7 reasons to open an online store right now

Businesses are increasingly moving online. Amazon is already closing its offline stores.

“ The decision to exit so much of its brick-and-mortar business follows a couple of years that have made in-person retail more challenging for everyone, as the COVID pandemic sent more consumers online as foot traffic to local stores declined.”

Pandemic is not the only reason for businesses to go online. Let’s figure out why opening an e-store right now is a good idea.

1. Easy to start

If you already have a retail store, business processes can be set up quickly and without additional investment. You don’t need to think through super branding, marketing ideas, etc. You just decide what you’re going to sell, run ads, and sell.

2. Cost-effectiveness

There is no need to rent large retail space, to hire a large number of sales staff. All you will need to invest in at the beginning is the site itself and the purchase of items to sell.

If you already have an offline business, you already have warehouses, suppliers, retail space, employees, so you do not need to start from scratch.

3. 24/7 customer availability

Brick-and-mortar stores are only open during the day. The online store is open 24 hours a day, even when you’re asleep. Order taking process is automated, which means your online store never closes and sales are made 24 hours a day, 7 days a week.

4. Globalness

Small businesses can’t enter the global marketplace with just a regular offline store. There is only one way out — an online store.

The convenience of online shopping is incomparable. Instead of going to a regular store in search of the right product, people buy in the e-store at a time when it is convenient for them, whether they are at home, at work, or 1000km away from home.

Online shopping gives you the ability to sell products and services worldwide, regardless of location or time zone.

5. Profitability

Online shopping is becoming more and more popular, and it has already surpassed offline shopping in sales. In the same way, the profits of online businesses are also growing.

The online store has higher profitability because you will need less manpower to run the store. Also, it is cheaper and easier to sell your goods and services online because of the elimination of the costs of renting the store, security, utility bills, and salaries to a large number of employees.

All this allows you to sell products at competitive prices, increasing all the same profitability.

6. Easy access to markets

The advantage of the online business is that promoting an e-store is much cheaper than offline. The correct use of promotion channels can increase the profit of your business many times over. Optimizing your online store for search engines will bring your store to the first lines of search and attract a large number of new customers.

Among the means of promotion, you can use targeting, social networks, mailing lists. Thus, the number of customers in the online business largely depends on you and your efforts to attract them.

7. Expanding the assortment

The online shop allows you to sell a wider assortment of products. That’s because you can sell items you don’t have in stock. You can order from suppliers on demand, knowing that the goods will be sold quickly. This in turn will help you increase turnover and profits.

Let’s analyze the pros and cons of the online store to finally understand the importance of opening one:

Pros

• The sphere of online shopping is still in a stage of active development and it will continue for many years, which allows you to start your business in this sphere timely.
• Low costs in comparison with brick-and-mortar stores. Business development will not require large investments and will be possible even with a small budget.
• Convenience for customers, because they can place orders at any time and from anywhere in the world.
• A flexible payment system that allows customers to choose one of the many available payment options, which is not available in the offline store.

Cons

• Lack of opportunity to physically see the product. This is solved by information coverage of the items. It should be as meaningful and understandable for customers as possible. But this is not the only way out. AI and AR technologies already allow customers to try on products before purchasing them.
• The need to build a reliable brand of the store to increase the confidence of customers.
• High competitiveness. This will require you to be attentive to the market, as you will need to consider the prices of competitors when forming your own, as the customer will be looking for the most favorable offer.
• Risks associated with time and material losses on delivery, in case of high return rates.

Based on the pros and cons, opening an online store looks like the right decision in the current environment. The number of online orders is only growing, which represents the opportunities that e-commerce offers. And it’s totally up to you whether you want to take advantage of them or not.

See you in the next article!