challenging to scale and advertise your business with additional solutions as your firm expands. In comparison to traditional eCommerce, headless solutions are more flexible and customizable.

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Ecommerce platform vs. Marketplace: which is better for small businesses

Digital transformation has been ubiquitous. The Covid-19 epidemic has impacted companies' operations. Many firms are turning to digital commerce platforms like ecommerce and digital methods to enhance their profitability. Straits Times reports that 74% of consumers have bought more goods online since the Covid-19 began. ecommerce for small businesses can benefit from this shift in client behavior.

Furthermore, pricing is one of the most important differences between an ecommerce platform and a marketplace. Selling on a marketplace is simple and inexpensive to get started. A marketplace may be a preferable option for a firm with minimal resources.

It's possible to save money by using an ecommerce platform for your store, but only if you have the technical know-how or can afford a team of experts to run your site. Each transaction on a marketplace is subject to a fee or commission, which will reduce your profit margins as your e-business grows.

Small business ecommerce platforms can benefit from the advantages of both ecommerce platforms and marketplaces. ecommerce platforms are ideal if you want complete control over all aspects of your business, including the design and development of your website. However, an online marketplace may be the best option for you if you want to get right down to business.

As long as you have the option, why not?

If you want the best of both worlds, you can always choose both. Using an ecommerce platform, you can construct an online store and sell your products in a marketplace simultaneously. You could, for example, send a "thank you" note with a link to your ecommerce website to anyone who purchases a product from your chosen online marketplace. Your SEO rankings will increase due to using this digital commerce platform to attract more visitors to your website. Use coupons and discounts to get customers to your e-commerce site to buy your stuff.

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How to choose the best ecommerce platform for my business?

Putting your product listings online isn't enough to build an eCommerce business. It's a lot more complicated than you'd expect. Running a digital commerce platform requires the same amount of strategic thinking and preparation as running a brick-and-mortar store or a manufacturing facility.

It's possible to automate and streamline many operations and activities that would have required human intervention in a digital marketplace if you get this essential point right.

Your eCommerce site will define the following four things when it comes to choosing an ecommerce platform:

Is your firm capable of expanding at a rapid rate?

Building and maintaining your ecommerce platform, as well as continuing development and maintenance expenses, fall under this category.

You can control your customers' interactions with your company.

To attain your goals, you'll need the ideal ecommerce platform.

When it comes to digital commerce platforms, a lot of suppliers tend to focus on "skin-deep" concerns like brand identity and content design. Customer service and lead generation may not be as crucial in eCommerce as they used to be, but these are the real challenges. These steps can help you assess if your eCommerce platform provides a healthy ROI. Moreover, To put it another way, you can't compete online if you don't have an eCommerce platform. A B2-B or B2C company's online retail operation cannot function without an eCommerce platform. With the right eCommerce platform, your company's interactions with consumers, clients, and workers can be streamlined. E-commerce platforms are software solutions that allow organizations to perform complicated operations on both the front and back ends. CRM, inventory management, mobile commerce, web design, and warehouse fulfillment all fall under this umbrella term; therefore, it's essential to know what it means. Businesses had to design their e-commerce platform before there were specialized e-commerce solutions. This was a time-consuming and expensive undertaking. To put it another way, many of these self-created solutions could not interact with other software systems utilized by the company.

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Concord Commerce: A True Digital Commerce platform for Small & Medium business

Before the digital age, you had to have a brick-and-mortar store to run a business. So, beginning a business was generally a challenging procedure.... After all, owning a building was not an option for everyone who wanted to start their own business.

The rise of the internet has ushered in a new sector centred on individualism and self-expression over monetary gain. Anyone may start a business these days thanks to the internet. Moreover, there is still a need for a location or "home base" to be established. Rather than a physical storefront, you'll be creating a virtual one.

With Concord Commerce's "Offline to Online" capability through digital commerce platform, CRM and payment systems, small merchants can compete in the ecommerce platform. Concord Commerce hopes these new capabilities will help all types of businesses achieve steady and long-term growth, from retailers to suppliers to joint venture partners. As a result, we can create a seamless experience for our customers because we have an omnichannel ecosystem and the best digital commerce platform. You can also expand your company's reach by utilising the best ecommerce platform. That allows you to reach clients via current touch points and effortlessly provide your products and services.

Modern multi-channel storefronts are made possible by API-rich architecture.

We're not usually big tech talkers, but our platform is so responsive that we couldn't help ourselves. Businesses of any size may quickly add new consumer access channels using Concord's headless ecommerce platform. Regardless of your underlying system, Concord can design a middle layer that connects to any customer engagement layer you choose to add.