Want to know how? Here’s a case study.

What is Ondoor? What do they do?

Ondoor was established in 2014 as an indegenious local grocery store. By the end of 2017, they were a household name in 3 towns of MP – Indore, Bhopal & Mhow- with a 100+ outlets! If you happen to be from either of these 3 towns – you might’ve come across these outlets several times a day, or while searching for ‘grocery delivery near me’.

Now you might be wondering that a grocery delivery app isn’t a new concept altogether, but what is it that makes Ondoor different?

Well, it was back in 2016, when Ondoor had approached us, they had a functional website but they wanted to get into eCommerce to expand the scope of their business. We developed an android app for the company. Whilst the mobile grocery delivery app was made from scratch, their existing website was enhanced by us.

The context that led to the onset of the grocery delivery service project –

For working lads who’re buried head-to-toe in work from 9 to 5, going out on a weekly basis to shop for groceries is often a task. Forget going out, in addition to looking for the best quality, you have to sometimes just accept the fact that it’s not possible to bargain everyday for the right price and just jump on to the very first few deals that you manage to get.

Ondoor online grocery service was an idea, aimed exactly at reducing that effort of the customers, by offering the home delivery option, where virtually anything, be it Vegetables, Fruits, Household Items or Personal care products – they would be available at just a single click!

The challenges in the mobile app development –

While developing an app for an already well-performing offline grocery-store chain, the only major challenge for us was, to stand up to the expectations of the client with this key entry to the mobile-based-eCommerce industry. They initially wanted to become local competitors of BigBasket. In addition to that – UX had to be designed keeping in mind their pre-existing logo, website colour-scheme and font formats.

The aim was to build a mobile app by keeping in mind the website that was already there. The logo was already available and was provided by the client, so the colour schemes could be defined easily. By referring to the colour combination and the website, the font styles and the user experience was finally locked and passed on for development. For eCommerce solutions, and 2019 trends, you can refer to our previous blogs.

Coming to the development, the primary challenge was still there, the transition of a web app to the mobile app had to be made. We were asked to make minor changes to the website but at the same time, had to make the mobile app from the scratch. Also, we had to adhere to what the client already had in mind and had included in the website. By keeping those elements and modules intact, we had to enhance it even more to give the user and the client a memorable experience.

The approach we undertook-

Our Insight for the Client –

EngineerBabu wanted our users to experience a seamless, bugfree UI that would make them come back to place orders from the application, instead of going out to the market. We advised the client against going for the same model as BigBasket. Our argument was based on these facts –

• Since localites comprised of tier-2 city citizens, most of them wouldn’t be comfortable on an extremely tech-savvy application.
• For most users, a complicated purchasing method isn’t a viable option. In case the app doesn’t load within 3 seconds, they choose to opt out and not go any further with the process.
• We wanted the client to act global, but think local for the project to succeed. We suggested them to integrate local language – Hindi, in the application as well. They went ahead with our suggestion!

Development Model –

The approach that was used was the waterfall model. It took a team of 6 of our employees, hired on a dedicated hiring model by us.The requirements were understood by the sales team initially, and were then provided to the design team. After all the layouts had been created, it was the task of the developers to implement it.

Backend developers were working on the principle of modularity. The entire system and application components were divided into modules in order to carry out tasks on various elements at the same time without affecting the work of the other. Dividing the entire project into modules allowed various developers to work on the project at the same time in order to reduce the burden of doing the task on a single developer and in turn, reduce the time required to complete the project and hand over the product on time.

The Information Architecture –

As mentioned earlier, the mobile application was made from scratch, while the web application was altered. The APIs were made in order to provide the functionality to both the mobile application and the web application. The backend architecture for these APIs was made in OpenCart, a relatively new technology in the industry. The front end wasn’t a problem as the website layout was already there. As far as the mobile application was concerned, android was sufficient for both the backend API requests and the front-end client interface.

Wireframe –

During the designing phase of the project, tools like Photoshop and Illustrator were used. The primary reason for using them was to get access to a whole lot of features that are available for designing various elements of the overall project. Using such software and tools reduces the effort to make the core components of the project. This is because some of the components are already available and can be reused with ease without a lot of hassle.

Talking about the development phase, various tools were used by the Android and web developers to create what the designers had set in front of them. Usually, it’s the IDEs that are used in order to make it easy to code to get the desired result.

Results:

The process included- adding item in cart, choosing address, selecting time of order, payment method and.. Voila! Placing the order. Also, notification center – to get the latest promotional updates and the order status.

The business potential of the client’s brand name has been done justice to, by being complemented with this seamless online grocery shopping app. The user outreach of the brand has grown massively since the launch of the application. Old, as well as new users have forgotten about the hassle of going to supermarkets or vendors, bargaining and working hard to get the best deal for the products they wish to buy. Now, online grocery shopping is just one click away!

Learn more about choosing the right eCommerce development company, or reach out to us at mayank@engineerbabu.com.

