Let me make you time travel before the pandemic times. How do you feel? Feels good, right? In recent times, the number of people preferring offline shopping has significantly reduced. Add the Covid-19 era to it, and the numbers will look dwindled further. Now there are no rewards available for guessing why because everybody why. Ecommerce.
Black Friday 2020
Last year, the Black Friday sales surged 22% to hit a new record of $9 billion, the time customers spent on the web day after Thanksgiving. Yes, the pandemic had a significant role in this e-commerce achievement, but there's no denying, the internet has cut short the queues and the crowd at the malls. People have shown that an e-commerce website is more critical than the malls and other places people usually went shopping.
Power of an Ecommerce Website
With the ability to do shopping at the comfort of your home with just a few clicks on your smartphone, e-commerce has changed the outlook of the marketplace. People no longer have to plan shopping or worry about fuel and traffic while driving to a nearby mall to purchase their perfume, tie, garments, etc. They have to log in to the company's website and place their order with the convenience of "Cash on Delivery (COD)" primarily available.
Companies With and Without an Ecommerce Website
While the numbers of e-commerce outlets are growing day by day, there's no denying that still, many established corporations haven't invested in their e-commerce platforms. Take wordpress ecommerce plugins, they integrate with the WordPress site to provide features including but not limited to product catalogs, shopping carts, payment processing, shipping and tax calculations, customer management, and order tracking which helps in scale business to success for maximum growth.
As a result, they are potentially losing many customers to their competition with e-commerce platforms. As, in today's ever-increasing competitive marketplace, customers prioritize convenience and, therefore, will do their best to avoid travelling distances to buy products. Hence, the companies with e-commerce websites are gaining significant revenues compared to their competition without an e-commerce platform. Thus, it is critically important to have an e-commerce platform to market and sell your product. Ecommerce websites help with an increase in traffic but also aids significantly with increasing the brand's reach.
The Benefits of an Ecommerce Website
With us establishing the power of an e-commerce website and the competitive edge it provides to the organizations with e-commerce websites against organizations that still operate in traditional formats, let's look at the benefits of an e-commerce website.
Increased Customer Reach
When your company is operating an e-commerce website, it directly gives access to consumers irrespective of the device they are using, such as laptops or smartphones. When the consumer needs something from your market, they will immediately purchase it from you, given the quality and price you have kept. Likewise, you provide access to consumers worldwide through your e-commerce website. At the same time, companies who limit themselves to the traditional form of marketing will have the same number of customers available in their locality.
Sales Opportunities Always Open
Usually, what we see is that offline markets such as malls open at a certain period in the morning and then closes sometime during the night. It means consumers can only purchase from those places during those time intervals. However, time is never an issue with an e-commerce website. Ecommerce websites remain open 24/7, meaning consumers can make purchases from there at any time of the day, be it 2 PM or 2 AM. There are no restrictions when it comes to e-commerce websites.
Low StartUp and Maintenance Costs
When you compare an online e-commerce website to an offline brick-and-mortar store, you can see a considerable difference in terms of the cost involved in both. Offline brick and mortar are more costly to maintain as various costs include rent, electricity, and maintenance. However, you can set up an e-commerce website at a fraction of the exact cost involved with little maintenance, no rent, and no electricity bills to pay.
Flexibility to Run the Business from Anywhere
If you look at offline businesses, you will always notice that the stores will have people running them. There will be a cashier, a receptionist, a security guard, and a salesman. Not only does this add to the monthly maintenance cost for the business to run smoothly, but simultaneously, it means you have to run the business there itself. However, with an e-commerce website, you can avoid all of it since the website is available online. You need not worry about having a receptionist, a cashier, a security guard, and a salesman. All you need is a laptop and internet connection to manage the entire business from anywhere. Yes, it may involve some maintenance and security costs, but it nowhere will amount to the cost involved in offline marketing. You can even manage multiple eCommerce stores in one platform.
Go International with Ease
With an offline brick-and-mortar store, your business is not limited to one place but also limited to some consumers. For example, you have set up a mall in a place. Now, your consumption will only be the people from the same place. At best, you will have some consumers visit your malls from nearby locations occasionally if your business is available online. Do you have to worry about where your consumers can come from? No. It is because your consumers can come from anywhere, depending on their needs and your service quality. An e-commerce website provides an unimaginable worldwide reach, given you run it properly. Having your eCommerce site available in different languages would also be a good idea. You can use a website translation platform to simplify the process of localizing and translating content.
Conclusion
The benefits of having an e-commerce website clearly show why having an e-commerce website is more important than ever. Not only is it the most favored form of marketplace, but it is also the cheapest way of running your business. Besides, it offers so much flexibility in comparison to the traditional offline marketplaces.
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