📜 ⬆️ ⬇️

Store design: multi-brand, personalization, microformats, integration with 1C and marketplaces

The last part of the article about the design of large online stores, at least their external part. In this part you will learn about the connection with Off-Line trading, multicurrency, multilingual, multi-brand, articles, news, polls and research, behavioral system (personalization), partner programs, adaptive layout and applications, microformats, Social CRM, analytical systems, integration with 1C, integration with external databases, integration with trading platforms, parsers, data export and much more. Next will be a series of articles about the design of the interior of the stores, which includes accounting, logistics, CRM, workflow and much more.

Past articles of the series can be found here:


“Designing a store. Research "
“Designing a store. Online Store Modules »
“Designing a store. Card product and not only "
“Designing a store. Substitutes, complements, comparisons and other tools to increase conversion "
“Designing a store. Personal account, shopping cart, delivery-payment, mailing and more »

Connection with off-line trading


Often, an online store acts as an On-Line showcase for off-line stores. In this case, it is advantageous to combine these two parts and get a synergy effect. For this you can use a number of functions.

For a start, you should definitely make a choice of the city of the buyer, so that the entire store can adapt to it. We can build telephones for communication, addresses of the nearest stores, accept user requests by local managers and many other equally useful features.
')
In the product card and in contacts, we can show a map (based on a popular service such as Yandex.Maps or Google Maps) with the nearest stores, so that the buyer has the opportunity to come and look at the goods with his own eyes. Many still have a great distrust of shopping on the Internet, so this move will increase sales: on the Internet, the person chose, and in the off-line store made the final decision and paid.

When addressing questions, a person can be directed to local managers. However, there are also difficulties; going to such a step you need to be sure that local managers work well and will always respond to the buyer. In the regions, service usually does not differ in quality. However, it is not difficult to make control mechanisms for this, introduce standards, etc.

In the item card, in the availability column, you can make the function of viewing the availability in a particular store. To do this, you need to synchronize all balances in all warehouses and stores in one place. You will also need the function of ordering goods to a specific store convenient for the buyer.

Fig. 1. Communication with off-line trading.

image

Multicurrency


In some countries, including Russia and Ukraine, it is prohibited by law to indicate prices in foreign currencies. On the other hand, it may be necessary for buyers, especially if an online store sells its products in several countries. In this case, either specify prices in international currency (for example, US dollars), or for each country to make a copy of the site with a separate domain or even brand, but still work with one base, where prices will be tied to the main currency. In copies of stores you can do the conversion of prices at a predetermined rate. Alternatively, you can specify two currencies at once: local and dollars.

Often the current rate is shown in the header of the site. It can also be shown in a tooltip when hovering over the price in dollars.

Fig. 2. Multicurrency.

image

Multilingual


Some countries historically speak 2 or more languages. In a good online store should try to meet their customers and literally speak with them in their language. Moreover, for some nationalist-minded citizens this question may be a matter of principle. Of course, not to please everyone, but if in the country, at least 20% of the population speak some language, it is worth thinking about creating a language version. And in international projects, this function is indispensable.

In addition to user friendliness, there is also an SEO benefit. The person will most likely search for information in his native language and find those sites that have the appropriate language versions. The interface to switch languages ​​is usually located in the header or basement, in the form of a drop-down list.

Very clearly the language problem is expressed, for example, in Ukraine. Millions of people speak Russian and Ukrainian. In the west, people mostly do online shopping exclusively in Ukrainian, losing two dozen million Russian-speaking, and in the east and in the center mostly in Russian, losing no less than the audience. If you look at the statistics of key requests, then in both languages ​​you can find a very large number of commercial requests. Thus, the loss of a large online store due to the lack of a language version in this country can even reach tens of millions of dollars a year, if not more.

However, besides the obvious advantages, there are also obvious disadvantages. First of all, these are significant additional costs for content creation, as well as the low cost of technical implementation and further promotion of each of the language versions.

This function is not needed by small or medium online stores, but large can be useful, you need to calculate the economic effect for each case separately. However, there are international online stores, which are represented in dozens of different countries. They can be implemented with one administrative part (with access rights distinctions), but with different languages ​​and domains. Here, of course, one cannot do without this important function.

Fig. 3. Multilingual.

image

Multibrand


For marketing purposes, sometimes one company makes several brands at once with different sites that can operate in different price niches, but sell the same product. In appearance, the sites are different, the domains are different, the prices are different, and the goods are the same. For this, the multi-brand function was invented, when several online stores are launched on one platform. Such an artificial competition. I know some topics in which the top 5-6 stores from the top 10 belong to the same company.

This function is needed by few and it is quite expensive, but it is quite possible to implement it. But do not forget that the more brands, the greater the cost of promotion.