Technology Stack for the Mobile App Development:

Followed here is a list of tools and apps that we used in the development of Ondoor grocery delivery app –

Android-

• IDE – Android Studio
• Build System – Gradle
• UI Designing – XML, Material design standards
• Web Services Calling – AQuery
• Image and Data Caching – AQuery
• Programming Language- Java
• Push Notifications – Firebase Cloud Messaging

Backend-

• Programming Language – PHP
• Database – MySQL
• IDE – SubLine

What do the users have to say?

This is what two of our users, Paritosh Dalei and Nehal Shah have reviewed on the Google Playstore for the Android app –

The number of installations and rating has also surpassed our own expectations!

Have you tried the Ondoor grocery shopping app? Let us know about your user experience in the comment section below. And if you’re looking for developers to execute your eCommerce ideas into reality, talk to us for a free consultation regarding the pricing and duration.

The post How we Developed a Grocery Delivery App with 1,00,000+ Downloads! appeared first on EngineerBabu Blog.

So, what’s next on the plate for a traditional E-commerce business? The answer is relatively simple and straight-forward – BLOCKCHAIN!

It has been enjoying a good run in the financial industry for quite some time now. A surge of more than 400% by 2021 is expected to be seen by the global blockchain market. As blockchain is inching closer to the real sectors of the economy, an increasing number of people have now started talking about other possible use-cases of blockchain apart from finance, especially in the most lucrative domain of them all, E-commerce.

The E-Commerce industry has disrupted the way we shop & live, and blockchain is on its path to disrupt eCommerce. The implementation of blockchain technology in eCommerce marketplace will ignite a significant shift by establishing a decentralised economy. Now, if you want to learn more about blockchain, then you must visit this link.

In this post, we are going to be extensively covering the 5 ways how blockchain is on its way transforming the E-commerce marketplace. Stay tuned, as this post is definitely going to leave you surprised.

1. Revamping Payments Methods

Blockchain witnessed its first implementation in currencies powered by its technology (like bitcoin, ethereum, and ripple).  Today, cryptocurrencies are being utilised as an alternative to traditional currencies.

This shift is due to the relative ease of implementation and the fact that they are decentralised. Bitcoin and other cryptocurrencies provide numerous advantages over traditional currencies which benefits both customers and merchants. Some significant advantages:

i. Decentralised

Blockchain isn’t regulated by any central authority which basically implies that the buyer and seller only control its operations. Thus, no third party can look over or manipulate your transactions. Blockchain currencies can’t be inflated or devalued by any bank or government, as is the case with other currencies. For instance, if the economies of a country were to collapse today, their currencies would terribly suffer which is not the case with bitcoin because geopolitics do not influence its operation.

ii. Identity Protection

Cryptocurrencies based on blockchain technology don’t reveal the identities of the transacting parties. Still, these transactions are very transparent as centralised ledger stores the details and give visibility to transactions.

iii. Freedom of Transactions

There is no governing body which controls how a person utilises his/her bitcoin. Regular payment methods are often imposed with several limits based on the amount and even geographical location. However, this isn’t the case with currencies like bitcoin. Blockchain-based currencies gives users absolute freedom to perform transactions without any cap on the spending limit.

iv. Ease of Use

Blockchain based currencies are incredibly comfortable to use. Unlike traditional currencies, one doesn’t need to visit any regulatory authority to create an account. From the comfort of your home, it can easily be accomplished. Additionally, they do not levy any charges to open an account; instead, a virtual currency wallet is absolutely free.

v. Faster Transactions

Traditional transfers often take long, especially sending money across continents may take up to several days to accomplish. Bitcoin transfers, on the contrary, only takes up a few minutes! Most importantly, they aren’t closed at any point in time, and a transaction could be carried out at almost any point of time, in an instant.

vi. Reduced Fraud

Blockchain-based currencies are extremely secure to transact with. Because of peer-to-peer technology, it is tough to hack into the process and conduct a fraud. Thus making it one of the safest modes of transaction.

With recent developments, it is very much likely that eCommerce marketplaces would soon allow consumers to pay with Bitcoin rather than Stripe or PayPal. Security is relatively easy to implement. In addition to being decentralised, sending and receiving money will become as convenient as scanning a QR code. The relative ease of making payments is likely to be the first implementation of blockchain in the eCommerce marketplace.

Recommended Read: How to Start an eCommerce Business

2. Improved Supply Chain Management

Supply chain management is one of the most pressing concerns that every eCommerce business is marred with. Since the supply chain is a critical element of any eCommerce business – blockchain implementation in this sector will likely solve many problems. Blockchain can be extensively leveraged to solve supply chain issues like record-keeping, tracking of products as a less corruptible and better alternative to the centralized database. Other use-cases of supply chain include:

i) Provenance Tracking

Record keeping and provenance tracking become easy. With the help of RFID tags and embedded sensors, product information can be accessed. The timeline of a product right from its inception to where it is at present can be traced through blockchain. Besides this, to detect anomalies in any segment of the supply chain, this type of accurate provenance tracking can also be leveraged.

ii) Cost Reduction

There is an automatic deduction in the extra costs incurred by the system. Blockchain is applied to amp-up the administrative processes in the supply chain. It happens while still guaranteeing the security of transactions. The elimination of intermediaries also eradicates the risks of frauds, product duplicity while saving money at the same time. Customers and suppliers can further process payments within the supply chain by utilizing cryptocurrencies rather than customers and suppliers or relying on EDI.

iii) Inventory Management

The management of inventory becomes a whole lot easier by introducing blockchain in the process. Blockchain implementations in inventory management enable retailers to avoid unnecessary expenditure on hiring new staff time and again.

