Your Biggest E-Commerce Problem for 2011

Does your e-commerce system present a problem for the 2011 holiday season? It’s almost July, but depending on the size of your company and e-commerce efforts it may not be too late to upgrade your e-commerce platform.

Top providers

Website Magazine posted the top 100 e-commerce platforms based up on traffic to their sites. The list includes a few of my favorites. ZenCart, oscommerce and Magento, which is a top notch freemiumservice, where the platform is free but you pay for service as you need it. (how long it stays free now that EBay has purchased them is to be seen)

What is Your Systems Weak Point?

No e-commerce system does everything exactly as you’d want it too. Each has it’s pros and cons. The key is to find which items mean the most to your customer set, and find a platform that addresses those needs.

Here are some key issues many e-commerce folks worry about

Merchandising

Being able to present products in a format that meets the expectations of your visitors is a key conversion factor. If you are selling high-end products then images & videos should be of high consideration. Do you need 360 views, overview videos, interactive text overlays, roll-over close ups? If you’re selling comidity items then the ability to call out specials, price/feature comparissions, use special fomating and listing formats may be critical to your customers. If your current system can’t meet your needs, look for a outside service company to fill the gap.

Promotional

How often has a competitor presented a pricing model, or coupon offer, that you could not match or compete with becasue your e-commerce platform could not accomadate it?  My personal experince seling both service and hard-goods, is that the ability to have a high level of flexibility in pricing, coupons, sales, and bundling can make the differece between creative offers that close sales, and cart abandonment. 

Mobile

The 2011 selling season may be a turning point for mobile commerce. Depending on your product and customer base, having a mobile strategy is anywhere from a nice to have to critical. Be sure to look at your analytics to see how your mobile traffic is trending for some insight on how important this avenue of e-Commerce will be for you.

What’s your keys to e-commerce for holiday 2011?