Articles


Articles and reviews are an important tool for promotion and sales. In the interface, the link to this section is located in the auxiliary menu, which is usually a little less highlighted than the menu of the catalog or in the basement of the site. Large stores often do not tolerate it in the menu at all, the user already sees the articles in the item card itself. This is done to focus the user's attention on the products themselves and not distract with other information.

Articles can be very useful for promotion in search engines. Firstly, search engines are very fond of unique texts, secondly, people will link to them on other sites, thirdly, users themselves are often looking for reviews of individual products, comparing analogues of different manufacturers, technical characteristics or certain functions that they are needed in a certain kind of goods etc. This tool can give very decent search traffic to the site.

The section itself contains a list of articles and publication dates. You can also make a rubricator for the convenience of the user. But this page will be visited only if somewhere in the menu there is a link to it, in other cases, except for search robots, no one will see it.

The article page should have a title, text, a block with goods that are described in the article (right in the text of the article and under it, the type of goods is the same as in the catalog), tags, a block with the sharing of the article on social networks, you can show in the left column product catalogs, the topic of which is covered in the article, in the right column is the top sales list. Separately, you can make a link to the author in Google+. In general, the task of the store is to pick up the user from the search engine and motivate him to buy the product he was looking for, ideally right from the article page.

On the product page, articles and reviews should be displayed in a separate tab.

By the way, you can give the opportunity to write articles and reviews by users. Naturally, with moderation and certain rules. As practice shows, about 1% of the total number of users are theoretically ready to write articles, so why not give them the opportunity !?

news


This feature is similar to articles, but has a slightly different purpose. News is used to inform users about new events, in particular about various promotions, discounts, sales.

The section itself is made to the auxiliary menu also only in small and medium-sized online stores. Since here we are providing important information for sales, it will be logical to place a small block on the main page with the three latest news. You can make this block only with news headlines, even without a description and a link to the "All News" section. Still, sometimes this block is combined into a single block “News and Articles”, due to the technical similarity of the function.

Links to individual news will necessarily be in the e-shop newsletters.

Surveys and studies


Previously, this was a mandatory feature in any online store, now it is used only for one-time targeted research. For example, if marketers need to find out the preferences of users in a particular product category, they can run an unobtrusive survey in it or even ask them to fill out an entire questionnaire. In the interface it will be a small block in the free space. You can make a pop-up window, but users are negative about this, this technique can reduce sales.

The function itself is the most common: a question or a few questions, a choice of one of the suggested options, or the ability to enter your answer and the “Vote” or “Answer” button. All polls are limited in time, can also be limited by the number of impressions for a single user. All answers are stored and systematized in the internal part of the store for further analysis, you can also integrate the function with the analytical module.

Fig. 4. Surveys and studies.

image

Behavioral system (personalization)


In the past 5 years, many large Internet companies have begun to develop behavioral technologies (personalization), when site content depends on user actions that have been collected and accumulated over the years. For an online store, this system can significantly increase sales, average bill, number of pages viewed and other important KPIs. For example, if a regular customer makes purchases only in the category of electronics and periodically examines it, while not paying attention to other product groups, then perhaps he should show ads, recommended products and articles, primarily from the category of electronics. In other words, the site can be fully customized and personalized for a specific person.

But how to determine what exactly a person needs and at the same time not to be mistaken? To do complex behavioral technology, like those that Google or Yandex develops, most stores cannot, except that only a few very large online stores with a turnover of hundreds of millions and billions of dollars that are willing to invest in millions of dollars in such a system. For everyone else, I would suggest making a behavioral system in a simpler version, based on weighted indicators, or using third-party personalization services.

For such a system, you need to select all the actions of users who can tell us about their preferences. There must be at least 3x of different types and character. After assigning to each of these actions a coefficient, a certain figure, the value of which will depend on the importance of the action. For example, the purchase of any product in the field of electronics will cost 1 point, and a comment on the product in the field of sports - 0.2 point. After showing users the most relevant products, when a certain threshold of activity accumulates for a certain person, for example, 5 points, so that we are sure that we are not mistaken. In my example, out of 12 products on offer, 10 will be shown from the category of electronics and 2 from the sports category. The example itself is rather crude, but I think the meaning is clear.

Also, for personalization can use third-party special services. For example, for Russian-language stores, these may be: http://retailrocket.ru/ , http://crossss.ru/ , http://softcube.com/ and a number of others. In fact, this is a database with statistics and analytics of consumer behavior, which have long been collected from different stores and to which you can connect any new store. Connecting the store to such databases can increase the conversion significantly.

Fig. 4. Personalization.

image

affiliate program


Having products and a streamlined business model, it's time to connect to sales partners. There are hundreds of thousands of sites and millions of people who are willing to sell someone's goods for a percentage. Almost all major online stores have affiliate programs.

