Diving into eCommerce: Insights and Strategies
Ecommerce is the fastest growing sector of the retail industry, and for a good reason. It allows businesses to reach consumers directly without going through an intermediary like Amazon or Walmart. That means you can make more profit per item sold. Ecommerce also offers a lot more flexibility in product selection, making it easier to tailor your offerings specifically to your target customer base.
The ecommerce industry has changed in recent years. With mobile devices, social media, and online shopping, it’s easier for people to buy things online. Therefore, choosing the right ecommerce platform for your business is critical. The first thing to consider when selecting an ecommerce platform is what kind of business you want to run. Do you want to sell products? Services? Both? Once you’ve figured out what works for your business, it’s time to look at some platforms that fit your needs.
A few aspect you should consideration include:
- How complex are the ecommerce solutions to install and configure (Adding products, pricing products, setting shipping rates, tax rate, deliver zones, etc.)
- Does it support single and variable products? – An example of a variable product would be a t-shirt in varying sizes and colors that a customer would select from.
- Does it support physical and virtual/downloadable products?
- Does it allow for easy integration with social media accounts and payment gateways like PayPal and Stripe?
- Does it support the currency options you require?
- Does it support the selling locations you require
- How customizable is it? Can you, or a developer, customize the solution to precisely fit your needs.
- Can your ecommerce website be hosted on your server or only via third parties (for a monthly fee)
Some Popular Ecommerce Options Include
Woocommerce is a free and open-source e-commerce plugin for WordPress, which is the most popular content management system (CMS) based on PHP and MySQL.
Shopify is a popular ecommerce platform for creating an online store. Shopify gives you the ability to create a powerful professional-looking website with just a few clicks of your mouse. The platform includes over 100 free templates and dozens of free add-ons that enable you to customize your site according to your preferences. In addition, Shopify offers many paid add-ons(also known as “apps”) that will allow you to sell physical products or digital products like music or videos on your ecommerce site as well as provide customer support through live chat or email messaging services.
Webflow is a website builder that allows you to create websites without coding. If you are unfamiliar with Webflow, it is a great option if you want to create a website without learning how to code. Webflow also offers an interactive drag-and-drop interface so that users can build sites without writing any code. This can be especially useful for individuals who do not have any experience in web design or development, but still want to create professional looking websites for their business or personal use.
Conclusion
Selling online is a fast-paced and exciting field that can be extremely lucrative. It may seem like a lot of work at first, but once you get the hang of it, it’s easy to keep growing your business. The most important thing is to remember that there is no one right or wrong way to do ecommerce—you just need to find what works best for your brand!
We hope this post has given you an idea of what’s available and what to look for in an ecommerce solution. If you have questions and want to continue the conversation with one of our team members, contact us anytime to schedule a call.
