8 Ways An eCommerce Website Can Improve Your Business
Since the global economy is massively emerging, eCommerce has now become an essential component and solid catalyst of business development.
From start-ups to big brands, numerous companies are now investing in eCommerce to expand their retail businesses.
Statista predicted eCommerce sales will hit $6.5 Trillion by the year 2023.
Source : Statista
These statistics clearly show the significance of eCommerce and how eCommerce business is booming globally.
Adding an eCommerce website is imperative for your retail business. Taking your business on an eCommerce platform not only gives you an edge over your competitors but can improve your business.
No matter if you have started your business with a brick-and mortar store, you still need an eCommerce website to grow and support it.
eMarketer reports, more than 50% of shoppers prefer online researching before making a purchase. If these tech-savvy customers cannot find your brand online then you’re definitely losing sales.
According to Salesforce, 75% of customers want consistent shopping experience. That includes your website, offline transactions, and social media. By launching your retail store on the digital market you can easily bridge the gap between you and your potential customers.
Though many companies have already digitized their businesses, still there are many brands who are skeptical about eCommerce.
If you’re one of those who are still hesitant to take your retail business on the digital market, don’t worry!
We totally understand your concerns and we are here to help you.
In this article, we’ll talk about 8 ways how an eCommerce website can improve your business.
So, let’s begin.
How an eCommerce website can improve your business?
- Expand Your Consumer Base
After the pandemic broke out, people across the globe were limited to their houses. Even if they were allowed to visit markets for buying everyday essentials, they preferred to stay at home and purchase things online because of the deadly virus.
Due to these circumstances, eCommerce has grown massively. Many brands launched their eCommerce websites so they can make more sales.
Bedford Industries is a reputable company that manufactures medical supplies. Before the pandemic, it was doing business in the traditional way. After the pandemic broke out, there was suddenly a massive increase in the demand of medical supplies.
However, only the existing customers were able to make purchases. To expand their brand, they launched their eCommerce store.
After the launch of their eCommerce store, hundreds of thousands of new customers started buying medical supplies from them.
It was indeed a ground-breaking step that Bedford Industries took not only to expand their consumer base but to generate more revenues.
- Gather Customer Information
Having an eCommerce store helps in gathering up all the important customer data easily. You can collect this data to not only drive sales but to delight your customers as well.
You can easily collect the customer data by asking them to sign-up for newsletters or contact forms to add them in your email marketing list.
It facilitates you in connecting with them later on. You can use email marketing campaigns to generate sales. You can send them invitations, newsletters, or service/product announcements.
Through an eCommerce website you can collect valuable customer data based on their interests, searches and reviews. Based on this personal data, you can also send them personalized emails to keep in touch with them.
- Personalized Shopping Experience
The one clear benefit of having an eCommerce website is you can use the collected valuable data to personalize your customer’s shopping experience.
According to BigCommerce, 75% of shoppers like brands who personalize their messages and offerings.
Moreover, providing a personalized customer experience can improve your online conversion rate by 8%.
That’s quite impressive. Isn’t it?
Compared to your brick-and-mortar business, collecting data to personalize the shopping experience is much easier through eCommerce websites.
You can easily collect customer data like purchase history information or birthday. You can use the collected data like birthdays to send a personalized birthday message or email to your customer.
Customers prefer to open a personalized birthday email than a general marketing email. A personalized birthday email from your brand will not only delight your customer’s mood but it will help in building a strong relationship.
You can also use your eCommerce website to start loyalty programs. It will encourage your customers to purchase products from you to gain reward points.
- Lowering Cost
Adding an online component like an eCommerce website to your existing brick-and-mortar business won’t cost you much. In fact, it is a much better option than opening another storefront.
But the question is how running an eCommerce store is cost-effective?
Below are some important points to note.
- Saving the Rent
Traditionally, when business owners plan to start a new business or even to expand their existing business, they require huge investments.
