As a result of COVID-19, many retailers who had their shops at physical locations were forced to take their shops online to succeed. The major ones among them were businesses such as apparel, consumer electronics, and office supplies. They could make the required updates based on the changes in the market and trends in shopping.

However, other business sectors, such as pharmacies, hardware requirements, and sporting goods, have yet to make a major impact online. Yet, there are plenty of ways these small retailers can set up their shop online and significantly impact eCommerce business.

How Small Businesses Benefit From eCommerce

eCommerce has changed the way you conduct business nowadays. This growth has allowed small businesses to spread their wings and access previously unreachable markets. These small businesses can make their digital presence known. With a digital presence, they can have a larger audience and have different scopes for expanding their business. Since the digital world is automated and widespread, all you must do as a small business owner is to ensure you follow the rules and regulations for posting online. If you don’t have enough budget to spruce up your online business, you can do so by starting small.

Let’s examine the basic requirements to start small and make your presence known online.

• Get Your Website

The first step in setting up your online presence is to have your website. Building this website will let you interact with more people and spread the word online. The great part is that you don’t need special skills to build a basic website. Plenty of templates available online will help you build a starter website. Depending on the template you choose, they will often guide you through the process too.

• Avail the Right Hosting Service

The next step to take your business online is to select the correct hosting service for your website. Selecting the right one will ensure that your buyers have easy access to your website, irrespective of where they are. A great starting step is to check that the hosting service you choose is equipped to handle an eCommerce website.

• Engage Professional Help

When building your online presence, there are many steps that you can take on your own. However, in some respects, you will need to hire professional services. A professional can help you get started with your website. They can help with marketing, building services, and do Search Engine Optimization (SEO) for your website.

Once you have built your website, the next step is to learn how to leverage the power of eCommerce and how it will help boost your small business.

How eCommerce Helps Small Businesses

With rapid digitization, we rely on digital mediums to ensure that we are always connected. Whenever customers think of buying new products, the first place they search is online. They look at the product, read the reviews, and then make an informed purchase decision.

For the customers, the size of the business is immaterial. What matters to them is the quality of the product the business provides. So, the key here is to provide quality products, make your website user-friendly and make the purchase process as seamless as possible.

There are a few of the following ways that can help an eCommerce business scale and increase revenue.

• Enhance Reach

eCommerce lets you reach more audiences online thereby increasing the number of customers. If you have a brick-and-mortar store, your reach is limited to local. You can hardly expect people to travel hundreds of miles to visit your shop. Once you take your shop online, these geographical boundaries fade, and people worldwide can reach you. You can start on a small scale and, based on the customers’ response, decide to make your product travel worldwide.

• Leverage Other Commercial Platforms

You might want to start creating your handles on established commercial platforms to get more footfalls in your online store. This will enable you to build a brand name for your small business. An ideal example is Amazon which has sections to set up and promote small businesses. This is the first step to establish trust and build a loyal customer base. You can introduce discounts through different coupons to encourage repeat business. You can also encourage your audience to visit your website to shop for a wider range of products. The idea is to build your website traffic by establishing shops on an existing eCommerce platform.

• Budget Promotions

If you, as a small business owner, have a tight marketing budget, plenty of online resources will help you with that. These eCommerce platforms will let you promote your product on their website at a small cost. Not only that, you can also personalize the messages you use for promotion to appeal to your target audience. So, it means you get to promote your product across multiple platforms on minimum spend, which can ensure that you never run out of budget. One of the great ways of advertising is through social media platforms which will not cost you tons of money in marketing and will also increase business revenue.

• Personalized Services

After you have built your online business, take a step further and personalize it. Once you build a steady customer base, take the time to look at their purchase history and try and suggest customizations for them. Even a simple thank you note goes a long way to demonstrate to the customer that you care, and their business is important to you. Afterward, once your business is more successful, you can look at tools available to create that personalized shopping experience for each customer.

• Easy Shop and Sell

With eCommerce, it is convenient for you to sell your product online making it easy for customers to shop online. You don’t have to go through the hassle of renting or purchasing a place to store goods; your customer doesn’t have to take the trouble of finding your brick-and-mortar shop. Either way, it is a win-win situation.

Conclusion:

eCommerce has become a necessary part of our everyday life. In this scenario, if you are not taking your business online, you are losing many potential customers and revenue growth. Through eCommerce, you can decide how much you want to sell and in which location you want to limit your delivery. Start small and dream big!

About XPDEL:

XPDEL is a leading hi-tech provider of fulfillment and logistics services on a mission to enable growth for eCommerce companies. We are futuristic in our vision and constantly work on creating technology that helps us meet customer expectations for today and tomorrow.