Types of affiliate programs can be different, I will consider the three most interesting ones and they are also very popular. The first type is for websites or individuals who are willing to sell an online store product for a percentage. For this, the store makes a special section with the registration of partners, after partners can get a unique link and promotional materials, which are then placed somewhere, all this needs to be automated to the maximum. The partner receives a percentage of all customers who come through affiliate links. The second type of program is to allow partners to trade their goods through the website of an online store, the store will receive a percentage of sales. That immediately raises questions about the quality of goods and services, because the brand is one for many sellers. The third type is the opportunity to take the functionality and products of an online store, sell them under your brand, sharing the proceeds from sales among themselves.

All types of affiliate programs are very profitable online stores. Especially for large, to which there is considerable credibility.

Adaptive layout and applications (iOS, Android, Windows Phone)


In the century of a huge variety of platforms used by customers, we inevitably come to the adaptability of sites, as an absolute necessity. Any online store should be correctly and conveniently displayed on a laptop, on a tablet and on a mobile phone. To achieve this effect, you can make an adaptive website design that will adapt to the user's platform or a separate mobile version, which will be with a different interface. The option with an adaptive design, I think, is more correct, for this you need to properly design and design the site.

Today, more and more users make purchases from mobile devices. In different subjects the percentage will be different, but in some online stores it can reach 15-20%, and this is already very much. For this phenomenon, even came up with a special term - mobile commerce. For sales, this is a mandatory item.

In addition to adaptive layout, you can still make applications for iOS, Android and Windows Phone. Just copying the standard features of the online store will not be enough, applications must carry additional value to customers. For example, you can scan barcodes in Off-Line stores so that the buyer can immediately get detailed information about a product from a mobile phone: characteristics, reviews, cost comparison, etc.

Fig. 5. Store application.

image

Microformats


In the past few years, many sites have begun to use microformats. This is due to the increasing structuring of the Internet and search results in popular search engines. Today in the issue we see not just links, but different data and formats. There are even specialized search engines, for example, a search on Google Shopping products. For proper indexing by search engines you need to use common microformats. In particular, for the Internet shops there are markup rules for products, besides, many common microformats are also applicable. For more information on what they are and how to apply them, you can find out by the link: http://microformats.org/wiki/Main_Page

The entire layout of the online store should be done taking into account these microformats. So the site will be much better indexed and it will get more traffic.

Fig. 6. Microformats.

image

SEO module


For proper indexing and promotion in search engines, any online store needs to work SEO. To do this, you need to make a special module with settings and some simple tricks.

For Google and Yandex, unique content is important, in particular texts. Therefore, on each page you need to provide a text field, the so-called seo-block, in which you can add unique seo-texts. , , . , .

, , 8 . , , , .

, Title, Description, Keywords .


SEO, URL-. (, site.com/catalog/brand/tovary/tovar.html), (, site.com/catalog/apple/ipad.html), . .

Social CRM


. , . , . , , . CRM, Social CRM.

CRM , , , .. . , . , , , , , email'. . , , – . , .

Social CRM , . : -, , ! , .

Help


- . , , , , .

, -. - . , , . , .

. , . , .

. . -.

Analytical system


. . : . , . , , - – . Google Analytics ., (, Ecommerce Tracking Google - ) , , . , Google Analytics . API, . , , , .

Google Analytics , BigQuery , .

Fig. 7. .

image

1


, - . - , - - . , , , , , , ..

– 1. , : 8., , -, 7.7 – , .

. 1 . , , . XML , 1 , . , SQL , .

XML, , , 1, .

, . : , ( , ), , , , .. , , 1 , .

, «» 1. .

1 - - .

1, . - .

Fig. 8. 1.

image


- . – - , TecDoc, . , , .

, . : 1. . 2. . 3. , (API), .

, , .

– SQL ( -), , . , .

, : , . 1.


-, – . , , , . . : ., Price.ru (Price.ua), Hotline, Onliner.by .. , , .

, . XML , , 1. , , , , .

Fig. 9. .

image

()


– , . - . (), .

: -, , , -, , SEO , -, , - , , .

-, , .



. , , .

– 404, , . , 301 , URL. , , , , , - , .

, . .

, , .

, .

Fig. 10. .

image

xml, csv



. , , , , , . .

E-commerce . . , , , -.

PS , ? , : , - -.

PPS To receive our new articles before others or simply not to miss new publications - subscribe to the SECL Group's fan pages: Facebook , VK , and Twitter .

Original article: http://seclgroup.ru/article_proyektirovaniye_serjoznogo_magazin_multibrendovost_personalizatsiya_mikroformaty.html

Author:
Nikita Semenov
The president
SECL Group Company

Source: https://habr.com/ru/post/253539/


All Articles