This behavioural shift is providing a great opportunity for retail businesses; while the physical retailer is stuck with cost overheads, those using tools and insights from the web are closing the sale, and standing out in a competitive marketplace. Taking your business online is no longer a pipe dream. This is the information age, the computer age, the digital age. Modern society’s transition to connected living has created opportunities on an unheard-of scale. The average person is perfectly poised to take advantage of all that the digital world offers.
Related post: Free Web Hosting, Web Designing
A website is online and accessible 24 hours a day, every day of the year. Because of this, your customers and potential customers can visit your site for support or information about new and upcoming products and services whenever it is convenient for them. Your website will act as an invaluable and always-available resource for information which would otherwise only be accessible during your company's business hours.
The main reason that it is important for businesses to have a website is how people are likely to find you. These days, most people will go online and research products and companies before they make a purchase, if you don't have a website you are missing out on all of these potential businesses. Even if people don't buy your product online they are still likely to research it online so you have to own a website so these people can learn about your business.
Your website can sell products at any time. Potential customers are not restricted to business hours. Instead, they can go online and purchase products whenever they want. A website with an online shop can provide a dramatic boost in sales.
A website is also important because it helps you establish credibility as a business. Most people just assume that you have a website since the vast majority of businesses do, at least the vast majority of big companies do. There are actually still quite a few small businesses that don't have a website and without one this is exactly what they will remain. If you don't have a website that you can refer people to potential customers are going to assume that you are a small time company that does not take their business seriously. Once you establish this reputation it is going to be hard to make sales.
A website will not only give you credibility but it will also help to give the impression that your company is bigger and more successful than it may actually be. One of the great things about the internet is that the size of your company does not really matter. There is no reason that you can't get your site to rank in Google ahead of a large multinational competitor and funnel off some of their traffic. This is a big part of the reason that a website is even more important for a small business than a big one, it tends to level the playing field.
eCommerce is the fastest growing retail market in the world. That clearly show that online shopping has already become an integral part of the buying process for many consumers. And to take advantage of this incredible opportunity, you need to be there every step along the way, starting as early as they start researching products and services online.
So are you willing to take the leap, take your business online, and go a step further in favour of the practice? If the answer is yes, let’s proceed to the main hurdle.
1. DIY hosted eCommerce
DIY hosted eCommerce includes the likes of Magentom.com, BigCartel.com and Shopify.com.
Hosted solution providers have attracted significant venture capital money over the last decade and the result of that is starting to show in recent years.
The available solutions are far more better than they were only a few years ago. They have reached a point when they offer higher and higher degree of flexibility and you can build a good store on some of them.
One of the great things about them is their website builders that allow you to create an online store in a matter of minutes, with no development skills necessary. Simply choose from an extended website of pre-existing templates and start adding your products. Websites can be customized to your brand image by customizing layouts, colours and fonts.
If you are happy to choose from the provided templates, you can build your site with their website builder, and on the top of that, you’ll also receive several features, including unlimited storage, scalable hosting, domain URL, inventory management tools, payment gateways, build-in search engine optimization (SEO), social media buttons, order processing and returns, Google Map integration and more.
The prices are on a monthly based structure and vary depending on the number of products you are selling. Some companies also take a commission on your sales while others just charge a single monthly fee for the service. There are few that also help you set up trading accounts and find suppliers relevant to your products.
The disadvantages are that layouts are quite limited to do something unusual, and depending on third-party providers put you at risk that big changes to their services could deeply affect your operations. For customising the look of your store to your exact specifications, you would need to hire help to design and implement your custom requirements. The bottom line is, if you need an ecommerce site like konga, you can also create it using builders like Magento Go, BigCartel and Shopify.
2. Marketplaces
Marketplaces, such as, Konga, Olx, Jumia, jiji, eBay, Amazon, sites are a low-cost solution offering marketing tools that give your products more visibility.
The great benefit of using marketplaces to list and sell your products on is that you get instant exposure to international buying traffic.
It is very easy to list your products adding pictures and your delivery details, and you are on your way to selling your product online potentially in a few hours.
Online marketplaces are a great additional marketing channel. Consider the listing and transaction fees as your marketing cost and if the audience of that marketplace consider your product great value you will become a top seller in that space.
Services like Terapeak.com that have access to eBay and Amazon data can give you a great insight to whether your products will do well on their platforms.
3. Your own website/blog
The ultimate web destination for most retail businesses that take their online presence seriously is having their very own online store.
Online stores that you fully control and own the code for can be built from scratch or by utilising an existing open source platform.
Open source means that you have access to all the code that makes up a basic site and you can hire developers to work it into exactly what you need. Several add on features are available from third party providers and it is getting easier and quicker to build highly capable sites on open source platforms.
Ready to take your business online?
We can help you turn your offline business into online business.
We can help you create online store, integrate your business into already established online marketplace such as konga, jumia, olx, etc and we can also create a professional website or blog for your business; all at a very affordable cost.
Contact us:
Dillionworld Int'l
+2348035217265, +2348138373847.
tochukwudike@gmail.com
customercare.dillionworld@gmail.com
Sales@dillionworld.biz
Thank you Steve
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