From renting a storefront to hiring a staff to run it, you’ll be needing a lot of capital.
Whereas, starting or expanding your business on a digital platform is relatively more economical.
With a very less amount, you can easily start an eCommerce website. If you’re more ambitious and you want to build a top-notch eCommerce site then you’ll be needing a few more thousand dollars.
However, the amount which you require to build an eCommerce is still less than the investment you’ll be needing to start a new storefront.
- Saving on Staff
With an eCommerce website you don’t have to pay in-person to anyone. You can easily save money by integrating features like chat-bots on your eCommerce website to answer the queries of your customers virtually instead of live.
If you want to track your customers activities or provide assistance 24/7, you can hire a marketing specialist or virtual assistant to handle your customers.
- Saving on Advertising
Compared to the traditional marketing, digital advertising is quite inexpensive. You can plan your digital advertising campaigns according to your budget as well.
Email marketing is just one example of digital advertising. This marketing strategy is cost-effective and easy to use. With a single click, you can send information to hundreds of thousands of customers.
You can also use social media marketing strategies to market your business in the digital market.
Read More: Eleven eCommerce Marketing Strategies To Jump Start Your Digital Game
- Stay Available 24/7
Most of the retail stores have store timings. For instance, if a customer wants to buy a product from your brick-and-mortar store at midnight, what will happen?
Since the store is closed, that customer will look out for a brand that offers the similar product online. It means you’re going to lose that customer, maybe forever.
eCommerce sites are accessible 24/7. It allows your customer to purchase anything at any time. You don’t have to be necessarily available all time.
As we have previously mentioned, you can use chatbots to provide assistance to your shoppers 24/7 regardless of whether your sales representatives are available or not.
- Provide a Pleasant Shopping Experience
According to Statista, 75% people shop online once per month. It signifies that people have become more tech-savvy and they prefer making online purchases. Most of them believe online shopping is a more comfortable and smoother experience.
Apart from no need of leaving the comfort of their home, they get to avoid traffic jams and pushy salespeople who force them to buy unwanted products.
To avoid all these hassles, customers prefer purchasing online. However, they have to pay additional charges also called shipping cost.
But if an eCommerce website is set up right then browsing, searching, and ordering can outweigh the additional shipping charges.
They will happily pay for the additional charges because you’re providing them a delightful shopping experience.
- Better Marketing Opportunities
Having an eCommerce website is just like having the best marketing tool you can ever have.
Thanks to the marketing technologies, now anyone can easily market their brand through using amazing online tools like email marketing, social media marketing, pay per clicks ads, search engine marketing, and search engine optimization (SEO).
Brands can use these online tools to build useful contacts and links.
For instance, if you use these online marketing tools properly then your website will rank higher on SERPs. You can also use social media platforms like Facebook or Instagram to engage with your customers and build customers’ trust through ratings and reviews.
Moreover, you can keep them up-to-date with new offers and products.
- Receive Customer Feedback Easily
Have you ever thought about what your customers think about your services or products or how can you improve the quality of the products or services you’re offering?
Well, through an eCommerce website you can easily gather-up customer feedback and later on implement them to improve the quality of your products or services.
In addition, customers want to get heard when they make a purchase. They admire those brands who ask for their feedback. This gesture of yours strengthens your customer’s trust and they feel good when you implement their suggestions.
Final Thoughts
Experts believe the prosperity and success of a business in today’s world totally depends upon your digital presence.
That being said, it’s essential to have an eCommerce website. An eCommerce website will not only improve your business but it will facilitate in growing and supporting it.
Connect with experts at CODUP for top-notch eCommerce website development services.
Read Also
Tooba Nadeem
Tooba Nadeem is an experienced technical writer with 5 years of expertise in technical writing. Her extensive research and knowledge enable her to provide comprehensive insights into various interesting topics. She excels at presenting complex information in simplified language, ensuring clarity for the audience.