Recommended Read: How Can Blockchain Remodel Supply Chain? A Comprehensive Analysis

3. A More Transparent eCommerce Marketplace

In the wake of charges for lack of transparency, there has been a recent backlash that big retailers have been facing.  For the existing eCommerce platforms, it’s a serious concern. For instance, Amazon was in the news for cutting-off and even disabling a merchant’s page without any explanation.

Thus, by applying blockchain technology in the eCommerce marketplace would establish a decentralised environment where any wrongdoings on the part of the business or merchant can be efficiently monitored.

A transparent eCommerce marketplace also facilitate in conducting transactions in a frictionless and efficient manner.
Moreover, with the declaration of recent blockchain projects by retail giants like Walmart and Unilever – it is evident that they are eyeing at gaining a foothold in blockchain-based offerings.

4.  Secure

Blockchain today, is one of the most secure platforms out there. The Distributed Ledger Technology or DLT which blockchain boasts, offer excellent security for online database platforms that makes it ideal for implementation in eCommerce. Also, there has been almost negligible reporting of security breaches in blockchain-powered networks.

Another significant upside blockchain offers for eCommerce businesses is that blockchain-based currencies don’t exhibit personally identifiable information.

Currencies like Bitcoin operate like cash in the sense that they don’t require a consumer to expose sensitive data. In fact, the customer himself authorises a transfer from his/her own personal “wallet” to that of the recipient. Tied to each user’s wallet, a randomly-generated unique identifier is the only distinguishing piece of data.

Since cyber attacks and data theft has increased tenfold, there is an inevitable risk of losing customers data. Therefore, adopting blockchain is an absolute key to solving these challenges.

Recommended Read: 5 Security Tips for Your eCommerce Business

5. Spawning Genuine Reviews and Personal Offers

i) Fake Reviews

Reviews – good or bad—can determine the order in which a business appears on an E-commerce marketplace or in a search query result. Fake reviews tarnish the reputation of a good company while at the same time promoting a fraudulent one. The reputation of an online enterprise relies on the legitimacy of its reviews. Hence the majority of online operators have increasing concerns regarding the product service reviews found on the internet.

Thus, making blockchain technology a crucial source to verify the reviews on their products or services. Deploying blockchain can help curb fake reviews, as blockchain stores data in blocks which is then added to a chain of similar information blocks. Each block requires to be verified across a network of computers. And once verified, it cannot be altered. To create a digital map of someone, this technology can be employed.

ii) Personal Offers

Adopting blockchain technologies in business processes can be extremely beneficial for marketing as you can issue redeemable reward points to the customers through blockchain when they cross a specific bar of spending. This will enable the client to benefit from a varied range of discounts and personal offers, at the same time enabling proper tracking of the data making blockchain technology more efficient.

Wrapping Up

The applications of Blockchain can revolutionise the eCommerce marketplace. Although it may take us a little time to witness these implementations – change is definitely in the pipeline. If you have an idea but do not have the tech expertise to build your software, visit Bluerang where you can find the best IT companies at affordable prices.

Besides being faster and considerably cheaper, blockchain facilitates most activities that the present-day commerce systems allow without causing any third party interference, making it ideal for retailers. Blockchain technology can finally be concluded as the backbone of businesses in the eCommerce marketplace.

Let us know if liked this information or need us to edit or add something. You can also drop an email at mayank@engineerbabu.com, or talk to us right now

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The post The 5 Ways in Which Blockchain is Transforming eCommerce appeared first on EngineerBabu Blog.

These few questions seem to be on everyone’s mind lately. Owing to the tremendous growth eCommerce has witnessed in the past half-decade, it is evident that businesses will be looking to seek benefits of omni-channel retailing.
But what exactly is omni-channel retailing? Do I need to employ this in my business strategy?
There seems to be a lot of conundrum revolving around this topic. But worry no more because we’re here to answer all the questions surrounding omni-channel. Stick around till the end of this post, and I assure you that none of your questions will go unanswered.

History

Retail in its Nascence

Since Adam, commerce used to be single-channel, meaning the retailers owned a physical brick and mortar store through which sales occurred. This model was a tremendous success considering you didn’t require significant expense other than setting up your store.
Since times evolved, this channel became obsolete as it encountered many limitations.

