Why small businesses must set up an eCommerce presence
Before the existence of the Internet, shopping from brick and mortar stores was the norm. Things are different today. In this digital era, you can shop anytime as you wish because everything is available online.
Once the company set-up their stores online, you can always find them by utilizing the search engine. That’s how companies adapt to the ever-changing ways of doing business.
What is eCommerce?
eCommerce stands for Electronic Commerce that allows businesses to create and establish their presence online. With the online store available, companies can start to sell and even purchase goods and services virtually.
According to the study by Statista, there are about 1.8 billion digital buyers globally in the year 2018. By 2021, it is expected that the e-commerce market will reach 17.5% of retail stores worldwide
Isn’t that crazy? This study has shown us that businesses can utilize and optimize the e-commerce market to increase the company’s revenue.
If you’re not selling online, you are missing out.
The Advantages of Switching to eCommerce
If Amazon’s success story does not touch you, or you don’t aspire to be that successful, you still need to adapt to the new way of doing business.
Here are some advantages you will reap once you start selling online:
- Operate 24/7
Unlike brick and mortar stores, there is no opening and closing time. Your online store is always open and available. Buyers can still buy from you anytime they feel like it.
From the seller perspective, operating 24/7/365 helps to increase the number of orders from the customers. This eventually helps them to increase the company’s revenue.
2. Lower costs
One of the benefits of an eCommerce store is the lower cost of running a business. Businesses can operate any e-commerce store anywhere, even at their own house. Running the business online means your business can save on rent, utilities, and any expenses associated with physical stores.
Besides that, the business can cut the cost of the workforce as some of the business processes such as billing, payment, inventory management, and operational procedures are automated.
3. Utilize the marketing opportunity online
Online retailers rely heavily on traffic from the search engine. With your online presence, your customers can search for your stores online using the search engine. The higher you rank in the search engine, the higher chance your page will appear at the top of the page.
Businesses do not need to pay additional costs to advertise their products and services. With Search Engine Optimization (SEO), the search engine will help to drive traffic to your store online organically.
Besides that, there are other digital marketing tools you can optimize, such as email marketing, social media marketing, and even pay-per-click advertising.
How to setup my eCommerce business?
There are many tools available to do so quickly and easily. Here are some of my recommendations. The choice should be based on whether you want to set up a separate identity or be part of a larger ecosystem.
- Shopify — for your eCommerce setup
- Shopee — for a variety of options
- Lazada — for selling on an established marketplace in SE Asia
- Amazon — is Amazon…
- Flipkart- for selling on an established marketplace in India
- Desk Shop — for B2B selling
Irrespective of your choice, you would need to integrate your eCommerce set up with a business accounting application. With Deskera, you can do that easily with off the shelf integration for eCommerce platforms built into our products.
In Conclusion
If you were still thinking about setting up your online shop, don’t wait any longer! Go for it.
