A simple website outlining your product details and your company information which directs people to contact you can certainly be a useful lead generating tool. But what if your competitor is offering the same products for sale on their website, where you can buy the product with a few clicks? While ecommerce websites involve more time to set up than static sites, this should be more than mitigated by the increased revenue generating opportunities as well as time savings through the streamlining of your sales systems.
Online shopping is growing
When it comes to online market access, let’s let the numbers do the talking:
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An ecommerce store is open 24hours a day, 7 days a week, 365 days a year. Your customer won’t have to wait for a shop to open or a staff member to respond to their sales query, their purchase is confirmed right away.
- Online shopping means you are not limited to a single location. Never has there been a better opportunity to go global. An ecommerce website is essentially everywhere and can be marketed as such.
- Having your business accessible to online shoppers also lets you take advantage of a new wave of online shoppers as shown by the US’s Black Friday promotions, where online sales have seen a staggering 24.3% growth since the same time last year.
- Your business will have the potential to reach the large online market, including the rapidly increasing number of shoppers using mobile internet devices such as smart phones and tablets. Statistics show that the number of people shopping from their mobile device has increased 150% since the same time last year. That is not a market you want to miss out on by not being online.
- The ability to shop online shows your customers that you are embracing a modern business model, helping your public image as an innovative and progressive leader in your field.
Streamline your business systems
The ecommerce system also serves the function of helping streamline your business’ sales systems:
- Staff time in dealing with email/phone orders or queries can be reduced.
- Having accurate and up-to-date product information and specifications readily accessible to the public can also cut staff time and improve inventory management.
- Ecommerce systems can also increase efficiency of your internal management systems by providing tiered pricing systems and on-account orders.
If your business is one that is in the position to take advantage of the rapidly increasing online shopping market then an ecommerce website will put you in the frontline, quickly increasing market exposure and improving the efficiency of warehousing and sales systems. If you are not up there, you can be assured, your competition will be!