What are the advantages eCommerce?
The eCommerce began to gain popularity in the early 2000sin accordance with the growth of the internet business sector. However, it was not until many years later that it became a popular and favorite way of buying and selling products and services. Indeed, companies quickly began to see that virtuality offers many advantages:
less investment. From paying rent and store services to hiring employees, there is a large economic effort for retailers when it comes to setting up a physical store. Instead, open a shop online does not require any initial investment, apart from accommodation costs hosting.
24 hour service. Physical activity is limited by working and working hours. On the other hand, in a virtual store, a customer can make a purchase at any time of the day and from any device, which means more sales.
Access to more consumers. The average consumer usually doesn’t travel too far to make a purchase, which means that a brick-and-mortar store will only reach a certain number of customers. On the other hand, the possibilities of growth of a virtual company are much greater, and therefore the possibility of getting more clients.
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Obtaining information about consumers. When a customer makes a purchase from an online store, they leave the company with a number of very important demographic data. This is used to create profiles of potential customers and better tailor marketing strategies. marketing.
Of course, when we talk about eCommerce We can also mention some disadvantages. One of them has to do with the constant increase in cybercrime, which can affect the company financially, but also damage its reputation. In order to avoid being a victim of cybercrime, it is possible to apply techniques: with seon.io cheatsFor example, high-risk clients can be identified, which are malicious users who might hack virtual store, steal sensitive information or impersonate other users.
how to create a eCommerce Step by step
Now that we know the main advantages and disadvantages of starting an e-commerce business, it’s time to see how to create one in 5 very simple steps.
Step 1: decide what to sell
Before setting up a virtual store, we need to know what we want to sell. Will it be a product? From the service? In order to decide what we will offer, it is best to define a market niche: an area that is not completely covered by the general offer and take a recognizable place there.
Step 2: Create a business plan
When we know what will be the characteristics of the products or services that we will sell, we have to make a business plan.. This is, broadly speaking, a document that will set out our business goals, our strategies for achieving those goals, and the actions that will form part of those strategies.
Step 3: Research the market
Of course, we cannot launch into selling a product or service without studying the market! And, mostly, without a detailed study of what will be our main competition. This will help us to have precise information about who our competitors are and how they work.as well as predict possible trending products in advance and anticipate them.
But, beyond that, knowing the competition will allow us to differentiate ourselves from them. In order for the public to choose us over an organization that offers similar products or services, it is important that we propose something new to attract them.
Step 4: Find the perfect platform
Finding a platform is one of the key moments in creating a eCommerce. As in recent years there has been a boom There are many options available in e-commerce. We will have to choose the one that best suits our capabilities and needs.: for example, if we have a catalog that is too extensive, it might be a good idea to choose a hosting with enough virtual space.
The eCommerce the chosen one, moreover, must be sufficiently secure. For this it is important that you respect international standards, such as SSL certificate and HTTPS protocol. This will ensure that communication between the server and the client is completely secure.
Some of the platforms hosting ecommerce plus they are important Cloud StoreBigCommerce or Shopify, the company that created YouTube Shopping together with Google to offer the ability to sell through video and live streaming.
Step 5: Apply SEO techniques
electronic commerce and marketing digital go hand in hand. And one of the most important strategies in marketing is SEO. But what exactly is it and how can it help a virtual store?
SEO is an acronym for Search engine optimization, or “search engine optimization”. It is basically a set of techniques designed to improve a website’s position in the most popular search engines. In other words: content with well-applied SEO will appear first in the Google search results. Some the most important SEO techniques are keyword embedding, a good URL, and strong meta descriptions.
Conclusion
Deciding to create a virtual store can be a big challenge. however,starting an online sale of products and services is not a complex task! Fortunately, today there are several platforms that offer all the necessary services for a small or medium-sized business to start selling online without much effort.