And why you need an e-commerce website...
As more and more high street giants fall spectacularly from grace and into administration it is crucial for those of you who are operating offline to start spreading the risk and begin operating online through an e-commerce website.
So what is e-commerce? To put it simply it’s a virtual business where customers can purchase goods and services round the clock. This ability to never close means that your business is open 24 hours a day rather than the traditional 9-5, giving you a huge advantage over your offline competitors.
Important factors to consider when running an e-commerce website are ensuring that you have a user friendly design that allows for quick and easy navigation. The simpler the sales process is for the user then the more sales your website is likely to see.
Trust is another big issue when it comes to the exchange of money especially online, so it is important that you have a secure payment method in place. All of the sites that run off the Bizinka platform have secure payment built in.
One more key factor that is important when running an e-commerce website is SEO. What is SEO? We’ve addressed the question “What is E-commerce?” so we may as well address another commonly asked question whilst we are on a roll! Well it stands for “Search Engine Optimisation” which is basically the process of increasing your website’s chances of appearing in search results for queries relating to your industry.
The term “keyword” which you may have heard a lot refers to specific words and phrases that you want to appear higher up the search results for. For example if I sell umbrellas I would want my website to feature the terms “umbrellas”, “umbrellas for sale” and so on. For further information on SEO and other online marketing advice/help/strategies visit our Marketing Hub.
Finally let’s recap by looking at some more benefits to having an e-commerce website. It is extremely quick and easy to set up and manage, especially when compared to setting up and managing an offline store.
It is also a lot cheaper than a running a physical store as there are far fewer and cheaper overheads. The sales process is much quicker and efficient online and can be completely automated with our platform, you can also automate process such as e-mails and customer follow ups meaning that you are able to provide unbeatable customer service.
This all equates to e-commerce websites having much, much bigger profit margins than offline businesses. Become an online business and you are reducing the chances of your business suffering the same fate as so many others whilst ensuring you have a good base to build a successful business.