Why do you need eCommerce?
eCommerce, increase your chances for success!
Playing online with e-commerce for small and medium-size business owners has become easy, especially with all the platforms available, such as Amazon, Shopify, WooCommerce, Wix eCommerce, BigCommerce, Magento, Squarespace, and many others.
This growing trend in E-commerce has pushed businesses into the virtual world, with emphasis on the online presence through social media for exposure and eCommerce platforms for sales.
Business owners just need available registered products, an online page on any of those platforms, and they would reach customers all over their market while sitting in the comfort of their homes.
On the other side, customers have been jumping from one eCommerce platform to the other to review their potential purchases all with a click of a button anywhere in the world, and all they need is a connected device to the internet and a purchase desire.
If you are a small or a medium retail owner, or even considering starting your own business, and you are still not present on any eCommerce platform, I can assure you, that you are losing clients, and more importantly, you are losing money!
7 reasons to incorporate eCommerce today!
Here is why you need to have eCommerce as your main source of revenue:
- Global Reach
Unlike your regular brick-and-mortar shop, your online store is not limited to the geographical area that you can service. Instead, the whole world is your playground, and everyone is your customer.
An online site can help you reach international shoppers. Social sites can reach new demographics. Marketplaces provide you with the widest audience and help you find niche markets.
The best part is that you can also use a mix of online touchpoints to engage multiple audiences at once.
2. Cost Savings
An eCommerce store is complete automation of the purchasing process, undertaking check-out, invoicing, and payment processing, reducing the need for additional staff.
The online eCommerce platforms have inventory management software that automates and manages your supply chain thus helping your small business to save on operational costs and time.
To have sales you need marketing, and that is what you can benefit from being on eCommerce. In fact, online eCommerce offers relatively low-cost engagement with existing customers and promoting the business to countless potential new customers.
The most basic version of eCommerce platforms offers SEO features along with advanced e-commerce analytics. In addition to these, it offers more marketing tools such as custom gift cards, discount coupons, store statistics, targeted email marketing, and many more.
Hence, you can save on the traditional advertising and marketing activities, eventually, who does not love free marketing!
3. Available 24/7
In a physical store, working hours limit your sales and exposure for potential customers, whereas your online store will be available 24/7, so your customers can shop from anywhere at any time, at their convenience.
4. Quicker Customer Purchase
Once you set up your eCommerce store, customers can click through intuitive navigation or use a search box to narrow down their product search immediately. And some websites remember customer preferences and shopping lists to facilitate their purchase.
5. Better Cashflow
Ecommerce platforms allow you to automate as many administrative tasks as possible, improving your cash flow. The process of eCommerce help generates a flow of short-term revenue as it is an automated cash flow mechanism.
6. Easier Product Marketing
Normally, when a customer goes into a store while browsing for different items, he sometimes needs that added product information to be convinced, so as a business owner, you need to have the staff ready and well equipped to answer any kind of questions.
However, on your virtual store, you can add all the possible information you have, product description, availability, return and refund policies, and delivery.
All this detailed information is at the fingertips of existing and potential customers, and you can provide easy access to in-depth information about every product you sell in your online store, which can be a great tool to help attract and retain customers.
Your eCommerce site can also provide more information about your business or how to use your products. you can add Webpages and do some email marketing to grow your brand’s story. Also, you can create blog posts and videos to provide helpful content about the use of your products or services.
7. Measurable
Through the Internet of Things, AI, and Big Data, you can track the changes in consumer behavior and attitudes and correlate consumer’s attitudes throughout their journey and adjust your marketing techniques.
The information generated through your online sales provides you an easy way to evaluate the effectiveness of any sales campaign, and to measure the success of marketing campaigns and any other customer engagement initiatives you have in place.
Analyzing this data helps you understand the spending patterns of customers to better meet their needs and to offer them suitable products every time they visit the online store.
Your Success in eCommerce
Going online now is crucial, if you are starting your new business or if you want your small business to survive, physical stores are dying and customers are loving the online experience, just with a click of a button, and their item is delivered to their doorstep.
Therefore, to succeed in the market, you just need to follow some simple steps and set up your online store and go from there. Always ensure fluidity throughout your eCommerce chain and have items of inventory stock ready to ship as soon as a customer places an order.
Ultimately, the biggest test for your business in eCommerce is the ability to deliver quality products, quickly and efficiently to anywhere your customers are, across the market.
Once you are online and ready to sell your products, your next step is to grow your market exposure, SEO, and marketing techniques, for that, I recommend reading my first article “6 Digital Marketing Tactics that are your Roadmap to Success”.
About this article
This article has been written by a student on the Grenoble Ecole de Management’s Advanced Masters in Digital Strategy Management. As part of a content creation assignment, students are given the task of writing articles based on their digital interests and disseminate the articles online. Articles are marked but we make minimal changes to the content. Thanks for reading! James Barisic, Programme Director, MS DSM.
