Whether you are looking to expand your brick and mortar business or just starting off, having an online store (ecommerce website) is one of the best decisions you can make regarding your business today.
Everyday, many are taking advantage of the internet to make a lot of money and enjoy financial freedom just by selling their products/goods online. E-commerce is now one of the fastest growing businesses in the world with well over $4 trillion this year.
This is due to the change in customer behaviour. It's now a common practice for people to first search for what they want to buy on the internet even if they want to buy it from a physical store. This affords them the opportunity to learn more about the particular product they want to buy, compare different brands and even prices before making the final decision to make a purchase or not.
Guess who will get the sale should the customer decide to buy the product? Definitely the person that has his/her products displayed on the internet with clear details about it will, this is because of how easy and comfortable it is to shop online today.
In this post, I highlight 5 major benefits that you are missing out on if you do not have an online store to market and sell your products. These advantages are:
1. Sell 24/7
Online stores don't have closing hours nor have any problem with different time zones unlike physical stores. This means that your products are available for your customers every and anytime of the day, you can literally be making money while sleeping! The customers don't need you to be there before they can make a purchase. With this in place, you are likely to wake up everyday with a sales alert. How cool is that?
This is even more seamless and efficient for people who sell digital products where the customers can download it immediately they make payment. No shipping and no logistics issues.
2. Reach a Wider Audience.
With an online store, your market reach is no longer limited by geography. You can now reach customers from different parts of the world. This automatically increases the number of your potential customers by a very large percentage %.
You can now easily reach many people who are interested in what you sell with ease, at a larger scale and within a small space of time. This immediately opens up more opportunities for finding customers in your target audience, and growing your customer base over time.
This is particularly a benefit for any business selling a niche product. In the past, a person would have a harder time building a business around their quirky bookends or high-end pet food. Even though there were people that might want those products somewhere, finding those customers was a lot harder.
Now, if you build a good online store or website that targets the terms those people are searching, they’ll find you. Isn’t that great?
3. Start Small and Scale Up Easily
An e-commerce business can potentially start with one person and a website. That’s what makes it such an accessible choice for new entrepreneurs. But if you’re thinking a one-person business doesn’t sound like it allows a lot of room for profits, you don’t have to stop there.
By starting small, you can reduce risk in the early days and increase how quickly you start making profit, and what those profit margins look like. Once enough money starts coming in , you can start to expand to new products or hire other staff with the money you’ve already made, so it’s less risky.
Websites are easier to scale up with a growing business than physical locations. You don’t have to try and buy out the store next door to expand or open a whole new location, you can just upgrade your web hosting to handle more traffic.
That makes an online store (e-commerce) a good strategic choice for an entrepreneur with little start-up capital, even if you have big ideas and ambitions.
4. Enjoy Low Cost of marketing and advertisement
Coming up with a business idea, creating a plan, and building an online store or website are all big, important steps in getting your business up and running. But people aren’t likely to find your store or website on their own on day one. That requires marketing.
The good news is that online marketing tends to cost a lot less than more traditional forms of marketing like print ads, billboards, and TV spots. Inbound marketing tactics like SEO and content marketing take more time than money, unless you decide to hire an expert to handle them (which is often worth it).
Online advertising options like search and social ads let you control your budget, so you’re only spending what you’re comfortable with. And most online ad platforms have a PPC (pay-per-click) model that means you only pay for actual visitors, not ad exposure. As a result, they usually offer a pretty impressive return on investment, especially for those promoting a new online store or website.
5. Build Brand Awareness and Customer Loyalty.
Today, consumers expect every business to have an online presence and anyone without that is considered un-serious or not professional.
By online presence, I’m not talking about social media accounts or pages but a solid website where people can take action. And that's what an e-commerce website provides you with.
Another thing is by having a domain on the internet with your business name, you are not only securing your spot on the internet and giving your business a wider awareness but customers will trust you more when they can see your business name pop up when they make any search on Google. They see you as legit and ready to deliver on your brand promise.
Now I believe you get the gist.
Overall, having an online store or starting an e-commerce business is easier to get started, less risky, and broad enough to provide a wide array of paths forward.
Though it will still require work, planning, and a learning curve—those are all parts of running any type of business. But if you approach it thoughtfully, do your research, and put in the work, it can be rewarding.
Once you’ve got your product idea and business plan in place, Oniontabs can help you with the website creation part. Oniontabs has built a great number of incredible online stores over the past years that have yielded lots of ROI to the owners of these businesses, you can check some case studies here
And to make things easier on your starting budget, you have one year Free Hosting and Domain Name with an SSL Certificate.
Book an appointment here now.