Are You Taking Advantage of E-commerce?
In the United States, there are around 3.8 million e-commerce websites. Many consumers have grown accustomed to buying products online, so you may want to venture into e-commerce with your business.
Whether you already have a brick-and-mortar retail store or you’re starting a business from the ground up, there are some major advantages to selling online. E-commerce sites have low overhead and a wide reach so you might want to consider getting your e-commerce shop set up sooner rather than later.
Keep reading if you want to learn more about the advantages of using e-commerce in your business.
Improve the In-Store Experience
One of the best reasons to make use of e-commerce as a small business is that it can help to improve the in-store experience for customers.
Online sales can be a great complement to in-store sales and can allow you to offer new services. With an e-commerce website, for example, you can sell products online and then allow a customer to pick up a product in-person.
You can also allow a customer to easily look through your catalog of products. They can do this in the comfort of their own home before deciding to come in and make a purchase. This can add more convenience to their lives and can make shopping from your business an easier and more streamlined experience.
Add More Convenience
An e-commerce site can allow customers to browse your product selection from home. You can also choose to let them complete the entire shopping process from home as well. This can make shopping even easier for them and can allow them to save themselves a trip to your retail location.
From browsing for products to purchasing them and having them delivered, e-commerce can enable your customers to get products from start to finish using only the web. As long as you have a great web design that’s easy to use and understand, e-commerce can be much more convenient for your customers.
Personalize the Customer Experience
One of the great advantages of running an e-commerce shop for your business is that you’ll be able to provide a more personalized experience. 49% of customers claim that they have made an impulse buy after a personalized experience with a brand.
There are many ways that you can personalize the customer experience when a customer is shopping online. This means that it can be easier for customers to find what they’re looking for.
You can give product recommendations and suggestions based on a customer’s purchasing history. This can help them find new items they didn’t even know they wanted.
In addition to this, you can collect customer emails and contact information easily when running an online store. With this information, you can send customers special offers. You can send recommendations of products that would be perfect for them straight to their inboxes.
Make Sales Outside of Business Hours
An e-commerce shop can also help your business make sales even when your retail location isn’t open. This can improve your business in a pretty big way.
Unlike a retail store, you can keep an e-commerce store open at all times so customers can make purchases, even in the dead of night. Not only will this be convenient for them, but it will also be convenient for your business and can allow it to make more sales overall.
Waking up in the morning to discover that you made a lot of sales overnight can be a great feeling.
Save Money
When you open an e-commerce store, you’ll also save on business costs as well. Running an e-commerce store can be cheaper than operating in a physical location.
Depending on how much of your business you’ve decided to move online, you could end up saving quite a bit of money. You’ll reduce the need to hire staff, pay for rental space, and more. If you choose to keep your business entirely online instead of selling products in person as well, then costs will be even lower.
Brick-and-mortar businesses can pay a lot of money in rent and overhead. Making the decision to sell online can be a better choice in many ways. There will be almost no overhead at all except for the cost of the products you’re selling.
Expand Your Reach
If you’ve been doing well in your local market, then it may make sense to expand to new ones. While you can choose to open a second retail location elsewhere, another expansion option is to start selling online.
When you sell your products online, you’ll be able to reach many more people from all over the world. You can immediately tap into a brand-new market, so you can get your products to the people who want them and need them the most.
By moving your business online, you can expand your reach by quite a bit. This can end up being very profitable and your online sales can become a great supplement to your local sales.
Recognize Customer Trends
Although you can collect some customer data when selling at a brick-and-mortar store, you can collect even more when selling online. Your customers will already be online buying from you. This means that they’ll be more likely to give you their email addresses and other contact information as well.
When selling online, you can also track your customers’ behavior across your site. You can track their behavior and understand more about the relationship you have with each customer.
This ability to make the most of data analytics and research can be very helpful for making your business more profitable. It can also help you improve your relationship with each customer you sell products to.
Upsell Products
A major benefit of using e-commerce in your business is that it gives you a better way to sell digital products to your customers while also encouraging impulse purchases and upsells.
With e-commerce, you can upsell products in an automated and streamlined way and you won’t even need to train a sales team to do it. You can easily suggest products to customers during the checkout process or while they’re browsing your shop online.
Whether you’re offering personalized recommendations or complementary products to products that are already in their cart, you can end up getting a lot of extra sales by opening an e-commerce store.
Retarget Your Customers
When marketing products and services online, you can also track your customers more easily. You can also advertise to them after their first contact with your business.
For example, when a customer visits your website, views a product, or places it in their cart, you can retarget them if they fail to make a purchase. You can send targeted ads toward that person to try to convince them to buy a product if they didn’t follow through the first time around.
By marketing your business to the people who already showed some interest in your products, you’ll end up making a lot more sales. 96% of website visitors won’t buy something on an initial visit but may do so later on.
Compared to selling at a retail location, you’ll lose fewer customers forever. At a retail brick-and-mortar store, your relationship might be over for good once a customer leaves your store. Fortunately, this isn’t the case online.
Scale Your Business More Easily
By selling products to customers online, you’ll also be able to easily grow and scale your business as time goes on. It can become much easier to sell more products as demand increases and you won’t have to jump through a lot of hoops to do so.
Many digital marketing tactics and aspects of an e-commerce website can be adjusted easily to increase the volume of orders that you process. You can easily add more products to an e-commerce store without needing to make major changes to your business.
When operating a brick-and-mortar business, on the other hand, you’ll need to hire new employees and get more retail space. You’ll also need to handle many other important things before you’re able to expand.
Understanding the Advantages of E-Commerce Businesses
So are you ready to start taking advantage of e-commerce for your business?
Even if you already have a brick-and-mortar location for your business, it can be well worth venturing into online sales as well. Making the move to e-commerce can allow you to expand your reach considerably while also making things more convenient for your business and your customers.
Need help designing and marketing your e-commerce website? Get in touch now to find out how 46Mile can help.
