Only by having an online store can you show up in Google search results when someone searches for related products or a related service to your business. Your eCommerce site gives you the ability to get found by potential customers and to sell your products to them directly online. Your potential buyers may not decide to buy immediately when they see your physical store. They may want to do more research about you before they purchase, or they may simply want to ‘stalk’ you online to know more about you and your products or services.
Having a professionally built website could reiterate a positive the first impression, or create a touch point between your brand and potential buyers. And if you’re brave enough, you might consider creating a digital marketplace and getting rid of some of your branches permanently, like some of our Real Estate clients did. Here’s why:
1 – Having an eCommerce site equals higher brand visibility
Only by having an online store that you are able to show up in Google search results when someone searches about the related product or service to your business. Your eCommerce site gives you the ability to get found by and sell your products to them directly through the web. Your potential buyers may not decide to buy from you right from the moment they visit, or walk past your store. They may want to do more research about you before the purchase, or they may simply want to ‘stalk’ you online to know more about you and your products or services.
Having a professionally built website could possibly the the initial first impression, or touch point between your brand and potential buyers.
2 – Increase your revenue every day and during your sleep
If a brick and mortar store is the only way people can shop for your products, you’re missing out! Many shoppers enjoy shopping online, and some are only willing to shop online from the comfort of their own home. Others prefer to visit your physical store so they can touch and feel the products, while some people love researching online before committing to an in-store purchase.
Having an eCommerce store as well as a physical store means you’re getting the best of both worlds: you’re always open, anytime, anywhere. Don’t be surprised if you see some web traffic coming from overseas. And guess what? Having lots of visitors overseas means you could even start planning to expand on a global scale.
3 – Generate more leads through email marketing and lead generation tactics
There are so many tactics you can use to grow your customer base once you’ve set up an eCommerce site. For example, you can create a pop-up form to capture visitors’ email addresses based on their visiting behaviour. Once you have their details, you can send them emails with exclusive offers to encourage them to buy more on the site.It is only by applying marketing tactics for eCommerce that you can grow your database and sell more products, increasing your customer lifetime value down the line. Simply having a brick and mortar store won’t allow you to enjoy those great benefits.
eCommerce with the right support from content marketing can do you wonders. With the right content strategy, you can attract more visitors to the site, capture them as email subscribers, and then feed them with emails about sales, discounts and promotions as you run them.
It is only by applying marketing tactics for eCommerce that you can grow your database and sell more products, increasing your customer lifetime value down the line. Simply having a brick and mortar store won’t allow you to enjoy those great benefits.
4 – It’s not super costly or time consuming to get up and running
Not only have the platforms for eCommerce gotten a lot better over time, there are now more of them than ever. From selling platforms (such as Shopify or Neto) to marketing automation (such as SharpSpring) you can get up and running from today without breaking the bank.
To ensure you can cut costs when building your eCommerce site, you must know about your products and their features. What and how you want to sell will shape the buying experience and this will dictate the process of creating your eCommerce site. If you’re not sure about your go to market strategies, consider engaging your marketing agency in the process. And don’t forget to create specific buying journeys to reflect your real buyers, in order to ensure you deliver the best customer experience.
5 – You can study your buyers behaviour to improve their buying experience and product listings
Attracting people to visit your newly built eCommerce site is a great start. But what if you don’t make many sales, or your shopping carts keep getting abandoned?
Don’t freak out. Seeing signs of abandoned carts or visitors leaving your site after looking at the home page or a certain page helps you understand more about your buyers’ behaviour. And only by identifying the problems can you improve your eCommerce site.