Studies have shown that about $2.3 trillion of sales were made via eCommerce in 2017. By 2021, the figure is expected to hit 4.5 trillion dollars. Another survey revealed that about 74% of small businesses are yet to make use of eCommerce platforms for their businesses. These statistics leave only 26% enjoying the robust turnover of trading over the internet. You would agree that it’s a ridiculous figure, and it’s essential to join the intelligent 26% business owners who are using eCommerce to scale their business in 2020.
Reasons to Use eCommerce to Scale Your Business in 2020
In the wake of eCommerce, many businesses hesitated in taking their businesses online, amidst fears of encountering fraudsters. Today, others who made informed decisions to scale their businesses using eCommerce record more profits than they imagined.
Still in doubt as to whether to scale your business using eCommerce? Here are important reasons to have a change of stance.
Recommended for you: Why eCommerce Businesses Fail & How Can You Prepare for Them?
1. Upscale of Pricing Strategy
How do you measure prices for your products at your physical service outlet? I bet you do a little math on cost and miscellaneous. The margin is way different online. Since you’re not location bound, you can charge your services at unbelievable prices.
You could even track your competitors’ prices and increase the benefits of your eCommerce. You’d be surprised that you’re able to price your products for its quality and not by your local economic standards. There are quite a number of online resources available for you to do this.
“One of the most complicated tasks in business is to set a sales value for your products. Monitoring prices of similar items is an important step towards establishing an optimal pricing strategy. There are several factors when determining a price, these can be internal such as the cost of the product or external as the price of rivals. In order to have a better market picture, it is necessary to follow competitors’ prices and study the evolution of prices.” – as mentioned by netRivals in their eCommerce price-setting guide.
2. Drastic Slash in Expenses
Maybe you didn’t realize that taking your business online would give you a massive cut in expenses. Well, here’s another good news; it would. No business can thrive without the right marketing strategy.
Taking your business online could just be the tweak you need to upgrade your marketing strategy. The overall cost of digital adverts is usually lower than the actual price on radio, TV, or handbills. It’s easier to get your products marketed through simple online referrals, than using foot-dragging on-ground references that are not effective.
More so, the cost of renting a space is drastically reduced. Since most of your customers are online, you often don’t require so much space to showcase your product. The pictures of your products are sufficient to market them, via your websites, or other online retail stores.
3. More Clients, More Sales
Your business gets to be in the face of more people online than it would in its lone physical location. You could argue that it’s located right at the heart of a commercial hub, but you wouldn’t realize what you’re missing. Many people, who would love to patronize you, are often so busy. They hardly find time to visit your local store.
Taking your business online would provide the convenience of looking through your products from the comfort of their homes and mobile phones. You’re able to reach more people online who need your products and services all over the world at their different time zones.
It’s easier to remind customers of a product they’re yet to pick via their emails. You can also inform them of new stock or upgrade in services, faster than you ever could offline. And what’s more, more clients would mean more sales and if they’re satisfied with your products and services, more referrals and more sales still!
4. 24/7 Non-Stop Sales
At its best, most physical stores are open for about 12 hours daily. However, an online store makes you available at all hours. With an online store, potential customers can find you at any time and sales transactions could occur at any time around the world. You could make sales even in your sleep.
Scaling your business with eCommerce would allow you to capture the category of customers who might not have the time to go to a physical store or those with odd working schedules.
5. Globalization
Taking your business online would increase your boundaries. It offers your business the opportunity to become an international brand without having to establish a physical store in all locations around the world.
By scaling your business with eCommerce, you move from being a local business to becoming an international brand. The benefits of selling worldwide cannot be overemphasized. It helps build your brand much faster, increases your customer base, broadens your marketplace, and keeps you way ahead of your local competitors.
6. Easy to Showcase Your Products
With an online store, it is very easy to display your products to customers. You can even divide your products into various categories to make the search experience easy for your customers.
With excellent product photography and great product description, you can sway the customer’s choice to purchase a product.
You may like: 9 Ways eCommerce Businesses Can Address the Privacy Concerns of Customers.
7. Improves Customer Experience
Customers are the heartbeat of any business. They are crucial to the survival of your business. Improving the customer’s shopping experience would help keep your existing customers and also get new customers.
Improved customer experience can easily be achieved through a personalized online shopping experience. Creating a personalized experience for customers makes them feel important.
If your online store has a login feature, you can have a customized welcome message for all your customers. The beautiful thing about this feature is that you don’t have to manually create these personalized messages. You can easily automate it with a few lines of code or settings.
8. Less Expense Incurred in Hiring Staffs
Another reason why you should consider scaling your business with eCommerce is that hiring staff is much cheaper. You can also hire from anywhere around the world or outsource work on a contract basis to virtual assistants.
You will need fewer employees in an online store than you need in a physical store. In fact, you might not need to hire any employee at the initial launch of the online business. You can start and run your online store all by yourself. You can hire employees as the business grows.
9. Easy to Send Retargeting Ads to Customers
This is one of the most profitable benefits you can get from scaling your business with eCommerce. You easily create and send retargeting ads to customers. You can retarget people who visit your online store and don’t buy anything. Also, you can retarget people who added products to the carts but never made the purchase.
You can easily collect email addresses through an effective lead magnet generation strategy. With this strategy, you build a substantial email list to which you can send marketing campaigns.
10. Easy Access to Customer’s Data for Analysis
Data is the new oil. Data is one of the best advantages you could derive from scaling your business with eCommerce. Most people feel uncomfortable giving away some of their personal information like email address, phone number, mailing address, age, and so on. However, with eCommerce, you can have access to this information without explicitly asking for it.
You can then carry out analysis on this data which would help you make informed and smart decisions about your business. You can also use this data in building a recommendation engine, for customer segmentation, for market basket analysis, as well as other analyses that would help grow your business.
How to Build an eCommerce Business?
An eCommerce business undoubtedly offers you a whole lot of benefits. However, building an eCommerce business is no child’s play. It takes much more than writing product listings or selecting a brand name. The fact is that even the best business ideas could flop if they are not driving enough traffic to the site. Here is what it takes to build an online business:
- Choose a business name: After deciding what you want to sell, choose a unique and catchy business name for your eCommerce business. Ensure the name you are choosing is not already in use. After getting a unique business, register it.
- Get your domain name and website: Ideally, your domain name should be your business name, but if it is not available, try using a domain name that is easy to spell and at the same time close to your business name.
- Select the business structure: Is it a sole proprietorship, LLC, Corporation, or Partnership? Both corporations and LLC help separate your assets from your business asset. It also offers you other tax benefits.
- Get your EIN (Employer Identification Number): You will need an EIN to open your business bank account and also for other important paperwork.
- Apply for business permits and licenses: Operating an eCommerce business would not exclude you from certain business permits and licenses.
- Start marketing early.
- Use technology to make your work easier.
You may also like: The Significance of On-Time Delivery of Orders in eCommerce Business.
Get Online Now!
The benefits of scaling your business using eCommerce cannot be overemphasized. Though doing so would require some form of commitment from you, it’s usually worth the effort. You might need a website or even social media pages for a start. It might just be the big break you need, but you wouldn’t know unless you try.
Web Developer & SEO Specialist with 15+ years of experience in Open Source Web Development specialized in Joomla & WordPress development. He is also the moderator of this blog "RS Web Solutions".