The Digital Revolution

As the age of the digital revolution befell and smartphones & tablets came in picture – Customers demanded a more comfortable approach. Thus, retailers shifted their focus to a more diversified strategy to broaden their offerings.
Consequently, the multi-channel approach was born. Leveraging multi-channel consumers were able to shop from different channels as per their preference. Multi-channel approach provided the needed flexibility and convenience required for consumers to purchase goods and services.

This approach observed tremendous growth and proved hugely successful. But with time, people started noticing its limitations as well – Although this approach was beneficial having bought round-the-clock access to customers, but lacked in providing a seamless experience across different channels.
And, as more and more data got accumulated, it became relatively critical to introduce coherence amongst different platforms. Moreover, customer service was also a big concern since retailers communicated with shoppers in multiple channels and became perplexed with data synchronization in separate systems.

The Third Wave of Change – Origin of Omni-Channel Retailing

Customers now are more demanding. They don’t want to be limited by their geography and not have access to some commodity that might be available someplace else. Besides, they wish to seamlessly manage purchases across different channels and not struggle with order fulfillment and delay in delivery.
Hence, the arrival of – “Omni-Channel Retail”

Pertaining exclusively to eCommerce, omni-channel retailing is an integrated approach to commerce aiming at providing a unified shopping experience to consumers across all platforms.
Omni-channel retail requires centralized management of data sources to ensure a demographic view of that data. As a result, customers can wishfully use different channels in their shopping process, commencing their search at one and finishing-up the purchase at another.

The Difference between Multi-channel and Omni-channel Retailing

Many people believe omni-channel to be an extension of multi-channel retailing, though this isn’t exactly the case. Both omni-channel and multi-channel follow distinct business models.
Using multi-channel retailers implement as many channels as possible but there is no coherence amongst them, each channel is managed separately.
On the other hand, the omni-channel approach offers an integrated solution where there is centralized management of data amongst all channels, thus establishing a symbiotic ecosystem.

Why omni-channel?

According to a recent study by Harvard Business Review – To better analyze the multitude of omni-channel retailing, it was stated that:

• 7% shopped online exclusively
• 20% were store-only shoppers
• 73% used multiple channels

The above stats clearly indicate an already underlying fact that multiple channels help generate more sales. Harnessing omni-channel efficiently can boost your sales in no time. This is because shoppers that engage with retailers on multiple channels make purchases more often.
Thus, omni-channel is a lucrative strategy which needs to be leveraged right away if you wish to increase sales and retain customers. After all,

Progress is Impossible without Change

Must Read: The Top 7 eCommerce Trends for 2019

Do businesses really need to employ an omni-channel retail strategy?

Since the dawn of the internet and all things related, every business is expected, and in fact, SHOULD, have an online presence. Entrepreneurs who got-on early on this bandwagon, and realized the importance of this extremely lucrative domain are still ruling the roost! (Amazon is a good example, I guess).
Several studies conducted over time have proven time, and again that multi-channel is the way to go. Owing to the fact that consumers nowadays want everything at their convenience, and having an online presence gives institutions that opportunity.
However, the demand now is not just having multiple channels to shop through – Consumers, now, are also looking for seamless integration across the numerous platforms they utilize throughout the day. Hence, it is extremely critical, especially now more than ever, to adopt the omni-channel approach if you want to expand your business.
Businesses who have already adopted this omnichannel approach are flying high. Let’s take a few use-cases to understand better:

• Disney

Disney has gotten the omni-channel experience right to the minutest of details. Disney’s trip planning website works flawlessly across all mediums like mobile, tablet, desktop, etc. Also, it seamlessly integrates across all your devices providing synchronization with the bat of an eye.

• Starbucks

Starbucks is also leading the herd when it comes to providing one of the finest omni-channel experiences. Standing in line to get your morning cup of Joe and realizing you don’t have enough balance in your account, is the side of the town where nobody ever wants to get to.

Starbucks has now made it possible to check and reload your card via phone, website, in-store, or on the app. Any change to the card or your profile gets updated across all channels, in real-time.

• Zomato

With omni-channel, it’s all about making the customer’s life easy. It becomes especially frustrating when there isn’t seamless integration amongst platforms of the same application. For instance, imagine yourself ordering food from your favorite restaurant to discover half-hour later that the restaurant hasn’t even received your order yet.

A situation like this nullifies the whole point of adopting this medium in the first place.

Zomato (an Indian food ordering service) seeks to eradicate this frustration with its flawless user experience. You can easily track your delivery guys’ movement in real-time across multiple platforms. Plus with its easy-to-navigate tools that provide on-the-go ordering access, Zomato does a wonderful job at that too.

Since you now understand why it is crucial to implement the omni-channel retail strategy in this day and age, let us now understand as to how exactly can you do it.

How to develop an omni-channel retail strategy

Get a comprehensive understanding of your customers’ persona

The first step that goes into establishing a seamless omni-channel retail strategy is in clearly chalking up your target customer’s persona. This includes understanding which devices, platforms or medium your customers utilize regularly.

