The pandemic has shifted the online eCommerce industry in acceleration at an unprecedented rate. Online selling was already a trend on which people were cashing heavily; pandemic has nudged it in the direction of scalability.
While players like Amazon and Alibaba dominate the eCommerce segment, more and more new players have emerged in the pandemic. Existing eCommerce players have also shifted to digital platforms in order to serve their customers. There has been a visible and significant shift in the importance of eCommerce during the pandemic.
The outbreak of Covid-19 has drastically changed the whole ecosystem of eCommerce and it is now a common norm to get things delivered; from food to groceries everything at the doorstep.
The pandemic has changed consumer behavior and everyone now prefers shopping online and avoiding contact as much as possible. The eCommerce industry has seen a 40% rise since the outbreak was first reported and it is estimated that it will only grow from here.
An eCommerce store will offer the customer many benefits that would result in them visiting your store at a later stage too. If you are planning to open your eCommerce business or thinking of shifting your offline store to an online platform, there is no good time as now.
But you may ask why now. Let’s understand the value your eCommerce store will offer to your customers. This will help you make an informed decision.
Offering Convenience Through Your eCommerce Store
Nothing speaks more convenience than shopping for your wishlist right from the comfort of your home, and this is what the masses are looking for today. The meaning of the term “convenience” has undergone a massive change in recent times. Earlier, convenience meant going to the nearby store and shopping for the things you need. Today, no one wants to spend time and energy driving to their store when they can get the same things delivered to their homes, and at discounted prices.
Having an online store offers convenience in the rawest form to the customers. All your products are easily available to the customers right from your website and they can compare the prices and buy items from their comfort.
The online store is open 24/7, which lets the customers buy the items they desire any time of the hour. With social distancing so prevalent, traditional ways of shopping are a tedious task and now not a preferred mode of shopping. But with online stores, shopping has never been easier.
Expanding Your Market Demographics
Any business that operates out of a brick-and-mortar-based shop has already limited its market potential and can only cater to a limited audience. For stores that don’t sell anything unique or any specialized products, chances are they will lose out on recurring customers.
An online store will ensure that you have a maximized market reach with minimal efforts so when a person searches for the product you sell, your website is automatically shown to them. With an online store, you can sell all around the world without having to limit yourself to a specific geographical location.
Using a digital platform to take your business online will ensure that you reach your potential market and reach out to just a handful of people but to millions of customers out there. With Covid-19 and social distancing here to stay, it is crucial that you take your business online and maximize your reach.
Get Insights on Consumer Behaviour
One of the major benefits of an eCommerce business is that you can track everything and anything about the visitors coming to your website. Customers coming to a website provide too much valuable information that can help you provide a better shopping experience to your customers.
If you know how your customers interact with the website, you can use that information to create new strategies and new business opportunities. Some of the things you should focus on when understanding consumer behavior is customer segmentation, how they interact with the site, how they reached the website, what they are visiting and purchasing, and on which divide they are accessing the website.
If you can identify and understand the motives of the consumers, you can optimize your eCommerce platform to suit their needs and requirements. With pandemics altering consumer behavior, it is important to be on top of things and the best way is to understand the customer’s preferences.
Lowering Expenses Through eCommerce
A brick and mortar store results in a lot of overhead expenditure such as staff salaries, maintenance costs, and other miscellaneous expenses of utilities. With these risks in place, many stores have either closed their doors or have adapted to the extended measures.
With the current scenario, businesses are not generating revenue and less revenue means that the necessary expenses required for operations become harder to pay. However, eCommerce can help business owners lower their variable operating costs.
The online store does not require any additional expenses to operate which helps in lowering the expenses and any revenue earned can go towards other necessary expenses needed to run the site smoothly.
Running an eCommerce business online can also help save on advertisement-related expenses. Offline businesses need to run advertisements on TV or radio which results in overhead expenditure that can affect the revenue. In the case of the online store, you can create a set budget to be used on cost-effective advertisements on social media and for pay-per-click ads.
Final Thoughts
Before the pandemic, many offline stores never thought about switching to the online platform as the need never arose. However, with changing times there is an unprecedented need to offer services and products online in order to survive and keep with the pandemic-altering environment.
Companies still relying on brick and mortar stores are finding it difficult to cope with the changing times and are slowly and steadily shifting their base to online platforms. There are many benefits that are associated with online shopping that is now being brought to light by the Covid-19-induced paradigm shift. For one to survive these challenging times, eCommerce is one way to be.
