In 1979, English inventor Michael Aldrich wondered if there was a way to buy goods and services from the comfort of home and managed to link phone lines to a television. A few years later, in 1984, he developed technology that allowed people to use a television controller to order groceries from the supermarket. It was arguably the first online shop and the start of e-commerce.
Between 1990 and 1991, Tim Berners-Lee invented the World Wide Web and the first browser. Then, in July 1994, Jeff Bezos incorporated Amazon, an e-commerce behemoth that, at the end of 2021, was worth over $438 billion.
E-commerce has come a long way in a short amount of time, with new platforms and opportunities springing up daily. According to a report by Statista, global e-commerce sales rose from US$1.3 trillion in 2014 to over US$4.9 trillion in 2021. Furthermore, it is predicted to be worth over US$7.3 trillion by 2025.
The way the world shops is changing at a rapid rate. This is both an opportunity and a problem for businesses that sell goods and services online.
Potential customers are now global, but how can businesses get noticed?
Given the ease with which someone can start an e-commerce website, new ones are created daily. Consequently, figures for online businesses are vague, with a current estimate of 12 to 24 million sites. Even though less than a million of those sites make over $1000 a year, it is still a fiercely competitive market.
With such a vast marketplace and number of potential customers, digital marketing and conversion optimization solutions are essential. As a result, B2B businesses that help online stores attract and convert customers are growing in step with e-commerce. However, some approaches are proving a lot more successful than others.
A great example is Nextsale, an Eastern European SaaS-based B2B. The business was founded by three friends - Vusal Orujov, Taleh Karimli, and Orkhan Hajiyev - each with a lot of experience in the e-commerce sector and their own specialties.
Vusal Orujov, Nextsale's lead engineer, explains, "We've been building e-commerce projects for various industry clients for a decade. While working with brands and online businesses, we noticed there always seem to be a significant issue with low conversion rates. This is when someone visits a site but then leaves and doesn't buy anything.
"After some research, we discovered that conversion optimization solutions were an unexplored niche. We have a lot of experience in the sector, so we decided to build a platform to help e-commerce shop owners make their first sale - then their next. Essentially, it helps shops convert and sell more while retaining loyalty and driving future sales."
The Nextsale conversion optimization platform launched in Beta in 2019 and offers an array of helpful tools. Taleh Karimli, the company's product designer, says, "We created a series of display widgets that serve several functions that all drive ongoing sales. For example, the software captures visitors' email addresses and phone numbers while creating social trust and reducing abandonment rates by displaying promo offers.
"The widgets also drive engagement in a variety of ways, such as creating a sense of urgency, showing order counts, purchases, reviews, and pop-ups that offer discounts, or detect when visitors have landed or are about to leave. These are all proven methods that attract and retain customers."
Software that helps e-commerce merchants needs to understand issues and be easy to integrate
Orkhan Hajiyev, head of customer care and responsible for the growth of Nextsale, explains how they got off to a great start. "It was essential that customers got to experience the platform for themselves. Fortunately, within a month of our launch on the Shopify app store, we were selected to Shopify's Staff Picks. This caused a surge of traffic and helped us get our first 1000 customers.
"After this, I talked to online merchants about how they manage their business and conversions. I identified what was needed and shared it with the team. This resulted in a variety of tools such as in-built analytics with the ability to segment visitors based on location and language, and different pop-ups that drive engagement and purchases."
Another factor that helped drive uptake of the platform was that, unlike several other software options, it combines several apps-worth of tools into just one offering. Starting a new e-commerce enterprise can be daunting and confusing, so the simplicity of a sole well-designed platform is appealing. This led to a rapid uptake of Nextsale's use, spurred by inclusion on other SaaS platforms like the WordPress Plugin Directory.
E-commerce is a very competitive scene that is not slowing down
To be noticed in the highly competitive e-commerce industry is tough and needs the support of user-friendly merchant software. Businesses that provide these solutions require highly experienced teams and operate equally competitively. Those that succeed are quickly acquired, as has already happened with Nextsale.
The principal team of Vusal Orujov, Taleh Karimli, and Orkhan Hajiyev have moved on and continue to work on projects helping online businesses. They are currently raising pre-seed money for their next project called Uvodo, a customizable e-commerce suite for small and medium brands.
As the e-commerce sector continues its unstoppable expansion, the opportunities and challenges will grow - and so too will innovative solutions to help businesses stand out.
