The worldwide scenario has never been better for online eCommerce businesses. While Covid-19 impacted how people work and shop, this pandemic was more of a boon for online retailers. Reports from Statistics show that retail websites managed to generate almost 22.4 billion visits in June 2020 alone. And this number is only growing.
Thinking of setting up a retail business online? You’re right on-time. However, the challenge is to choose the right eCommerce platform for your business.
It may get overwhelming while choosing the right eCommerce platform to a point where you settle for the first website you see. You can opt for Pixpa which is a pretty easy-to-use tool to set up your business. If you want your own eCommerce store, you can opt for any of the outgrown marketplaces like Amazon, Shopify or eBay. There are other options like WooCommerce which is actually a WordPress Plugin. So if you want to build your store website on WordPress, WooCommerce can be your ideal choice.
Be sure to pick an eCommerce platform that suits your present needs as well as gives you the scope to scale your business later. Now that we have addressed the first challenge, let’s now address the elephant in the room – why should you set up your retail business on an online eCommerce store.
5 Reasons to Setup Your Retail Business on Online eCommerce Store
According to research, it was predicted that eCommerce sales will touch $4.2 trillion by the end of 2020. The evolving economy did present a promising picture for online retail businesses, particularly in terms of retail NPS. That’s why it’s important to research the different models of eCommerce before getting started with yours to stand out from the competition.
It is not a two-fold process where you launch a website and cash starts flowing in. You need to analyze your purpose of launching an eCommerce website and use the right tools to strengthen your online ground. In a nutshell, these should be your reasons to set up an online store on an eCommerce platform.
(1) Round-the-clock business
Having your eCommerce store set up on an online platform gives you the scope to keep your shop “open” round the clock. This makes it really easy for your customers to browse and shop at their convenience, be it day or night. This kind of accessibility is ideal at a time when most of your buyers are at home and would want to browse when they are free. Using popular online platforms like Pixpa you can build online stores for creatives and small businesses
Nowadays marketers integrate their eCommerce platforms with your social media channels to engage with the customers directly. For instance, if you are keen on creating Facebook Lead Ads, you can integrate Pixpa and Facebook lead ads or any other eCommerce platforms to sync and capture new leads into your account instantly. Similarly, you can embed your Facebook business page and Facebook Messenger through Pixpa to boost your business. This kind of flexibility gives you an edge over your competitors.
If you are using Shopify and your Shopify store isn’t able to cater your business as you wish, you might consider migrating from Shopify to WooCommerce. WooCommerce is considered as one of the best alternatives to Shopify by offering customization and has a wide range of apps and extensions available to expand your store in the market
(2) Understand buying intents
In an offline store, it is impossible to gauge what drove your buyers to your stores. It can be a hoarding ad or word of mouth or any other factor. With a CRM software set up for your online store, you can go back to the source from where your target buyers found you. It can be through search engines, via lead ads, blogs, or third-party referrals. This helps in tracking the entire browsing path of each buyer, right from their first contact with your business to the point where they check out items from their cart. With so much data in hand, it is easy to figure out your target audience category, the buying intents, and also what works for your business. If you are using WooCommerce to launch your website, you can integrate WooCommerce with apps like Hubspot CRM to track and monitor each prospect and at what point they convert into customers.
(3) Set up secure payment gateways
The best part of launching your multi vendor eCommerce platform through an online portal is that these portals sync easily with other payment gateways. Since a majority of your buyers now look for ease of payments, it is important to set up a secured payment gateway for a frictionless buying experience. When you are building a website on platforms like Pixpa, you are automatically asked to integrate payment gateways. Whether you are using templated models or building it from scratch, payment gateways are a must. For instance, Pixpa has integrations with all popular payment gateways like PayPal, Stripe, and PayUmoney. Ofcourse, having cash on delivery is also necessary.
(4) Having a synchronized inventory
One of the major reasons to open an online eCommerce store is that you have full control over your inventory. You can obviously keep it all automated. For instance, if you are using Square Online you can sync it up with Square Point of Sale and Square Dashboard to synchronize in-person and online orders, inventory, and items. This saves you from overselling your inventory across multiple locations and also keeps a tab on track fulfillment and shipping.
(5) Omnichannel marketing and sales
Online stores mean you are available to a larger mass in one-go. Your target buyer can find you through multiple sources – search engines, social media, blogs, referrals campaigns, ads, emails, and more. This gives you the scope to be omnipresent across all digital touchpoints so that you never miss a target buyer. Also, omnichannel marketing and sales enhance the end-to-end buying experience for each customer, giving you more opportunity to promote your business and hand out more ways to your target customers to reach you easily. Also, to make the most of that opportunity, you need to have a sound marketing strategy, something which you can execute remotely using email marketing software like SendX. Using social media management tools like Content Studio make the work easier, helping you manage all your social channels under one roof
Wrapping Up
Setting up your retail business on online eCommerce stores gives you the flexibility to customize your website, expand your business horizon, monitor your competitors, and understand your target buyers better. In a nutshell, you get control over how you want to run your business based on customer data and other valuable insights. Till then, good luck with your new eCommerce store.