Sieve through your Google Analytics report and develop a clear elucidation of your customers’ demographics, geography, and concentration.

Secondly, try and analyze how customers are discovering your business. Once you gather and analyze all this data, you can proceed with implementing strategies accordingly.

Analyzing this data will help you gain a broad understanding of the most important touchpoints for your business.

Providing Seamless User Experience by bridging Online & Offline Shopping experience

Now that you’ve nailed down specific platforms to streamline or improve, it’s time to build off of that understanding for an omni-channel buying experience.

You need to bridge the gap between the online and offline shopping experience because customers now, don’t like wasting time visiting your store if they aren’t sure whether their desired product will be on the shelf.

To address this, you can integrate your eCommerce platform with Google. Applying this will assist the user to directly go from keyword search to product location to buying it and picking it up in-store.

Concluding View

It is no secret that technology is rapidly evolving. We have come so far from the phase when you needed a desktop to access the internet. The inception of the first iPhone was a total shift in paradigm where your handheld device was able to seamlessly access the then growing realm of the internet.
No one has been able to make it big, all by himself! Teamwork goes a long way in ensuring the overall success of any organization.  Especially, in case of omni-channel retailing, you need to strictly ensure that all the cogwheels of your supply chain are working coherently.
EngineerBabu specializes in designing some of the best seamlessly-integrated eCommerce solutions out there, and we are more than willing to share our substantial domain expertise for the benefit of your organization. You can also contact us for a free consultation.
Feel free to drop your comments in the section below, in case you have any doubts.

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The post What is Omnichannel Retailing? appeared first on EngineerBabu Blog.

In this article, I would try and shed some light on the practical and significant use-cases of AI in eCommerce and how your eCommerce business can leverage it at this moment in time!
There seems to be a lot of conundrum on the subject of AI in eCommerce, so let’s put an end to this discussion, once and for all, shall we?

5 Use-Cases of AI in eCommerce

1. Better Search Results

It has been observed that customers end up abandoning their purchase because often the product results displayed turns out irrelevant.
Through AI organizations are trying to display customer-centric search results that are relevant to their desired ask.  eCommerce websites are increasingly leveraging NLP (or Natural Language Processing) and Image Recognition to better comprehend user language and produce better product results.
Yandex, a popular search engine, successfully implemented some advanced applications of NLP and Deep Learning to optimize future searches with the help of the data of previous searches. This turned out to be a massive success as they were able to increase their click-through rates by almost ten percent.
Clarifai is trying to improve ecommerce by building smarter applications which can see the world as people would. In their words, “Artificial Intelligence with a Vision.” These applications enable the developers to build more intelligent apps and at the same time empower business by providing a customer-centric experience.

Pinterest is partnering with ecommerce stores for its new offering Pinterest Lens to find matching items in the store directly from their image on Pinterest. This is great from the standpoint where people generally abandon their search because they aren’t able to find the relevant product.
Developments such as these are not just helping businesses generate better revenues, but are also reducing customers’ journey.

Recommended Read: 5 Tips to Ensure Impeccable Security for Your eCommerce Business

2. Shopping Experience Level 1001!

How do you enhance the user’s shopping experience?
Make it as real as possible!
If you want to understand just how much Google knows about you, go check out your Google Maps Timeline!
The devices that you use collect and store a ton of information about you. This data is extremely valuable as the right type of information can enrich and improve your shopping experience.
Deep Learning and Machine Learning technologies are able to utilize the smallest piece of data. For instance, even the hover that you made over a product is analyzed and evaluated to understand the likelihood of you buying that product.
In practice, this personalization helps deliver images of related products, enticing offers related to the product, alerts related to that product, and dynamic content that alters according to demand and supply.
AI engines such as Boomtrain acts as a bolt-on with your existing customer channels and helps businesses analyze how customers are interacting online. It also provides a unified view across all devices, monitoring and analyzing performances across different platforms.
Companies like Criteo, are assisting Internet retailers to serve personalized online display advertisements to consumers who have previously visited the advertiser’s website. Through cross-device advertising, they are able to engage shoppers wherever they are online with premium-placed ads across desktop, mobile and social.

AI is assisting in generating deep and relevant insights of data by analyzing and scanning through terabytes of data to efficiently predict human behavior. This scale of intelligence helps deliver a personalized shopping experience for the end user.

3. Curbing Fake Reviews

These stats are absolutely insane!
Customer reviews are an integral part of the sales cycle. 87% of customers trust what they read without the blink of an eyelid. The last couple of years have seen a surge in talks around this subject and has consequently impacted the way customer perceive information they encounter online, even if it is ostensibly written by a credible source.
Artificial Intelligence is increasingly being deployed to analyze user reviews.
For instance, Yelp has deployed a sentiment analysis technique to classify their review ratings. Through this technique, they organize the information into different data sets like business_id (ID of the business being reviewed), date (Day the review was posted), review_id (ID for the published review), stars (1–5 rating for the business), text (Review text), etc,.
On similar lines, Facebook has come up with their AI solution “fastText” for text classification and create supervised as well as unsupervised learning algorithms to obtain vector representation for words.

