5 Reasons To Have An E-Commerce Website For Your Company
With the rampant digitalization that the world has seen over the past couple of years, the number of online buyers has increased manifold due to the pandemic. This can be well asserted from the fact that an estimation published by Oberlo states that as many as 2.14 billion buyers have bought their goods through various digital mediums and e-commerce website in the year 2021. These numbers are far from the maximum potential that one can offer.
With these mind-boggling numbers in mind, if you are still not connected with the internet, then, in all possibilities, you are losing out on a lot. And make no mistakes; that is not confined to the numbers you see in the balance sheet, and they are even what you might expect in the balance sheets to come.
Well, now that you are here, you think that you are already present in the online marketplaces like Amazon and eBay. In that case, it might be disappointing, but even though you are better poised than not having a digital presence at all, even then, you are missing out on a lot! While online marketplaces that you list your products on may bring you a lot of profits, even then, in all possibilities, you miss out on the more significant chunk of the game.
This includes the likes of your complete description, helping build the bond with your customer, truly presenting your brand or company in the way you want to in front of your target audience and much more.
With all these in mind, I would love to bring to you the reasons you must have your e-commerce platform and what you are looking at when you start with your e-commerce websites. So, let’s get started!
1. Helps in obtaining customer e-mail list
E-mail marketing is considered one of the most important pillars of digital marketing. However, when using online marketplaces like Amazon and eBay, you hardly get the details of your customers. This means that even though you might have a lot of customers, you are unable to establish a direct connection with them. All these build down to the fact that you are hurting your sales and your goodwill among the potential customers.
Having your e-commerce website does away with this problem. As soon as your customers log in to your e-commerce portal, you have all the details to reach your customers. This helps you offer special deals and offers and even extend personalized support to your customers. Everything that would help you retain the customers, provide them with the customer amusement factor, and finally help them promote you to their friends and family. As per a recent survey conducted by Oberlo, around 81 per cent of the customers trust their friends and families more than any other ad campaign.
These help you increase your sales, but it also makes you stand out among the crowd and helps you make a name for yourself. Thus, helping you establish a customer relationship that is far more intense than while using third-party online marketplaces.
2. Helps You In Reaching Out To More People
Your website helps you reach out to more people; you must be wondering, how exactly! Well, the answer is simple. Most people are not very brand-specific when looking for something, and this means that they generally tend to go forward with a more exhaustive generic search such as bathrobes or children’s books. Also, typically, these searches take place in the search engines like Google. Now, having your e-commerce website helps you have the opportunity to place yourself among the top searches, which would help you convert the potential customers to final sales.
When you do not have an e-commerce website, the best bet is the online marketplace where you are placing yourself to come up in the search engines. However, you are not sure if these online marketplaces would be showcasing your products on the first page or the second or even the last. This means that even though you might have an excellent effect, you might be losing out on tons of customers.
Also, having your website would allow you to promote your website. This would be a blessing, as once the customer walks into your store for a particular product that you sell. Here, the chances are high that he might purchase a few more or at least they would be aware of all the various products you offer.
Never forget that when you are on a marketplace, most visitors feel that your product belongs to the marketplace. This makes them again relate your goodwill to the marketplace, making you lose out on the customer base. This again makes you lose the customer association.
3. E-Commerce Website Help You Learn About Your Audience
Once you are well aware of what your audience is looking for, you would be better positioned to offer them exactly all their needs. That is undoubtedly not all. You would be able to understand the demography, location, behavioural and much more of every individual coming up to your account.
So, to help you understand what we are looking at, let’s say that if you have a clothing store online and if you find out that the majority of your audience is coming from the 27-36 age group, then in all possibilities, you are sure that they would be young parents! Now, this information would help you increase your range of products, and you can even target baby food or baby products that would help you capture the market.
Not only the inclusion of new products but let us say that you look forward to advertising, you have a better understanding of what and where to advertise and in front of whom you must advertise. This works best for the digital medium, where you can select the audience you want to keep your focus on and even choose the locations. This would help you have a much cheaper and more effective advertising strategy.
4. Your Site, Your Rules
You decide what your customers see. Every bit of the website, every section of it, you decide what you want to showcase and to whom you want to showcase. So, if you want to put up a video of your product or the other relevant products on your page, it’s your call. Suppose you want to put in reviews from the customers; it’s your call. If you’re going to help your users with the offers and discounts that they might enjoy with a pop-up or a suggestion box, it’s your call. Practically, it’s yours, and you decide everything for it.
Also, the website gives you the perfect platform to tell the story of the products or your company. Let’s say that you want to sell coffee. You have varied ranges. But then every category has its speciality and a story of how exactly the coffee travels all the path from the lush green mountains to a warm cup. That sounds interesting, right? You need a website to help reach your audience with true emotions!
But even after all these, you know the best part. You would not have to worry about your customers lingering your customers with a better deal or lower price for an inferior product right beside you as it happens in the online marketplaces. And no paying commission to the third party website, which gets the money doing nothing but maintaining a website of its own that you can have.
Also, it is essential to mention here that over the years with, the various plug and play modules available for website building helps in the better functioning of the websites, and you can always put in the features that you are looking forward to. This also means that you would not need much assistance to maintain your website, and thus, the maintenance cost of the website would be much lower and make your company profitable.
5. Provide Superior Customer Service and Guidance
If you have a product that is listed on an online marketplace, then in all possibilities, you are not the one who is providing the customers with direct assistance in case an issue comes up. While most online marketplaces try to make sure that they provide the best customer resolutions, you have to admit that under no circumstances would they have a better understanding of your product than yourself.
Having your website would also help you connect with the customers directly in case of an issue. This means that you would have customers with more satisfaction, and you would have a simple idea about the pain point that the customer faces with your products and provide with the perfect resolution.
Once again, let us take an example to help you understand the issue you might just come up with. So, let us say that you deal in types of furniture, and after you ship, the customers would have to assemble them using simple tools that you provide in the package. However, most customers who purchase the same return them in online marketplaces because they cannot decide how to go about it. Having your website would help you understand the problem and help you guide them better. You would know much better about the furniture than the customer care executives in the more prominent online platforms.
This would mean fewer returns, better customer satisfaction and a proper understanding of the issue. So, next time when you ship the product, you might just come up with a flyer stating the process and steps, making life easier for your customers, who would then be able to assemble themselves.
Conclusion
Well, with all the points, it would be safe to conclude that e-commerce website for any company is a necessity. An e-commerce website helps you provide the customers with the best customer delight and outstanding support. It also offers them better deals and options while expanding your sales and promoting your brand.
Make sure that you keep a close eye on your website’s traffic, sales, etc. Learn from your experiences and refine yourself every single day. Read the data and work on it. It is the best way you can move ahead!
It is estimated that the online sales mark for as much as 18.1% of all the retail sales. So, make sure that you have an e-commerce website. It must be mentioned here that you can still keep being a part of the online marketplaces, but your digital presence would only further help you.
