Unfortunately, many companies are clueless as to how to create these sites effectively. Businesses and individuals continually make the same mistakes when establishing their ecommerce sites and it is important that people start learning from the mistakes of the past.

Eyal Lichtmann agrees with a recent article published by the Huffington Post that discussed the five most common mistakes individuals and businesses make when opening e-commerce stores. However, Lichtmann adds, an ecommerce platform must be comprehensive and composed of numerous modules that allow you to enhance the relationship with customers for effective retention and monetization of your user base.

The online ecommerce industry owes its enviable position to several ecommerce giants: Amazon, EBay, Groupon and others. As a form of ecommerce and broader digital/internet engagement, ecommerce also benefits from the proliferation of mobile broadband and browser-capable devices. This, coupled with an increasing overall rate of techno-literacy, continues to expand the potential customer base. Furthermore, the popularity of online sales - driven by ecommerce giants - is one of the principal reasons for - and beneficiaries of - increasing mainstream acceptance of ecommerce. These mega ecommerce giants have pioneered efforts to secure and simplify high volumes of online transactions. As a result, the online consumer culture demands exceptional value. Customers today are better informed and more discriminating than ever before, and the numerous ecommerce sites available to them provide a means of attaining levels of value immediately that are simply not accessible through conventional retail.

The essence of any ecommerce site is its intent for monetization. So every opportunity to generate revenue from your ecommerce site should provide multiple avenues for effective monetization. A sophisticated ecommerce platform should be designed to dovetail and supports in-person shopping. It is a marriage of the physical and virtual activities that enhance avenues for existing and new revenue-generation and builds on brand loyalty.

Customers should view your ecommerce platform as UNIQUELY YOURS - a fully branded and seamless extension of your physical presence ... a showcase for products and services, with added components of customer service that reflect the excellence they expect from your "bricks and mortar" operation. More than this, your ecommerce platform tells customers a company is at the top of the technological wave, determined to give customers an enjoyable and interactive experience.

An ecommerce platform must be flexible with the ability to attract unlimited new consumers while deepening the engagement with existing customers. You can learn more than you ever imagined about your customers' interests and habits through numerous engaging modules on your ecommerce site.

Eyal's company has his own terminology for this type of engagement called a 'QUILTM'. An ecommerce platform has the ability to generate qualified unique internet leads (QUILsTM) that demonstrate a consumer's determination to purchase a product through specific interactions with the site.

Specific user statistics garnered by a properly established ecommerce system aggregate data that let retailers present opportunities for post-purchase, repeat purchase, cross-selling, up-selling and next-sale incentives. QUILs are an invaluable tool of quantitative aggregated data based on user behaviours. An effective ecommerce platform with established modules has the opportunity to capture millions of instantaneously interested customers and immediately distributes pinpoint-targeted, automated and welcomed incentives to users. It allows retailers to deliver special promotions to the most desirable consumer imaginable: an informed shopper who has already demonstrated interest or intent to buy through their interaction with your ecommerce site. Amazon is a master at this through the re-targeting of abandoned shopping carts.

A simple ecommerce store front is passe. To generate effective QUILs , an ecommerce platform should integrate a number of important modules that enhance the user experience through personalized interactions. These include loyalty rewards, contests, automated communications, referral systems, customized personal accounts, effective point systems, corporate social responsibility and social@thecore activities (to simply mention a few).

The growth of ecommerce and the comfort of on-line consumerism make it feasible to amass cumulative data and behavioural attitudes and approaches in identifying predictable QUILs . And the effective establishment of an ecommerce platform entailing all of the best possible modules can expand the range of consumer engagement and ecommerce predictability.