Even if your brick-and-mortar business was fortunate enough to keep its doors open during the peak of the COVID-19 pandemic in 2020, you can't help but have noticed the significant leap to e-commerce that consumers took. While people are now enjoying a return to normal activities, their preference for shopping online - which actually started pre-pandemic - shows no sign of abating. At this point, you may be wondering if your business should take the e-commerce plunge to better retain current customers and attract new ones. There's a good deal to consider, which is why we're here to help you sort through all that's involved.
The Opportunities E-commerce Offers
Writing for HP Tech @ Work , marketing journalist Linsey Knerl lists the following common reasons for considering starting an online store:
- Reach customers not local to your region.
- Expand your footprint to new markets.
- Cater to younger demographics who are more likely to buy online.
- Become competitive with other retailers who succeed online.
- Take advantage of data-driven business decisions, ad targeting and metrics tools.
- Give customers another way to initiate a transaction with you, even if they prefer to finish it in-store, via delivery or curbside.
Knerl observes that having a physical store can help you move to e-commerce. "Some advantages to brick-and-mortar stores include an established customer base and product recognition." No matter how small your business, your regular customers not only know your product line, but know your reputation for quality, integrity and customer service. Unlike new businesses that are exclusively e-commerce, you don't need to build your customer base or establish trustworthiness from zero.
How to Get Started with E-commerce
Starting an online store requires serious planning and consideration. Follow these important steps for getting started:
Do the groundwork - Assess the strengths, processes and products or services of your business. You need to make sure that starting an online store fits into your business strategy and goals. Starting an online store may require you to set new goals, but remember to keep your goals specific, relevant and realistic. It's also important to understand and define how your online customers will be different from your in-person customers, as well as how you plan to encourage your current customers to adapt to your online store. With these differences in mind, you can then develop your e-commerce marketing strategy.
Know your customers' expectations - Next, you need to know what your customers expect from an online store, and more specifically what they expect from your business. If your online store doesn't meet your customers' needs, then they won't be doing business with you online. Be sure to make your online store easy to navigate and make purchases, as well as compatible with multiple devices (mobile, desktop, etc.). Don't forget to make customer feedback and support options easy to access, and your privacy and security policies easy to find.
Setting up a virtual storefront - Should launching an online store make sense for your business, you may either need to create a new website if your business doesn't have one yet, or you will need to integrate your current website with an e-commerce platform. While the online experience should be intuitive and seamless for your customers, you will need to set up what is known as a merchant account to link financial and inventory information between your physical store and your online store.
Keep in mind that there are two major structures for online stores : online marketplaces and e-commerce sites. The first type allows businesses to sell through larger hosted shopping portals - such as Amazon.com or eBay - while the second type is branded and hosted as an individual store website that markets and fulfills its own products. Chris Warden's article for Business Know-How covers the pros and cons of each type to help you decide which one is the better fit for your business.
Choosing Your E-commerce Platform
E-commerce was already a rapidly expanding industry before 2020, and this year it has grown even more substantially than anyone could have predicted. With so many platforms and services on the market, how can you choose the right e-commerce platform for your business?
Keep these features in mind when searching for your e-commerce solution:
Navigation and Security - Not only should your store be easy to set up, but you should look for a platform that provides easy navigation on both the consumer and business end, along with one that offers reliable security measures. It's crucial to offer an easy shopping experience for your customers, otherwise they will take their business elsewhere. For security, be sure to choose an e-commerce platform that utilizes encrypted security measures and supports features.
Mobile Accessibility - More consumers worldwide are shopping from their smartphones and mobile devices than ever before. For this reason, your e-commerce shop has to be designed for mobile accessibility. Our blog post - " Design Elements for a Successful Ecommerce Website " - points out that according to Google, are highly unlikely to return to a website that doesn't work well on mobile, with 40% moving on to visit a competitor's site. Having a responsive design allows your ecommerce website to automatically adapt to any type of device screen or operating system. An e-commerce site that's hard to navigate and order from via smartphone, tablet, etc., is sure to fail.
The Take-Home Message and Our Blatant Self-Promotion
Of course, you'll have much more homework to do if you're considering expanding your store to the e-commerce realm. For that reason, your next assignment is to learn what our e-commerce hosting solution has to offer!
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