How and why you Should Expand your Business?
Any retailer will tell you that there are three key aspects to running a brick and mortar business. You need merchandise, you need a place to sell said merchandise and you need people to buy it. Supply is abundant and so are people. The real trick is where you position your shop. It needs to be someplace where there’s people traffic. Accordingly, the more traffic there is at a location, the higher your rent will be. Cut and dried. Why, then, is this not enough?
It is predicted that, by the year 2021, e-commerce will be responsible for sales in the amount of 4.5 trillion dollars. If you are already involved in classic retail, here’s why you should add this extra component to your business. Limitations. There are limitations to a brick and mortar business. Hard work, dedication and good sales associates, although solid, will not be enough to keep you growing. The traffic of people walking by your shop will always be limited and out of your control.
Both brick and mortar and e-commerce have one important driving force in common: the rent. The type of rent, however, is different. With classic retail you pay for the physical location of your shop. With online retail, there is no physical location; the location is up in the clouds for as far as you’re concerned. How then would you control the flow of people? Besides paying for servers and maintenance, the rent you pay is in the form of marketing. Why is this better, then? Once again, it all boils down to limitations.
In the e-commerce world there are no limitations to the amount of people that take notice in what you have to offer; the ball is in your court. The more rent you pay, figuratively, the more traffic you get. Your shop is only a click away and you have plenty of platforms to help send out your message — that you exist.
When it comes to the how, the marketing strategy is the foundation to creating an online retail business. What you need next is your catalyst, the programmer. This is where the small, yet crucial, details for creating an online platform take place. The catalyst must take time to get to know the brand/s and merchandise so hands-on work can begin. Next, domains, designs, discussions are all extensive parts of the process. Once the platform is up and running, you need to fill it up — with merchandise, banners, prices, etc. Finally, it comes down to launching it, accompanied by analytics and your marketing techniques.
Expanding is the idea behind adding online retail to your already established brick and mortar business. The world of e-commerce is just as prone to growth as your business can be. Limitless.
Mari Vardanian is a fourth-year JMC and Literature student at the American University in Bulgaria. She loves writing in her free time and works in retail, which is a family business.
