The Ecommerce landscape is evolving rapidly. What was once considered only a place for cheaper alternatives has now become a full fledged shopping experience. Developments in technology have been a great driving force behind the growth of ecommerce.
The future holds lot of opportunities for small businesses who can leverage the power of ecommerce to compete on similar grounds with the big players in the market. Ecommerce allows small business owners to market their products globally and reach out to wider prospects.
According to a recent survey half of the Americans now own a Smartphone and over 38% use it make purchases. The growth of internet and widespread use of devices like Smartphone’s and tablets has fueled the ecommerce industry.
Why is everyone getting into ecommerce?
In order to answer this question I would like to begin by asking another question. What is the first thing you do before purchasing a product? Your answer would be research or collect information about the product or service in question.
Quite rightfully so, each one of us who wants to buy something be it a new Smartphone or a pair of shoes, before we go to the store or even order it from eBay or Amazon we like to check and compare prices online. This has become the norm for shopping these days. People not only buy online but they also research about products online before going to a store. According to the PwC report people who refer to multiple channels are going to spend up to 25% more time at their favorite store.
Why should you care?
If you are a good observer you might have noticed that people are increasingly shopping online and be it grocery, apparel or luxury goods, everything is now being purchased over the internet. Currently 5 % of the retail sales over the world are from ecommerce. This will only go up to 10-30% in the near future. You can expect majority of the business to be done online.
In the past two years the global ecommerce spending has surpassed $ 1Trillion. More and more users are buying online each day. If you do not want to lose out on potential customers which are buying online and prefer it that way then you must consider branching out in online business as well.
What you should do about it?
Getting your business online involves some planning and it needs to be considering all the influencing factors. If you are simply going with an ecommerce venture then you refer to our previous post on bootstrapping your ecommerce venture. But if you already have a business and want establish an online presence for your business then you easily do so.
To be able to sell online you need to have a great website which supports payments. Now all you need to do is take care of all the product listing and make sure that the website is easy to navigate and is compatible on mobile as well. With your existing business you can promote your online business and provide incentives to customers for shopping online and grow your ecommerce revenues.
Furthermore, having a well optimized website which hosted with a reliable ecommerce hosting provider is necessary so that your website is secure and it is capable to protecting your client information which is very important. You take care of your customer and your business will flourish.
As the old adage in business goes, “Be where your customers are” so if you want to be reachable and expect your business to grow then you must have an ecommerce strategy to target all the customers which search for your business online.
