What is Product Development in E-Commerce?
Product development in e-commerce encompasses the entire process of generating new ideas, transforming them into products, and launching them for sale to outperform competitors. This process can be summarized as the generation of the idea and its transformation into a prototype, the R&D and production phases, gathering feedback, refining the prototype based on these feedback, and commencing mass production. While all of these processes are considered the heart of the matter, pricing and marketing strategies are also developed in parallel.
Why Is Product Development Important?
Every product developed and successfully launched represents a new market, a boost to a company's sales figures, and a new opportunity to stand out from its competitors. In this context, almost all established companies work tirelessly on product development to stay ahead of the competition, increase market share, reach new audiences, and become a solution-providing company. One of the best examples of this is Apple, a company almost everyone knows today. The company, which nearly went bankrupt in 1997, is now the first company with a market capitalization exceeding $1 trillion thanks to the new technologies it has introduced. Apple continues to hold the top spot in all sectors it competes in, thanks to its iMac, iPod, and iPhone products. This success is maintained through the development of new products in every product line.
Product Development Tips in E-Commerce
Pay Attention to Customer Feedback
If you want a product you've developed and launched to achieve long-term success, you must prioritize customer feedback. No matter how much testing you do on the production line, you may not be able to detect many of the same errors that end users see. Consumer feedback allows you to continue improving your products and implement a product development process aligned with the Six Sigma approach.
Also Follow Comments on Competitor Products
Also, monitor reviews of similar products to the one you've developed. These reviews will provide insights into why consumers chose the product, the process they went through after purchasing it, and a complete review of the product from the consumer's perspective. This will allow you to identify potential product development mistakes your competitors make early and easily eliminate them from your own product.
Create Your R&D Budget
Product development in e-commerce carries significant costs even before mass production begins. R&D is an indispensable tool for developing accurate and successful products, prior to every production run. It's a fact that every successful product is backed by successful R&D efforts. Therefore, we recommend allocating a significant budget for R&D.
R&D studies, which have been on the rise in our country in recent years, can reveal ideas that will reduce product costs in the fields of production and marketing, as well as studies such as preliminary preparation, planning, and feedback analysis for each product produced within your company.
Prototyping and User Testing
When developing a product in e-commerce, a functional prototype also allows you to analyze detailed product data. This allows you to obtain important data, such as calculating the product's production process and costs. You can also launch the product for user testing and gather feedback to identify errors and deficiencies before mass production.
Product development in e-commerce is a serious and important process. Even more crucial is the sales and marketing efforts of the developed product. We've repeatedly emphasized the need for a platform to sell your products and the features you should consider when choosing one. With the Comwize e-commerce solution, you can manage all the post-product development processes in e-commerce.
