The post-pandemic world is a different one. Implementing Darwin’s “Survival of the Fittest” theory, people and their businesses have undergone radical changes to better adapt to the new ways. Businesses have shifted to the internet and every business is now operating fully or partially online. While this brings several benefits for both sellers and consumers, every novelty brings along its own challenges and risks. In the current scenario, there is a third entity involved: the auditors. While businesses strive to grow and expand virtually, the need for auditing for online businesses has risen at the same time. Not only do the businesses need to take auditors on board, but the auditors also need to equip better to cater to changing clients’ needs. This article looks into the challenges and successful strategies to aid online businesses on their path of progress.
Challenges for Auditors
Auditors are typically known to carry a briefcase loaded with files and legal documents, charts and pie diagrams and whatnot. Let us say they still need all these, minus the physical briefcase. Performing audits for online businesses means auditors now need extensive knowledge of information technology and detailed insight into what boosts a business’s online presence. Auditors now need skills in auditing practices and e-commerce. Failure to cope with this may result in losses for both the business and the auditor or their firm.
Not only from an auditor’s perspective but the shift of business operations online also poses internet-related challenges too. Auditors may face situations such as data hacks, loss of information, confusion in settling accounts due to frauds or fake orders, and more.
Aspects of Auditing for Online Businesses
Auditing an online business is different from a company audit. In an online business, auditors need to look into entirely different areas to maximize the efficiency of the business.
SEO
Search Engine Optimization, or SEO, has emerged as a new arena in the world of e-commerce during the pandemic. In simple words, SEO is a practice that allows a web page or store to appear more on a search engine. While one way of doing this is paid ads, this is not an effective or permanent solution. Auditors while looking into the performance of an online business look into the efficiency of a web store by getting insight into its SEO.
Product handling is a key aspect of SEO. Auditors must look into how the products pages are handled and managed. Handling expired or out-of-stock products, managing and organizing new products, image quality and more are looked at. For instance, auditors must pay attention to how the products in a web store are organized. An easy to navigate layout usually attracts more customers. New products and their high-quality images get attention. Internal linkages, links to related products and strong content make a web store strong from an SEO viewpoint. In addition to these, technical aspects such as page speed matter a lot. Slow or lagging pages or links with 404 errors divert potential customers away.
Website Performance
In today’s world, speed matters: literally and figuratively. In terms of e-commerce, this is literal. People are easily put off by a slow website. Since cyberspace offers countless other options, it is easy for individuals to divert instantly to another page if a certain page is slow to respond. To prevent this, website performance is crucial.
In this respect, auditors look into things from layout to performance of websites. First, web pages should be optimized for mobile view as well as desktop or PC view. Usually, web pages invest more energy in making sure their website performs better in a mobile view since the majority of individuals use their mobile devices to browse the internet. While this is partially true, web layouts in desktop view must not be ignored.
Secondly, web content should be observed. Auditors should look for any grammatical mistakes in content and check whether the content is up to date or not.
Conversion Rate Optimization
Conversion Rate Optimization or CRO is the process of increasing the percentage of customers to perform the desired action. For a web store selling products, every time a customer buys a product, it is termed a conversion.
In many cases, cart abandonment occurs in which case a customer adds a product to their carts but do not check out. Conversion Rate Optimization works in order to ensure every potential customer ends up in a conversion. CRO is calculated by dividing a completed goal by the number of times the user visited the site (called a session).
Auditors can be of great help in this respect. However, they need to be equipped with the necessary tools to provide analytics into users and sessions. Auditors should be able to perform successful analysis into a number of cart abandonments which can be reduced by offers, coupons, discounts, referral codes and more. Converted buyers can be attracted by offers and subscriptions.
Platform Analysis
Platform analysis encompasses the overall performance, benefit to buyer, seller and business owner associated with an e-commerce store. During the audit of an online business, auditors look into the optimization of the store, analyze whether the stakeholders earn any benefit from the store and inspect any loopholes.
A platform analysis consists of portions of all other inspection elements discussed previously. However, in a platform analysis, there are three main stakeholders: a buyer, a seller and the owner. During a platform analysis, auditors must look for price regulations, overall user experience, layout in both mobile and desktop versions, and SEOs.
Conclusion
The changing times have brought along new horizons of opportunities and associated challenges. The best practice is to keep in sync with these changes. With the right tools and knowledge, auditors can perform successful audits of online businesses too.
BS Auditing makes sure to stay in line with changing trends of the market to better guide their clients in their accounting and auditing queries. Feel free to book your consultation today:
• Office # 0641, Tamani Arts Offices, Business Bay, P.O. Box 111390, Dubai, UAE
• +971 4 570 7357
• +971 58 108 5690
• info@bsauditing.com
