Standing Out in a Saturated E-Commerce Market

Standing out by bringing your business online is not enough; it used to be that being online gave you the leg up. But with technology advancing at such a fast pace, the e-Commerce market is becoming more saturated with more competition than ever. The benefits of being online are clear and everyone wants in. Now the challenge is to stand out by excelling in the industry where a lot of the competition is neck and neck – it comes down to what differentiates you as a company (your unique sales proposition, your target, your strong points) and how you convey that in your e-Commerce site.

Having an e-commerce website doesn’t mean it’s its own entity – it’s an extension of your brand and company. It should also be an extension of your ERP (like Microsoft Dynamics Business Central NAV). Here are some ways you can stand out with an integrated webshop solution.

Standing Out Visually

It’s a common expression that people eat with their eyes first, paying attention to the color and composition of food on their plate; if it looks fresh, appetizing, interesting, it entices people to dig in. This is why the way your website looks matters. It’s not the most important thing ever, but it makes a big difference in the way you are perceived. This refers to the design embodying balance, function, and form. The website must be informative and not cluttered. Customers will see this in the home page, category page, and item detail pages as they go deeper into your site and explore what you have to offer. If they have a customer account, this should also be visually appealing and all the components that they need to manage should be well presented.

Here are some other points to consider regarding your webshop design:

• High-quality images of your products, details, and more are very helpful and convey the message of put together and professional
• Keep it dynamic; the eye should be able to move around all the parts and still be able to find what you are looking for, there are pops of color that give it energy, whitespace used well, videos tastefully used, etc.
• Minimalistic and flat design is very on-trend right now; research how you can incorporate that into your brand image without looking generic

Theme styler in Nav-to-Net™ can help you achieve a very specific look and feel and be switched out easily in Business Central NAV without ever touching the code.

Value Propositions and Sales Incentives

When customers buy from you, it’s because they understand the value that you provide and choose to get it from you instead of others. Use coupons and promotions – any form that you like and managed in ERP – to encourage customers to buy more. Price and availability alerts also work to keep customers informed.

These features combined help you stand out because customers always look for sales and opportunities and these features offer businesses ways to connect with customers. Using submission forms created and managed in NAV, you can get customers to sign up for more information, exclusive coupons, and more. The opportunity to be “VIP” creates a feeling of exclusivity that could attract customers.

Better Organization

Parametric search in Nav-to-Net

You can stand out by being more organized. When you are organized, you look polished, professional, and very put together. Imagine a cluttered office with papers and letters everywhere, things that should be signed are waiting, new catalogs are still yet to be sent out, designs are awaiting approval – what a mess! Now imagine a clean and tidy organized system with everything in its place – things can move along in a timely manner, there is order, there is calm, there is a plan in place. Everything is connected, there is better communication, and your business can run smoothly.

In e-Commerce, this can be achieved by helping your customers find things quickly and easily. Your website’s navigation needs meaningful labels, effective categorization, advanced search functions like parametric search, and it should follow design conventions. There’s something to be said for unique and unusual website design and navigation, but it throws people for a loop when browsing. It can take a while to understand and use properly, thus defeating the whole purpose of having a well-organized and easily used e-Commerce website.

Personalization

You can stand out by making the customer feel valued. This can be achieved through personalized product recommendations based on their past purchases. B2B customers can get individually hand-picked and timely product recommendations from sales representatives upon log-in that suits their particular business needs. Nav-to-Net™ Configurator is an add-on that can have a lot of impact on the website by streamlining the sale of customized products and packages.

Integration at the Core

Having an integrated e-Commerce solution as a strong foundation yields benefits such as lowered maintenance and training costs. Experience unified workflows and smooth business processes between your Dynamics Business Central NAV and your B2B e-Commerce.

Got 4 Minutes? Here’s a superfast preview of NAV / Business Central Seamlessly Integrated e-Commerce.

Whitepaper: 5 Reasons Dynamics NAV Business Central Should be the Master Copy of Your eCommerce