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What Black Friday huge sales has proven to us is that, ecommerce website is necessary for retailers and businesses to stay competitive. The weekend shopping frenzy which accompanies Thanksgiving has now become an annual retail norm around the world. If you are not online, you are going to be left behind. You simple cannot afford not to!
Consumers are now well-used to the discounting madness which it brings to online and bricks-and-mortar shopping. It is the springboard to the Christmas trading period and retailers around the world have jumped on the bandwagon.
Today I would like to present arguments as to why an ecommerce website is indispensable for retailers and businesses to have. In fact, the question is not whether to have one, but is there reason not to have one?
5 Reasons an eCommerce Website is Necessary For Retailers and Businesses to Stay Relevant:
#1. Reach new prospective customers through search engines.
When you sell a product or service through a national or global platform of an ecommerce website, then you tend to reach out to a much wider audience as compared to traditional commerce methods. This gives you a broader audience and hence possibility of better overall sales.
Whereas, location used to be the determining factor for retail and business sales, that is not the case anymore. Having an eCommerce website levels the playing field between prime locations and less trafficked areas. Instead of your physical address determining your business’s location, your ability to rank in searches engines determines how visible you are. Potential customers who haven’t driven past your stores or heard about your from someone else, have the ability to find you online.
Everyday someone is searching for something relevant to your stores products and eCommerce website gives you the ability to get found by and sell your products to them directly through the web.
Additional resource:
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#2. An online store allows prospective customers to shop where, how, and when they want.
Ability to be open 24/7-with an ecommerce website, you will give your audiences to purchase from you not just during regular store hours but throughout the day. Whether it is Sunday or a national holiday, your estore is always open. This too helps you to make more sales, hence boosting sales.
In today’s economy, more and more people like to shop online to avoid traveling time and traffic while enjoying the comfort of their own home. Shopping online also gives them the ability to shop when they want; including times that your store is closed. Remember, your eCommerce store is ALWAYS open. Regardless of an individual’s reasons, more and more people are turning online to get shopping done.
Others prefer to drive to the physical store so they can touch and examine the products. Even if they found your store online and researched your products in more detail, they may decide to make the commute to the store in order to make the purchase.
Additional resource:
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#3. Increase promotional visibility and customer re-engagement for better conversion rates
Every store has certain promotions and are always looking for ways to spread the word about their newest deals. Your eCommerce store is another avenue to market your special promotions. Visitors to either one of your stores (online and offline) should be exposed to these promotions so they can take advantage of them. Promotions help the business grow short- term with increased sales and long-term since promotions typically include a sign-up step – giving you the ability to re-engage these people later which drives better conversion rate.
No matter how popular your brand is, if conversion rate is low, then profits will be low. Having an ecommerce platform helps you to increase your conversion rate since people get a chance to immediately buy from you rather than wait to visit the store.
Additional resource:
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#4. Ecommerce platforms are now easier and cost less to setup than it was a decade ago.
To set up and run an ecommerce platform is definitely much easier than an actual physical store. But today more than ever, setting up an ecommerce store can be done with less and less programming and money.
Take for example prestashop or thirtybees ecommerce platfrom, a light-weight ecommerce system that really works. You can run this excellent system for FREE and within 5 minutes!
There are many other good website development and management platforms which can easily do this task for you at reasonable rates. Having an ecommerce website is not just easier but also a lot cheaper. Addons and module developers are aplenty to find – reducing your development cost even further.
Additional resource:
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#5. Having an ecommerce website allows you to build a customer email list and market to them directly
We know it’s tough to collect email addresses and other useful information during checkout in your store. Shoppers at the finish line of making a purchase will normally decide not to extend the process by providing info for the clerk to plug-in regardless of the offer. Gathering information online is much more effective as website visitors can do this on their own time.
Email marketing gives you the ability to increase new and repeat business by strategically and continuously re-engaging prospective customers. This opportunity doesn’t exist for businesses strictly running a physical storefront. You’ll also need to develop ways to capture email addresses with various offers your website can provide.
Getting repeat buyers is much more difficult on a marketplace, because you don’t have direct access to your customers. This gives you fewer opportunities to provide good customer service and promote your other products. Since it’s easier and cheaper to retain a customer than it is to get a new one, communicating with existing customers is a necessary part of generating revenue for your business. This is where email marketing comes really handy.
Additional resource:
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In conclusion
Having an ecommerce website is necessary today. It gives you a certain competitive edge over those who may still not have gone online. Customers these days are looking for the easiest and cheapest way to make their purchasing and thus search online for their desired products and services. In such a case, the presence of an online store not only helps you to retain existing customers but also attract new ones. And it allows you to collect email data and build your email list. If you are someone who wants to get a good ecommerce website developed and managed for your business, then you can visit us at https://shoptech.media. All our ecommerce resource are free!
