Why Your Retail Business Needs an Ecommerce Website to Grow

You have been running your brick and mortar shop for years but you keep noticing that growth is not as expansive as the years you are counting in the business. You probably have realized that communicating effectively with target customers and existing ones are harder than they seem. Creating an eCommerce Website allows your retail business to break through these barriers while increasing your sales and brand awareness.

Reach More Prospective Customers

If your store is located in a prime location, then you’re in for a great start. But what if it’s not? Your target customers may not be seeing you as much as you are supposed to. Having an eCommerce website evens out the difficulties of less traffic to your store and having a prime location. Potential customers who have never heard of your brand before having the ability to find you online. Data from 2020 states that Google searches using the phrase “near me” or “close by” have increased by 90%. And even if cities and counties have opened up, the market has adapted to this behavior of searching online before buying. Every day someone is searching for something that is relevant to your business and an eCommerce store gives you the ability to be found and sell your products to them directly.

Allow Customers to Shop More Conveniently

In general, online shopping has increased exponentially by 47%. About 69% of people in the US shop online and 25% of them at least do it once a month. It’s so convenient to shop online and an eCommerce website allows your customers to shop whenever and wherever they want to. Many people want to shop during their idle time while sitting in traffic, taking a break, or at the comfort of their home. Some even shop at night before going to bed.

Of course, there are still products that are best purchased in-person especially if you have to try it out first. But the online shopping revolution has made it very convenient for shoppers and business owners to process returns and replacements. There are also a lot of apps and services available that provide both ends with practical shipping options. 

Others still prefer to drive up to your store. But even if they are there physically, chances are that they are one of the 81% of shoppers who researched your item first before buying. An eCommerce store allows you to have an opportunity to provide information online for people to read about, especially if your products have good reviews that go with them.

Collect Customer Insights for Marketing

One of the great benefits of having an online store is having the ability to gather lead and customer data that you can use for marketing. Sure, you can do this in-store too by requesting customers to complete a survey or asking them questions. But how many customers will stop and spend time doing that? Most likely not a lot. 

Gathering information online is much more effective as it is very convenient. An eCommerce website comes with data analytics that is gathered by your customers’ activity in its pages. You or they don’t have to do anything to gather this information but simply by visiting the website, it gets recorded and the application behind your website does the charts and reports for you. 

Once you have gathered all the data, you have more concrete information about your customers’ demographics and interests. You can use this in planning your marketing strategy not just for your website but also for social media and your storefront.

Final Thoughts

You may be hesitant to change the way you are doing business as you have been doing it for a good number of years. That may also affect the way you manage your inventory. But the good news, there are many platforms and plugins to choose from to integrate your existing point-of-sale system to your website. These will allow you to stick to your POS system of choice while building your online presence. 

We won’t argue that there are online platforms out there that can serve as an eCommerce platform for your store, and they help for sure. But there is one big advantage about having your own eCommerce website vs being on these platforms, you can do whatever you want with your website. With the other platforms, you abide by their rules.

An eCommerce website is like your online storefront. It takes your business where you can’t and when you can’t. Take advantage of building a great online presence and your business will grow. It also makes your business more legit!

Sources:
https://optinmonster.com/online-shopping-statistics/
https://www.dialogtech.com/blog/retail-marketing-statistics/