Technology Solution
The proposed technology solution is an ecommerce website, which should allow individuals and businesses to buy and sell goods and services online.
Stakeholders/Target Audience
The website will be designed in such a way that it targets different categories of audience. It is expected that each of these stakeholders will find the website useful in one way or the other. The customers will, however, be the primary targets of the website. Much efforts will, therefore, be put in place to ensure that they have incredible user experiences. Sellers and other forms of vendors will also find the website appealing and inspiring as well since it will be designed with their preference features in mind. Employees will be primarily those tasked with the duty of developing the website.
Development Tools/ Environment
As an ecommerce platform, the website will not be complete without the addition of such communication and shopping enhancing tools as live chats, help desk, mail chips, and Facebook ads. Live chat ensures that the business maintains a clear line of communication with its customers at all times. Customers will be able to get instant replies and feedback from the online customer care representatives. More complicated cases that cannot be solved immediately will be forwarded to the help desk, which will allow the customer to keep track of his or her issues. The website will also be a marketing platform that will carry targeted campaigns on various products. The Mail chimp tool will make this possible
Accomplishments
In building the website, it is expected that after a period 6 months significant accomplishments would have been witnessed. This particularly in the areas of revenue increase, the number of website visitors, number of transactions, conversion of visitors into real shoppers, and customer satisfaction. There will be a 20% increase in revenue during the first 6 months as more people get to know about it. However, this will only be accomplished if concerted efforts are put in place to drive more traffic to the website. Out of the increasing number of website visitors, 30% will turn out to be real shoppers, who will spend their money on various items on the website. This number is expected to rise as time goes by. These customers will have an excellent experience navigating through the website and using it for purchase and payment. More than 80% of them are expected to be satisfied by their experiences. Those who would not be satisfied will be expected to leave feedback, which will be used for change improvements.
Functionality Progress
The name and domain have been carefully selected to reflect the objective of the company. Shoppers will be required to enter the domain name in their search engines and see what it entails. There are several ecommerce platforms available for building the website on. The WordPress has been proven to offer the most robust and flexible built in functionalities that will necessitate payment from diverse service providers. The logo and brand imagery have been chosen in conjunction with th3 client. Much focus has been put on the target audience and the nature of products to be sold via the platform. There are however, some areas that are still being worked on. They include the shipping and payment methods as well as the preferred marketing tools.
Problems Encountered
Not all visitors who will come the website will provide genuine information. Hence, it will be difficult to tell if they are really interested I purchasing or other things. Some could even make payment using fake phone numbers. Unfortunately, performing an identity verification exercise against each customer who visits the website is not an easy task. The security of the website is not guaranteed as it can be easily infected by dangerous websites, which can compromise customers’ data and private information. The site can be infiltrated by hackers who will then access confidential information such as customers’ credit cards. It is a known fact that most customers have the habit of abandoning their shopping carts. Moreover, no matter how excellent an ecommerce website can be, it is not given that it will nurture customer loyalty. The loyalty of customers has more to do with the mutual trust that exist between them and the seller, and little to do with the website.
How the Problems were Overcame
The problem of customer verification can be solved by using automated cash on delivery purchase that requires the buyer to validate their preferred addresses for the delivery of the products. Other software solutions such as SSN verification, instant authentication, and identity checks also make it possible to verify customer identity. On the other hand, cybersecurity related problems can best be managed by using own servers, doing regular data backups, installing safety components and security plugins and regularly updating the ecommerce platform. This way, one will manage to prevent malicious damage from prospective attackers.
It will be significant to have several keywords occurring on the title description of a website to enhance the search process. This is in addition to the optimization of the images for various products. There is a huge volume of keywords that are used in any ecommerce platform. One of the most appropriate options of ensuring easy navigation is through the use of a blog, which will act as a point of attraction where users can obtain links. The schema markup implementation involves the identification of relevant data on product reviews and aggregate ratings to increase traffic on the website
Build 2 Schedule
The second schedule of the website development will involve the infusion of various tools that have been proven to be useful in the first case. Of much importance will be to use keyword search and analysis to ease the search process and improve users’ experiences. In addition, in this era of social media, building a link strategy will be useful in connecting the website to other platforms. Therefore, it will be recommended to target specific blogs and sites that have the potential to generate more traffic to the website. This will ensure that prospective customers in those platforms are harnessed and brought on board to increase traffic and visitations.
References
- Fabregas, K. (2021). How to build an ecommerce website in 2021: The ultimate guide. Web.
- Hamid, N. A., Cheun, C. H., & Abdullah, N. H. (2019). Does persuasive e-commerce website influence users’ acceptance and online buying behaviour? The findings of the largest e-commerce website in Malaysia. ICT for a Better Life and a Better World, 30 , 263-279. Web.
- Isherwood, M. (2019). Designing ecommerce websites: A UX design handbook for great online shops. Transmitter Press.
- Reynolds, J. (2017). Complete e-commerce book: Design, build & maintain a successful web-based business. CRC Press.
- Sims, L. (2018). Building your online store with WordPress and WooCommerce: Learn to leverage the critical role e-commerce plays in today’s competitive marketplace.