Merchants Guide: Top 05 Benefits of Online Store
5 min readAre you wondering about the benefits of switching from a regular store to an electronic store? Here are the top 05 exciting and proven advantages that you will definitely see once you start selling via an online store!
1. Cost-effective online store startup
This is the first and foremost benefit of an online store. You don’t need a large capital to start up. However, online stores benefit both consumers and merchants in terms of cost-effectiveness. Here are the few common advantages that merchants enjoy.
- No need to buy physical outlet space.
- Hence, no maintenance cost.
- No need to hire the proper sales staff.
- Larger market to target.
- No physical storage limitations, list online as many products as you want.
- Sell multiple products with no capital required for product-display space.
Whereas, customers get the following benefits from online shopping.
- No traveling time and money are required to reach the outlet.
- Contactless item purchase and money transactions.
- Time-saving shopping.
- Easier and quicker product comparison.
- 24/7 shopping.
- Increased e-shopping trend after COVID-19
Undeniably, COVID-19 has brought countless disasters. One of the affecters of this pandemic is the retail industry. The worldwide lockdown has impacted every SME across the globe. But this pandemic has triggered a cultural online shopping trend. Because the physical stores are one of the reasons for massive social gatherings, this rises the alarming spread of COVID. Therefore, almost every retail business had to shut down as per the government policies. This global impact on the retail industry leads to the need for online shopping.
Now, more and more people are switching to online stores to continue their businesses. Therefore, this increased demand for electronic stores has considerably boosted the eCommerce world. Now the people are getting benefited from contactless payments; saving them from virus spread.
3. Online stores drive unstoppable global sales
In this era, one of the most done activities is online shopping. As per a survey, electronic stores are generating greater revenue than physical stores across the globe. However, global eCommerce sales have been growing rapidly. And the stop is not here, these sales are expected to keep growing by the passage of time. Thus, the trend of electronic stores is giving a huge edge to merchants to boost revenue considerably.
This increase in trend can involve many factors. Such as:
- People are more comfortable getting their orders at their doorstep without even stepping out of their houses.
- A customer-friendly interface leads to a quick shopping experience.
- And as discussed above, people can shop according to their convenient times. No time boundaries. Customers can shop 24/7.
- Merchants are not selling their products to a specific region or area. Sales are global. Anyone from any part of the globe can visit your online store to make a purchase.
Thus, the above factors can drive unstoppable growth in online sales with online stores.
4. Raised mobile shopping uplifts online stores
Undoubtedly, eCommerce sales have been greatly uplifted since the usage of mobile devices increased. Therefore, there is a noteworthy growth in mobile shopping. Customers tend to carry out quick research before making the final purchase. That’s why they use their handy smartphones to browse online stores prior to the final buying.
Thus, a larger customer market has an ongoing habit of mobile shopping as it’s a simpler and easier-to-access approach. Consequently, switching to user-friendly online stores targeting mobile customers can be a huge opportunity for merchants. So make sure your website is easy to use. More importantly, it should be easy to operate while completing the checkout process.
5. Future belongs to Personalization
To begin with, what is electronic store personalization? The process of delivering users’ preferences on eCommerce sites by dynamically displaying recommended products and offers. The selection of these components depends upon the following factors driven by customers:
- Previous actions
- Browsing behavior
- Purchase history
- Demographics
- Other personal data
Well, you’ve seen above that what information is used to improve customer experience. But this discussion leads to the following questions as well:
- 1st Question: Where personalization can actually take place?
- 2nd Question: How to use technology and human insights to improve personalization?
Here is the answer to the 1st question.
You need to analyze the following factors to figure out points for personalization:
- The channels and touchpoints your customers interact with.
- The areas where a personalized element helps the most.
- Map out the components such as site search, and location-based services, etc. Basically, each micro-component could be responsible for benefiting from a more contextual experience.
The answer to 2nd question is here.
Here comes the fun part. It’s all about how to create a smart mix of sales channels and visitors’ insights to deliver the best personalized experience. Well, there is no hard and fast rule. It’s more like making your own recipe of personalization. Let’s understand this with the help of the following example.
A website uses the user’s location to display the products according to the region he/she is shopping from. Now here the website catches the user location and technology determines the right products according to that region. For instance, that user is shopping for clothes. He’s in a colder region. Now, the website would display more jackets and caps than light clothing.
Now the actual point, how personalization helps retailers to grow more sales.
So, merchants believe that online store personalization can have a stronger impact on their retail business. This enables them to improve the website according to the users’ experience.
So what you have learned is, the heart of personalization is customer-driven goal accomplishment. Therefore, personalizing the online shopping experience for customers’ satisfaction plays a significant role in boosting sales and revenue.
Conclusion
To boost sales, you need to match your retail business against the technological advancements and ongoing changes in consumer behavior. However, to accomplish this, you need to adopt the right platform for your online store. There are many websites that allow you to put your store on their electronic platform. However, among the many options, 3S Cart is the personal choice of many retailers.
This cloud-based platform gives you the complete freedom to design, manage and market your online store to evolve in the digital world. This is a top-notch solution chosen by big names. The best thing about this software is, it allows the integration with other inventory management tools and payroll systems as well. So, take your electronic store to the next level in 2021 by simplifying its inventory management as well. This will help you in preventing stock outs; this leads to an upshot sustaining long-lasting customer’s relationship.