Get an e-store that goes BAM!

Alberto Enríquez, Jonathan Horta, Sebastián Méndez, Karla Paniagua

Now that the virulence has reached the e-commerce platforms, one concern has us on our toes. Hundreds of millions of virtual commerce sites that already exist in the world are increasing every day. But with what standards? With what quality? With which side effects?

Selling online has become a survival tactic for many companies that abruptly entered the digital world without necessarily being ready for the jump. Thinking about them, we gathered the following suggestions that the Punk team gave themselves the task of rummaging for a while, after having found several horrors on the net.

E-commerce is a system through which analog products (gummy bears), digital products (eBooks), services (gas), experiences (paragliding), or anything else that can be sold. This happens through a web page, a Facebook group, or any other solution nesting on the web.

Before opening the online store, it’s good to think about what categories of products or services will be offered. These products must be described very clearly and photographed well (300 dpi), so the user can know what the hell is buying: stock photos that do not correspond to the real product should not be uploaded. No, no, NO WAY!

When enabling the store in WooCommerce, Shopify, Magento, or another similar platform, a reliable payment method such as PayPal, PayU, Stripe, or others must be selected. A logistics system must also be chosen to deliver the merchandise, whether it is FedEx, Rappi, UPS, own distributors, or any other link in the logistics chain that guarantees that the package will arrive well.

Design and content are not minor issues; they must be consistent with the rest of the system. Imagine your handsome e-commerce, with astonishing information design, a suitable color palette, great copywriting, and no misspellings. All this has to be harmonized with the company’s social networks, which must be updated (Instagram, Facebook, Twitter, Pinterest, TikTok, etc., as appropriate).

All this contributes to a joyous positioning in the search engines or Search Engine Optimization (SEO). Think about this: there are more than 60 trillion web pages in the world, of which about 20 million are online stores, and every day, there are more. If your page has an ugly design, the products do not look good, they are not clearly described, and the texts have misspellings, you will fall behind because the competition is fierce. If you also have bad service, you respond slowly; you deliver a beaten package, or the product never arrives… figure it out the rest of the story.

What will your delivery rates be according to the type of package? Do you require a fitting size chart? Do you need a catalog of models, prints, or stocks of each product? Do you need to enable a chatbot to make smoother the interaction with your customers? What other processes can you automate? Do you have sustainable forms of production, fair trade, or any other modality that you should inform? Does your store offer a good user experience (UX)? Is it mobile friendly? Do you have the appropriate hosting capacity for the volume of visits you expect? These are questions that you should answer to guide the company that will be in charge of enabling your store.

And regarding your product or service: is the value proposition clear? Does it have the right image? How are you going to pack your products without generating waste that is harmful to the environment? What could you improve before launching?

Which elements should the store have for sure? A menu with the categories and the shopping cart visible in the upper margin, a footer with the payment methods, shipping methods, social networks, privacy policies, data protection, returns, and the contact point of the company in case the user needs assistance during their purchase.

Something that makes us turn our heads is the issue of security. Many companies that currently offer templates for online stores at laughable prices do not guarantee the Secure Sockets Layer (SSL) protocol to protect credit card transactions online. You have to make sure you have this to avoid risks to the buyer.

Good e-commerce should not only get you out of trouble during the health contingency. In essence, you must take advantage of the effort to improve the user experience and generate useful data that will later allow you to make business decisions. Since you are already at it, get an online store that goes bam!

Punk is a technology firm that has created, among others, the Gulf, Woox, and GETart stores, and we are working on the Africam Safari and Hoja Verde e-commerce. Each case went through a careful process that considers the parameters that we have just narrated and that we suggest you request from the provider that takes care of your project.

If you already have e-commerce and need to integrate it with the rest of your ecosystem, we’ll tell you how. If you do not have one and want to put your products online, we’ll build the store at lightning speed (we are experts in kamikaze projects). If you already have a store and you do not have someone to attend it, we’ll enable a chatbot that works for you 24x7.

We can create solutions of all sizes, and we are sensitive to the problematic situation organizations are going through at the moment. Send us an email if you need us.