Benefits of an E-Commerce Website:
Some of the major key benefits of an e-commerce website include:
Overcome geographical limitations
If you have a physical store, you are limited by the geographical area that you can service. With an e-commerce website, the whole world is your playground. Additionally, the advent of mobile devices, has in essence dissolved every remaining limitation of geography.
Gain new customers with search engine visibility
Physical retail is driven by branding and relationships. In addition to these two drivers, online retail is also driven by traffic from search engines. It is not unusual for customers to follow a link in search engine results, and land on an e-commerce website that they have never heard of. This additional source of traffic can be the tipping point for some e-commerce businesses.
Lower costs
One of the most tangible positives of e-commerce is the lowered cost. A part of these lowered costs could be passed on to customers in the form of discounted prices. Here are some of the ways that costs can be reduced with e-commerce:
Advertising and marketing
- Organic search engine traffic, pay-per-click, and social media traffic are some of the advertising channels that can be cost-effective.
Personnel
- The automation of checkout, billing, payments, inventory management, and other operational processes, lowers the number of employees required to run an e-commerce setup.
Real estate
- This one is a no-brainer. An e-commerce merchant does not need a prominent physical location.
Paper work
- E-commerce websites are very cost effective in administration terms.
Locate the product quicker
Eliminate travel time and cost
Provide comparison shopping
Enable deals, bargains, coupons, and group buying
Provide more information
Create targeted communication
Using the information that a customer provides in the registration form, and by placing cookies on the customer’s computer, an e-commerce merchant can access a lot of information about its customers. This, in turn, can be used to communicate relevant messages.
An example: If you are searching for a certain product on Amazon.com, you will automatically be shown listings of other similar products. In addition, Amazon.com may also email you about related products.
Stay open all the time
Store opening times are now 24/7. E-commerce websites can run all the time. From the merchant’s point of view, this increases the number of orders they receive. From the customer’s point of view, an “always open” store is more convenient.