A website informs the potential customer or client that this business is serious, and at the same time, it shows them the services your business offers, where it is located, and many other details that you would have had to convey to them in a meeting or over the phone. A business website is like a business card, which cannot be lost!
Whats the difference?
You might be thinking what is the difference between a business website or landing page and an E-commerce website or an online store.
On the other hand, on an e-commerce website or an online store, your services and products are listed on the website, and the client or customer can buy the said products and services without directly contacting you. Generally, all the processes, like payment, invoice generation, and the basic FAQ, are automated on an e-commerce website. If you sell a product, you will just have to pack and ship the ordered product to the customer.
That is not the case when you are selling your products using Instagram, WhatsApp, or any other social media. In that, a customer will ask for your catalog, then you’ll send it. The customer may select a product and then ask for the price, then you’ll send the price, and he or she may buy it if the customer buys it, or else it could result in wastage of your time and manpower.
Whereas an e-commerce website or online store is available for the customer 24×7, the customer won’t have to rely on the speedy response from the store owner to buy a product. The customer browses through all the products; if they like a product, they add it to the cart and press buy.
After pressing the ‘Buy’ button, the customer is taken to the payment page, where they have to enter their address, select payment options, and make the payment. The amazing thing is that all of this can be done at any time without the allocation of manpower! even when the physical store or office is closed.
The next day, you can check the orders during business hours and pack and ship the product to the customer!
Using an online store, the customer does not have to wait for a reply from the store owner to buy a product, nor does the store owner have to be active all the time to respond to the customer to make sales.
Advantages of an E-commerce Store
1. More Economical:
An e-commerce store requires a lot less money to maintain than a physical store.
You can allocate as little as one person to clear orders and respond to customer queries for an online store!
2. Wide reach:
An online store can be reached from anywhere in the world!
You may have gotten calls from customers saying they loved your product, but they have moved cities and can no longer buy or browse what you offer. You can solve this by having an online store. Your business will always be within reach.
You can invest in social media marketing and boost your sales exponentially at a fraction of the cost of what you will have to spend to reach the same quantity of sales through a physical store.
3. Customer Friendly:
- Customers can quickly place orders at anytime and from practically anywhere in the world. Customers are more likely to make a purchase when they are in a good mood and it is convenient. Your online store is just a Google search away!
- A customer has a smooth experience browsing and comparing all the products, and they feel quite confident in their purchase.
- They can easily make payment and get a confirmation email of their purchase.
- They can easily contact customer support for queries related to the product.
- Most important of all, they can just tell their friends and relatives about your store or share the online store link so that they can also buy from it!
4. Brand Recognition:
- Having an e-commerce website is a great step in having your brand be seen and able to make a brand value.
- Through an Online store, your brand is just a search away.
- The customer can see all your products and get news about your brand!
- You can get detailed reports on your sales quantity quickly as it is automatically calculated on E-commerce website.
- You can easily check your stocks and your best seller products.
- When running a digital marketing add, you can track the effectiveness of the add easily though your analysis part of your online store and many more such business analytics.
Having an E-commerce or online store is a great businesses move as it diversifies your sales and you are not reliant on only the customer who walk into your store. Even customers who purchases things from your physical store can place order from home the next time when they are buying from you as it is more convenient.
Having a physical store along with an online store (E-commerce website) is highly practical and all big companies do that to get to more amount of customers.
FAQ Frequently Asked Questions
Opening an online store has a website development cost, a domain cost, and a hosting cost. That depending on the company you choose to have your store built.
Usually, Domain and Hosting Charges are annually, while development charges are one time. However the company might charge maintenance charges if you choose to have them look after it.
An e-commerce store requires a lot less money to maintain than a physical store.
It has a wider reach. It is customer friendly and easy to have your brand recognied.
Generally E-commerce store donot have any strong disadvantages. However having sales on e-commerce store without any brand recognition is quite difficult. It is suggested to first have your brand recognisable then to go for an E-commerce store.
Anyone from anywhere can reach your E-commerce store as it is available 24×7. All your products are displayed there. The number of customers it reaches varies on the popularity, SEO, products and customer interests.
There are options on the internet to get free domain and hosting however they would not be useful for an E-commerce store. So yes, you would have to pay for Domain and Hosting if you want a trustable and usable store.
You can maintain your E-commerce by yourself without any maintenance charges, however it require learning about the working of the website. A company might charge depending on various factors. However they will train your employees or you on how to do basic actions like editing photos, add or remove products and images on the website, how to generate customer support emails, coupons, etc.
