How can a business survive these days without eCommerce? Can you imagine how the quarantine looked like for anyone who needed to do their groceries but didn’t want to go out of the house? How is this generation supposed to function without eCommerce? It is truly impossible to imagine this world now without online stores. If your business still doesn’t have an online store, then you better roll up your sleeves and get to work. No business can survive right now without an online presence.
Of course, it is harder for small businesses to invest in an eCommerce platform. Aside from the website itself, businesses also rely heavily on vulnerability assessment web application, a tool that highlights the vulnerabilities of a website or a program. These tools prevent cyberattacks and protect sensitive information provided for by your clients. This is a huge undertaking for small and even medium businesses. Unfortunately, there is no getting around it.
Look at the Statistics
Studies, surveys, and researches will show that online stores aren’t just a passing trend or fad. These digital stores are here to stay and they will dominate (if they haven’t already) the traditional brick and mortar stores. Take a look at these numbers:
- This year, the online shopping market will breach the four-trillion mark. Thanks to the pandemic, this will be achieved faster.
- By 2023, it is expected that there will be 300 million online shoppers in the United States. That 91% of the entire population.
- During the first quarter of this year, 69% of Americans have shopped online and 25% of them shop online at least once a month.
- People all over the world are shopping online. Aside from the United States, the United Kingdom, Sweden, France, Germany, Japan, Spain, China, Russia, and Brazil are among the leading countries in eCommerce shoppers. The average revenue per online shopper is $350 for Brazil up to $1,804 for the United States.
- In 2018, 1.8 billion people worldwide shopped online. That amounted to $2.8 trillion in sales. By 2021, global e-retail sales will blow to $4.8 trillion.
These numbers alone should tell you what your business needs to survive such a volatile time in economic history. But even without the threat of the coronavirus, it’s high time for you to build an eCommerce site for your retail store. All markets are demanding convenience in terms of accessibility of your products and services. If your business cannot provide the most important thing that your market demands, how will it thrive in its industry?
Reduced Costs
What the pandemic taught many businesses is that they can survive even without a physical store, but they certainly cannot survive without an eCommerce platform or a social media presence. This reduced costs significantly. Rent is one of the top expenses of most businesses. Without needing to pay for rent, you can save that money to use as additional capital later on. Aside from the rent, you’ll also be saved from paying the utility bills such as the internet and power.
Extend Reach
Have you always dreamed of sending products to foreign buyers? Don’t you want to extend your business’ reach outside your city, state, and country? The most effective way to achieve this goal is by having an eCommerce platform. Posting your products online will allow you to sell them anywhere in the world. With a physical store, you are limited to the geographical area where your store is. An online store expands your business.
Fewer Risks
A brick-and-mortar store is more than just about renting a space. It’s renovating, designing, and decorating this space according to how you want to present your business. You are going to spend on maintaining the store, hiring a salesperson, and even securing the premises. An online store eliminates all of these. Even if you plan to run both a physical and digital store, your business will still enjoy fewer risks and more opportunities.
Better Marketing Opportunities
The best digital marketing tool you can have in your arsenal is your eCommerce store. The internet allows anyone to market anything to everyone. Search engine algorithms favor digital stores as long as you use the right metadata. Once people search using the same keywords you used on the alt text of the images and the metadata, your web page can appear on top of the search results. This is the kind of opportunity that you’re missing out on by not having an eCommerce site.
The importance of online stores cannot be underscored enough. Your business has to have an eCommerce presence for it to be relevant. Without it, you are simply not giving your business a fighting chance to thrive in this economy.