4.  Sales Forecasting

Earlier only God or Charles Xavier could have read your mind – but now – AI can too!
Try and fathom an alternate reality where all your marketing efforts and expenditures are targeted only where the customer is likely to make a purchase. Your conversion rate will be at an all-time high, and you won’t waste your capital on customers who won’t buy.
Being able to foretell how much of a given product will sell by a specific date will enable shop owners to stack up on inventory more efficiently, and simultaneously eliminate large sums of undesired cost.
It is especially valuable for industries dealing with perishable products, which include not only groceries but also tickets of concert and transportation – anything that costs money when unsold.

Sounds too good to be true, right?

AI solutions can gather historical data about past purchases and help your sales team better derive conclusions and make decisions. Besides, you won’t even need to sell your arms and legs to afford this either as these solutions are easily deployable, even by organizations with smaller budgets. Employing AI, businesses were able to derive relevant conclusions like –

• Suggesting products that should be promoted on a particular date
• Identify popular products that are making good sales
• Predicting what customers are likely to purchase in advance
• Determining the highest price a customer will pay for your product
• Targeted promotions
• Reduce fraud
• Improve supply chain management
• Enhance business intelligence
• Make the most money on your sales

5. Chatbots to the Rescue

It might be so hard for you to feel special amongst an ocean of 7 Billion, right?
Well, eCommerce websites are adopting chatbots to make you feel special.
Companies are increasingly deploying chatbots to improve customer service & satisfaction. Go ahead and browse any ecommerce site, a little chatbox will pop-up asking you what you want to make a purchase of. Once you enter your requirements, you get filtered results specific to your taste.
Let us list some benefits of deploying chatbots:

• Chatbots have increased customer conversion tremendously by reducing the labor for lazy buyers.
• We have come so far from the time when chatbots offered just customary replies. Now they have become intelligent beings who understand and tackle a range of issues which they were earlier incapable of.
• It is vital to provide real-time support to online shoppers as a recent study found that almost 83% of online shoppers need assistance while shopping and chatbots make it possible to provide real-time support.
• Chatbots also provide a more personalized experience for consumers. Compared with social media, chatbots can make conversations more interactive and engaging. They increase the sales figures by up to 40%.
• Deploying chatbots helps to collect feedback more efficiently. Additionally, it can make it easier to track purchasing patterns and consumer behavior.
• Chatbots can provide efficiency, that too at an affordable price. Live support can be quite costly with limited work hours. Chatbots automate the process and can operate 24/7.
• Chatbots are gaining ground. Apart from potentially changing the industry, implementing a chatbot can be a good marketing campaign. Any company who wants to stay ahead in the race needs to follow this trend.

Wrapping Up

Coming up with innovations isn’t rocket science anymore. AI has become the single biggest driver of massive technological advancements in every tangible domain – and will continue to do so for the foreseeable future.
The question we need to ask ourselves is – Are we ready to keep pace and adapt with this onslaught of changes that are happening so rapidly?
If No, there you have it. You need to adapt and change pace as quickly as possible. Coz if you don’t, you will be replaced.

EngineerBabu excels in providing some of the best eCommerce solutions out there. Our AI-enabled offerings help derive deeper insights into the customer journey and in turn assist businesses in taking calculated decisions on how to advance.

Our eCommerce customers have garnered numerous accolades over time. Our dear Australian customer Frankgreen grabbed the Best Design Award for not one, two, but three consecutive years. Ondoor, a grocery retailer earned 100,000 downloads in record time as well!

Call us for a free consultation, we’ll be glad to help you out! Also check out our portfolio, right here. 

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Firstly, let us understand some of the most distinguished and common threats that hamper merchants from doing business effectively –

• Online Security
  There is a wide range of ecommerce security threats out there that hamper trade over the internet. The primary motive behind all these security threats is to exploit the victim in terms of money. These include credit card frauds, malware, phishing attacks, hacking, spams, etc.
• System Reliability
  System reliability comprises three major types of issues
  • The Internet service provider (ISP) server could crash
  • The online payment system could show errors
  • The ecommerce plugin could have bugs
• Privacy Issues
  We can’t even quantify how many product catalogs, user IDs, personal information, and financial information like credit card details a typical eCommerce site stores. That’s what makes eCommerce sites of almost any magnitude, so attractive and appealing to hackers and fraudsters to exploit. A customers’ personal data could be compromised and used for spamming, identity theft and unsolicited marketing. Therefore, privacy issues are one of the most pressing problems for e-commerce businesses.
• Payment Frauds
  No matter how good your online security measures are, sometimes it is tough to avoid payment frauds. Notorious elements could get access to details of your credit cards by impersonating as financial institutions.
• Intellectual Property Issues
  Others could copy your product descriptions, product images, copyright logos, even music, and even videos and use it for their purposes. Intellectual property violations are pretty eminent as they could easily be made.

