If you are thinking of launching your selling business, or if you already have one but it's limited to retailing, considering building an eCommerce is almost a must. People are buying online more and more often, and the web has become the best tool to build an audience, find your clients, and keep communicating with them.
In this article, we aren't going to focus on the best eCommerce website builder: you can find tons of content like that. Instead, we'd like to give you a deeper understanding of why you need to build an eCommerce website and how to bring your eCommerce management to another level.
Why Build a Website eCommerce
In this section, we're going to explore the main benefits that eCommerce could bring to your sales business and why you should consider building one.
(1)Enhance your brand impact
Have you ever paid attention to what happened in the customers' minds when they purchase your products from a third-party marketplace? Most likely, they're going to remember the marketplace instead of your brand.
Your own eCommerce has a stronger impact on customers and can enhance your brand's identity.
(2) Full independence
Compared to the use of existing marketplaces, when you run your own eCommerce you have full independence in every aspect. You can price the products, make promotions, set your own rules, and even create some additional services that can add value to your products and overall services.
(3) Extracting the value of data
When you have your eCommerce you can gather your data and use them as you like. You can use monitoring and analysis tools and customize the parameters as you like so that you can use those data to optimize your offer and marketing strategies.
(4) Flexible marketing methods
Among the advantages that complete independence can give you there is the possibility of marketing your brand, products, and eCommerce as you wish. You can use any web platform that you like and you don't have to comply with third-party standards.
(5) It's easy
One of the reasons why entrepreneurs hesitate when it comes to building an eCommerce is that they think it's hard and requires coding knowledge. The truth is, instead, that you can choose a website builder for eCommerce and start creating your store online even if you have zero computer knowledge.
(6) It can be at no cost
There are eCommerce builders that require a monthly fee or subscription, but there are also free ones. If you pick a website builder with eCommerce that doesn't apply any fee, you can start creating your online store at zero cost.
(7) Easy management
Many entrepreneurs worry about how to run an eCommerce business. What they don't expect is that running an online business is actually easier than running a physical shop. You don't have physical stores or utility bills, you need fewer employers… There are still things you need to take care of daily: inventory, marketing, ordering process… but every aspect is simplified when compared to retailing.
(8) Retain customers
When someone makes a purchase on a particular eCommerce he or she is very likely to keep on purchasing from it. When users find an eCommerce platform they can trust, they don't search for others.
(9) It's trending
Let's not underestimate the fact that buying online is today's trend: people are more likely to purchase online than ever before and this doesn't look like a trend that is going to disappear soon. Many aspects of our life are migrating online: launching an eCommerce means being ready for the future.
How to Promote Your Trading-Based Ecommerce Website
Since eCommerce is a big trend, the competition is very high. This is why marketing is one of the main aspects you should focus on. In this section, we're providing some tips on how to promote your eCommerce website.
The importance of search engines
According to Search Engine Statistics shared by 99firms, nearly 93% of all web traffic comes through search engines. In particular, whether the access is made from a computer (76%) or a mobile phone (86%), a great part of this traffic comes directly from Google.
Our takeaway from this data is that aspects like SEO - the process of optimizing your eCommerce so that it can rank properly on search engines and SEM - Search Engine Marketing - are particularly important.
When it comes to SEO, in particular, you should never make the mistake of thinking that it only concerns blog posts, web articles, or text content in general. eCommerce platforms need optimization too, and it can be related to:
- keyword optimization of every product description;
- the use and optimization of meta-tags;
- pictures optimization: pictures should be named properly (including keywords) and they should not slow down the loading of the web page.
- link building. Just like it happens for any web page, the presence and quality of links and backlinks can improve your SEO.
However, SEO isn't only made by keywords and links. The performance of your eCommerce (how well it works, how quickly the pages are loaded, how easy it is to navigate...) affects your ranking too. UI design, therefore, is something you should never underestimate: not only because it improves your customers' experience with your online store, but also because it can increase the traffic to your eCommerce.
Speaking about Search Engine Marketing (SEM) if we keep in mind the data we've already mentioned (of all search engines traffic, about 80% comes from Google), it goes without saying that the great part of your SEM strategies should be focused on Google.
The importance of social media
If a lot of traffic comes from search engines, the rest comes mostly from social networks. At the end of 2021, the website statusbrew.com published the 100 Social Media Statistics for 2022. From this data, we can extract some important intakes for your eCommerce's Social Network Strategy (SNS).
The importance of data
Your own eCommerce gives you the possibility of gathering a lot of data about your customers' preferences and overall behavior. The use you make of this data can make a lot of difference.
As mentioned in many specialized articles EDM allows your company to make the most informed decisions: when you need to decide on your next investment, you want to base your decision on objective data (what kind of sales are increasing? What channels are the customers' favorites? And what payment method?). Effective EDM is therefore key to the success of your eCommerce over time.
Conclusion
Now that you know that you know why you should build an eCommerce website and what advantages it can bring, you can exploit this new trend with deeper awareness.
