By Amy Parker – What’s the purpose of an ecommerce website? An ecommerce website allows your business to sell products and services online without any third-party involvement. In fact, an ecommerce website can be an integral part of your business model, allowing you to reach out to more people and capture more sales than ever before.
By incorporating an ecommerce website into your business, you not only have the opportunity to sell your products and services to local customers and around the world, but you also have an affordable way to take payments directly from your customers at any time of day or night. In this article, we’ll look at 10 ways why having an ecommerce website is important for your business and what it can do for you.
1) Always Open for Business
Although most brick-and-mortar businesses close at some point during a given day, an ecommerce business operates 24/7. Always being open gives your customers more flexibility in purchasing and can result in more sales.
Make sure you’re always open for business with a site that’s maintained by professionals who are available to respond to any technical issues and updates immediately.
Providing personalized customer service, even when no one is physically there, also keeps online customers coming back time and again. Use technology to remain open for business as much as possible.
Read: How Digital Technology Can Benefit Your E-Commerce Business
2) Lower Startup Cost
Starting your own e-commerce business has a lot of advantages. Since you already know what your target audience wants and how to deliver it, you can save on most of your startup costs.
And, since there’s no physical store to run or staff to hire, you won’t have to fork out much cash at all. Also, since Internet businesses allow individuals to reach a wider pool of customers than ever before, starting up online often means you won’t need as much capital to get started.
No matter what type of product or service you offer online – from handmade jewelry pieces to custom computer accessories – customers are often more open-minded about purchasing from a website than they would be in a brick-and-mortar store.
Read: Unique Business Model Concepts for Your Startup
3) Easier to Manage than a Brick-and-Mortar Store
There’s a lot to keep track of when you run a brick-and-mortar store, including inventory, suppliers, employees and more. In addition to running your business, you also have to pay rent on that location and stock your shelves.
If you own an e-commerce business, you don’t have to worry about all those additional hassles. Instead of dealing with a physical storefront and employees who require hours of training, get back to what made your company successful in the first place—offering products or services people want at competitive prices.
Read: Marketing Strategies That Keep Floral Businesses on Top in The Industry
4) Control over what people see and buy
One of e-commerce’s biggest benefits is its flexibility. Unlike brick-and-mortar stores, online shops can easily switch up their inventory and display items differently to appeal to different types of shoppers.
If you sell niche items or hard-to-find products, you may want to buy a CMS (content management system) or ecommerce platform so that your site has more robust features than a vanilla WordPress installation.
Control over what people see and buy on your site will also boost customer trust in your brand since they’ll be more likely to believe that it’s what you really want them to see. Consider using dynamic content and A/B testing if you want even more customization options.
Read: 8 Important Factors to Keep in Mind While Choosing a CMS
5) Spend Less, Sell More
Selling online cuts out all of your overhead costs, and you can pass those savings along to your customers.
Instead of paying rent or other expensive leases, you’ll only have to pay for materials, shipping, and a single platform (for example, Shopify). So not only will you spend less, but you’ll also sell more.
Read: How to analyze the possibilities of hosting before buying it
6) Ability to Dominate Google Search Results
One of the biggest reasons to have an ecommerce website (or any kind of website) is to improve your business’s exposure. Having a website allows you to ensure your business appears near or at the top of Google search results.
Even if you already have a brick-and-mortar shop, having a well-designed and optimized ecommerce site can help bring in new customers who wouldn’t otherwise discover your products. SEO (search engine optimization) will also allow you to reach potential customers on Bing, Yahoo and other search engines.
In addition, many people use Google Shopping as one way to find new items to buy online; it’s important that your company be included in Google Shopping searches so that potential customers can easily find your products on Google.
Read: Small Business SEO Tips: A Checklist for Boosting Rankings
7) Higher Conversion Rates
Overall conversion rates (the rate at which people purchase your product) are higher with ecommerce sites. The process of looking at a product and then purchasing it online is much simpler than doing that in person.
In addition, shopping online allows users to compare prices and features from multiple sellers; they can more easily weigh whether a pair of pants should cost $75 or $95. Sites like Amazon, where shoppers can sort by price, review average, and other factors, help foster these comparisons.
As a result, people who shop on ecommerce sites tend to be less price sensitive than those who buy in person or over the phone (where they often rely on marketing materials or brand perception rather than direct price comparisons). The resulting purchases convert better.
8) Bigger Reach with Social Media Marketing
A retail store can only reach customers in its area, but an e-commerce site can reach people all over the world. With social media marketing and SEO, you can spread your business across borders and increase your sales even if you don’t have a physical presence near potential customers.
Building an e-commerce website means generating profits from beyond your immediate location—that’s power. Plus, social media puts you directly in touch with customers and allows them to become brand ambassadors who will carry your message forward long after they buy something from you.
Read: 7 Must Have Social Media Tools In 2022
9) Easier Engagement with Email Marketing Tools
The more directly you can communicate with your customers, and the easier it is to do so, then the more likely they are to respond. Email marketing tools make it easy to broadcast offers, promotions and other content that your customers will be interested in.
You might not know exactly who will see each email, but their stats show a marked difference between campaigns that have highly personalized emails versus ones that don’t.
Plus, these tools allow you to build up lists of email addresses of your current customers as well as potential customers and organize them into different categories based on their interests so you can engage with them on a deeper level later.
Read: The Benefits of Email Marketing
10) Instant Customer Support
One of the biggest benefits to having your own ecommerce site versus using a store on another platform is that you’ll have access to instant customer support.
With platforms like eBay and Etsy, help usually only comes in response to a negative review. If customers aren’t happy, they’ll let you know right away – even if it’s years later.
This can be incredibly helpful if you make changes to your product line or develop new processes that make things easier for customers.
Read: 5 Ways Conversational AI Can Improve Your Customer Experience
Conclusion
In conclusion, if you haven’t started your ecommerce website yet or are just thinking about it and planning on when to do it, then I have 10 reasons why you should start today. The web has been around long enough now that it’s hard to imagine life without it.
Read: How to develop a Multi-Vendor eCommerce Website with WordPress
It has made our lives much easier in so many ways and what used to be a luxury only available to big companies has become something accessible by anyone with a computer and internet connection. Use these tips to get yourself off on the right foot and avoid making costly mistakes that can hurt your business in years to come.
Instead of spending a lot of money on building and setting up your ecommerce store, it’s better to hire ecommerce developers in India and get a better site that actually helps boost your sales. Hiring India developers will help you get website design, development and maintenance at affordable prices.
Amy Parker
Hey, I am a technology consultant at AppsDevPro, a leading Mobile & Web development company that offers offshore mobile, web, frontend, full-stack developers. I have 18+ years of experience in writing and always looking for new ways to improve skills and learn from others.
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