Recommended Read: How to Start an eCommerce Business?

Having learned about the major threats, now let’s dig into how you can prevent your site or your business from these imminent anomalies that hover around this realm,

1. Get SSL Certified

Ideally, every site needs to have SSL by default. Generally, SSL certificates are used to protect data transfer, credit card transactions,  and login information. In a recent development, SSL certifications are also being deployed on social media sites to enable secure browsing.

What are SSL certificates?
SSL Certificates are records of data which digitally bind a cryptographic key to an organization’s details. When deployed on a server, SSL activates the padlock and HTTPS protocol and activates secure connections from a web server to a browser.
SSL Certificates bind together:

• A domain name, server name or hostname.
• An organizational identity (i.e., company name) and location.

The primary reason why the utilization of SSL is increasing is that they keep sensitive information sent across the Internet encrypted so that only the intended recipient can access it. This is critical because the information one sends over the Internet is conceded from computer to the other to get to its destination. If any computer in the network is compromised, the server would be able to see your username, passwords and even sensitive information like credit card numbers if it is not encrypted with an SSL certificate.
When an SSL certificate is used, the information becomes unreadable to everyone except for the server you are transferring the information to. This approach safeguards it from potential threats and notorious elements.

How does it work?

1. A user attempts to connect to a website (i.e., a web server) via a web browser. This connection needs to be secured with SSL.
2. The web browser requests the identity of the web server.
3. The web server sends a copy of its SSL certificate.
4. The browser verifies the received SSL certificate. If verified it sends a message to the web server.
5. The web server acknowledges by sending over an acknowledgment.
6. The session is started, and encrypted data is shared

2. Become PCI compliant

In a study, it was found that nearly 90% of security breaches impact small businesses.
PCI Compliance stands for Payment Card Industry Data Security Standard (PCI DSS). The PCI DSS is a security standard for organizations that handle branded credit cards from the major card schemes.
The standard came into practice in 2006 and has gained wide popularity worldwide to prevent credit card frauds and to increase controls around cardholder data.
PCI compliance applies to corporations of any size that accepts card payment. So, is your ecommerce PCI compliant?
There are plenty of reasons to become PCI compliant as this could increasingly secure your online transactions considerably.
Small businesses often feel plagued in their capabilities to adjust their processes accordingly to become PCI compliant. Hence, if you want your business to become PCI compliant you need to remember, PCI compliance is attained through a collaborative effort amongst teams, including working with payment processors that ensure PCI compliance, accepting EMV chip cards and even securing your business’s IT infrastructure, networks, and payment processes.
PCI compliance can be intimidating and complicated for e-commerce business owners to decipher and implement, but they’re a set of precautions designed to minimize your risk and protect your customers.
Getting PCI compliant can be a daunting task, especially for small business owners. Thus your PCI compliance checklist should include the following:

• Use a firewall for payment card data and public network, and keep the firewall updated.
• Do not store the cardholder’s data. If your business needs to store cardholders’ data, make sure you use strong encryption. Several platforms provide extensions to shift the storage of cardholder data. For instance, you can deploy Magento’s extension BrainTree to switch the storage of the cardholder data.
• Use encryption to safeguard all transmissions of cardholder data over any public network.
• You need to ensure that your card processing systems have a vendor-supplied security patch installed.
• Limit access to cardholder data to as few people as possible.
• Regularly test your security systems and network environment.
• Establish an effective and efficient security policy and make sure that all personnel are aware of it.

3. Choose the correct eCommerce Platform

It is an extremely critical business process to employ an efficient ecommerce platform for your business. It is vital, especially for small business, to be extremely vigilant while selecting the correct ecommerce platform for your business.
With sleuths of ecommerce platforms being available at throwaway prices, selecting the appropriate platform becomes a daunting task, considering that switching isn’t an appropriate option. Hence, a tonne of planning must go into ensuring that you have selected the best platform.
Our recommendations:

• We recommend you to employ a platform which is based on Object-Oriented Programming and includes built-in security protocols.
• In case, if you opt for WordPress as your platform, select a good WordPress security plugin that will help add an extra layer of protection to your website.
• Also, set up a bot mitigation solution as it isn’t provided by default.

Have a look at the table below, and you’ll get a brief idea on which platform could be leveraged for your business.
For an in-depth understanding of the best and most suitable ecommerce platforms for your business, do read our detailed article on, “Best eCommerce Platforms in 2019.”

4. Do I really need security auditing?

YES, YOU DO!
I can’t press on this enough to make people understand the importance of security auditing. Even if you are a small business with relatively lesser transactions and money flowing through your website,
YOU DO NEED SECURITY AUDITING.
Frequent security checkups and audits are highly recommended for sustaining and reinforcing your ecommerce website’s safety. Audits not just help in weeding out potential threats that may have found their way onto your portal, but also eliminates data of past transactions.
Just like casinos; online portals which have round-the-clock cash flow are marred with new security contingencies every other day. Security audits thus become quite necessary to ensure their client’s information is safeguarded efficiently and effectively.
An ecommerce business is granted a certificate and a mark after its security audit. Even consumers can differentiate these security audited websites through the individual marks they embody.
There are 4 significant factors on which the security audit of business is evaluated, namely:

• Data security
• Performance
• Engagement
• Navigation
• Product
• Payment
• Fulfillment
• Service

5. Is your Customer even Human?

Do you know that bots represent 50% of all the website traffic?
Do you also know that 30% of this 50% are bad bots?

