Online retail has expanded at a rapid rate. Today, online sales account for about one-quarter of the entire retail market. The retailers that have ignored e-commerce might have noticed that their trade is slowing down as consumers shift to ordering products online.
When you start finding out about some of the benefits of e-commerce for both customers and businesses, you will understand why so many people regard e-commerce as the "holy grail" of retail.
1. Attracts New Customers With Search Engine Visibility
Physical retail is highly driven by relationships and branding. Along with these important drivers, retail online is driven by the traffic generated from the different search engines. Many customers follow links in the search engine results which takes them to e-commerce websites they might never have known about before. This added traffic could be a tipping point for a few e-commerce businesses.
2. Remains Open 24/7
The times for stores are now 24/7/365. E-commerce websites can run constantly. From the viewpoint of a merchant, this drastically increases the number of orders they can receive in a month. From the side of customers, a store that is "always open", is a lot more convenient.
3. Offers Comparison Shopping
E-commerce facilitates and encourages comparison shopping. Many available online services allow consumers to browse several e-commerce merchants to locate the best products at the best prices.
4. Enables Coupons, Group Buying, Bargains, and Deals
Even though deals, group buying, coupons, and bargains are associated with physical equivalents, online shopping has made it even more convenient. For example, when a consumer is using a discount for chicken at 1 physical store, while she has another for toilet paper from another store, the customer may not find it feasible to take advantage of both these discounts. When shopping online, you can avail discounts from different stores without even leaving your home.
5. Locates Products Faster
Gone are the days of pushing shopping carts in the right aisle or having to search for specific products. E-commerce websites allow customers to immediately search for a product they are interested in. Certain websites even remember the preferences of the customer and their shopping lists to help facilitate repeat purchases.
In various ways, accessibility to market for the entrepreneurs has become extremely easy. The online marketplaces like Amazon and eBay allow any person to quickly set up their online shops and to sell their products within a few short minutes.
6. Lowers Overhead Costs
Finance expert from Max Funding, Shane Perry says, “Online selling removes the need to rent or own costly retail premises along with customer-facing employees. This allows you to better invest in customer experiences and marketing for your e-commerce website.”
7. Low Costs
Perhaps the most tangible positive related to e-commerce has to do with the costs. A portion of these low costs is easy to pass onto consumers in the way of offering discounts. Below are a few ways that these costs can be lowered with e-commerce:
- Marketing And Advertising
Pay-per-click, organic "search engine" traffic, along with traffic from social media platforms are a few advertising channels that can be highly cost-effective.
- Employees
The automation of inventory management, payments, billing, checkout, and many other types of operational processes decreases the personnel needed to operate an e-commerce setup.
- Real Estate
E-commerce merchants often don't need a physical and prominent location.
8. Provides Extensive Information
There are always limitations to how much information physical stores can display. It is also not easy to equip staff members to deal with customers that require different forms of information across the product range. E-commerce sites can make this type of information easy to access to potential customers. The majority of this information will be provided by the vendor, which is free from costs when it comes to creating it or maintaining it.
9. Widens Your Export/ Market
One primary benefit over the premises-based retailers is an opportunity to grow your market quickly beyond your local clients. You may find that your products are in high demand in another country, that you can easily respond to through targeted marketing. This could include offering a website in various languages or even partnering with a company overseas.
Conclusion
It is easy to see how your business could be benefiting from e-commerce. Aside from being more accessible anytime and anywhere, e-commerce offers you countless benefits better than traditional retail. Therefore, it is important to work with e-commerce experts so you will be guided to building a successful online retail store.
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