These bad boys are the single-handedly the most significant contributors to eCommerce website frauds.
Everyone wants more traffic for their ecommerce site. However, it is necessary to ensure that all this traffic is legitimate and comes from a verified buyer. What you might suppose as legitimate traffic on your website could actually be malicious bots deployed by hackers and even your competitors to scrape your product prices and even steal your entire customer data, vendor data and product catalogs, that too within a matter of a few seconds.
For protecting your business against the threats of bad bots creeping into your website, you can employ a series of effective steps,
STEP 1: Detecting and Analyzing legitimate bot traffic is the first step. Bot detection platforms should be able to make out human traffic from non-human traffic. Non-human traffic patterns could be detected by employing logical puzzles and security questions on pages that involve cash flow.
STEP 2: Once you are finished implementing STEP 1, and bot traffic have been identified, the next step involves classifying the type of traffic. Bot traffic could either be from a known source – like that of search engine bots which should be allowed to pass through, and the other could be from a source malicious source, whose intent may not be clear – this shouldn’t be allowed to pass through.
STEP 3: The third and final step involves controlling the malicious bot traffic, which would depend on the intent of the bot. For example,

• If the bot is eyeing for vulnerabilities or trying to commit frauds like shopping cart stuffing, the software should deny access and return a false 404 “page not found” to the bot.
• For a DoS attack (denial of service), your bot mitigation and management solution should simply divert the traffic.

Fortunately, there are also some pretty effective bot detection platforms that you could leverage at a reasonable price for your eCommerce site, namely,

• Infisecure
  InfiSecure offers real-time and user behavior based bot detection technology to identify bad bots. Their tools block web scraping bots in real time before they access your ecommerce website, thus preventing customers from fraudulent orders, data theft, price scraping, and variation tracking.
• ShieldSquare
  ShieldSquare utilizes a non-intrusive API-based approach to analyses and detects malicious activity on your ecommerce site, thus blocking bots in real-time without impacting the real users already browsing through your product catalog.
• Data DomeBeing employed by some of the significant fortune 500 companies, Data Dome employs an AI-empowered bot management solution to counter frauds like user data theft, price scraping, etc.
• Global Dots
  Global Dots is an extraordinarily efficient and effective platform to ensure security from bad bots. They use Behavioral Fingerprinting to analyze dynamic profiles of real customers to identify click frauds, content and price scraping.

Concluding View

Many pillars go into holding-up the dome of eCommerce security.
Data privacy being a major concern for every internet-based enterprise right now, it is extremely important, now more than ever to safeguard customer’s data to maintain the dwindling trust with eCommerce-based companies. With the revelation of Cambridge Analytica Scandal consumers have become unsure of commerce over the internet.  
Whether you are just starting out, or have a small business in a place or a major enterprise – Doesn’t matter. These measures need to function like clockwork to ensure impeccable security for your website. One would also need to keep yourself and your team updated with the latest advancements in Cybersecurity.
Stringent security measures must be put in place to protect your company from threats, or risk jeopardizing revenue and customer trust.
After all, It is a tricky domain to be in, but,

The fruits of your labor will bear the fruits of your success.

Handpicked Content for You:

• How to Start an eCommerce Business
• How to Start a FinTech Company
• How to Enhance Your Payments Usability – Instantly!
• How Can AI Help Small Business?
• Largest eCommerce Companies in the World

The post 5 Security Tips for your eCommerce Website appeared first on EngineerBabu Blog.

In fact, E-commerce integration has come as far as becoming a top priority for B2B business owners.

The growth of the global E-commerce market in recent years is simply mind-blowing. E-commerce accounts for almost 10% of retail sales in the US and 23% in China – a figure that is growing by upwards of 15% each year.
According to a recent statistics report – In 2018 retail E-commerce sales amounted to $2.842 trillion which is expected to hit $4.8 trillion by 2021.

The notion that E-commerce is a separate entity in itself is quickly evolving as a customer’s journey of buying a product or a service, now merge online and in-store. Nowadays a purchase cycle doesn’t simply end by making a purchase. There are swarms of marketing gimmicks to try and lure you into making repeat purchases.

You might have also observed that even if you made an in-store purchase you get bombarded with offers that are simply too good to resist. Great examples of such gimmicks are shopping festivals, Black Friday Sales, etc.

Enlisted below are the major 7 E-commerce trends to watch out for in 2019 and some important developments that companies should take into account this year to ensure the growth of their online business.

Omnichannel