The world economy has been on a sluggish growth path ever since the 2007-2008 world financial crises. Businesses bore the brunt of these economic ills as their sales plummeted while their costs either remained stagnant or increased. The world economy is only just starting to recover. However, despite this economic recession there was tremendous if not phenomenal growth in E-commerce. It saved businesses by providing them with a sustainable and ever increasing market for their products and services.
E-commerce is not as complicated as most people tend to think. It is simply the selling and buying of goods and services over some form of electronic platform. The most widespread of these platforms is the internet in addition to other computer networking systems.
There are several reasons as to why you need to incorporate E-commerce into your everyday business model. These reasons are as follows;
- You need to overcome traditional state and political boundaries that impair trade and growth. Having physical retail locations in each every country in the world and or even each and every state in the USA is a daunting if not impossible task for most businesses. This is where E-commerce comes into play.
E-commerce provides you with a platform to communicate and sell to wide array of consumers anywhere in the world. For example, according to comScore, retail websites were visited by about 55 million US citizens on Black Friday alone. There is no other platform in the word that can give retailers this kind of exposure to such a wide market on a single day.
- You need to increase your customer base by attracting new customers through E-commerce. E-commerce will help you increase your visibility on the World Wide Web and thereby give you a shot at attracting new customers. It will make you visible to over 35% of the world’s population who use the internet (as at Dec. 2011). In the US alone E-commerce will make you visible to approx. 76.5% of the country’s population in 2013.
It is an obvious fact that not all internet users will necessarily visit your website but internet users who search for similar products and services that you offer will be able to view your website and purchase these products and services from you. This is something that physical retail outlets cannot offer no matter how numerous and widespread they are.
A good example of this beneficial aspect of E-commerce is bfads.net which was visited by nearly 4million unique visitors just before this year’s Black Friday. These 4 million unique visitors were just ordinary consumers searching for big time Black Friday deals on the internet. Bfads.net is primarily a Black Friday deals website.
- E-commerce will reduce your costs to unbelievably low levels. Businesses spend fortunes on advertising to their financial detriment. They have to pay for advertisements on TV, magazines, radio, signposts and newspapers. All of these costs can be minimized if not eliminated by E-commerce.
In E-commerce you do not need an entire marketing team to oversee the marketing aspect of your business. You can actually do the marketing on your own. Furthermore, in the face of a sluggish global economic recovery that is projected to peak at about 3.4% in 2013 you should seriously consider using E-commerce as a cost cutting measure. It will reduce your costs while keeping you visible in the market.
- Unlike traditional market platforms, E-commerce is an open 24 hour market i.e. it never closes. Consumers can buy your products anytime and anywhere they feel good and ready to do so. They can even buy it from the comfort of their home. This makes buying overly convenient for the consumer as he or she can also get to read more on the product as displayed on your website and therefore make an appropriate decision as to which items they will buy.
With E-commerce you do not need a large staff at hand to cater to an entire store of consumers. All you need is a few support staff who can handle consumer queries through a telephone or an online chat platform.
E-commerce’s ability to give you’re a 24hour trading platform will enable you to effectively and conveniently sell to overseas markets such as China, Europe and the Middle East which all fall under different time zones.
- E-commerce can help you find markets specifically tailored to products and services that you offer. This happens due to the fact that once people cannot find what they are looking for locally they will often go to the internet and try to find it there. This is especially true when it comes to people who search the internet for highly unique items or people who search the internet for low prices on certain items. In either case E-commerce will help you reach such consumers.
This particular benefit of E-commerce was evidenced on Cyber Monday which saw a 28% growth in Digital Content and subscriptions in 2011. This is the highest growth recorded in all categories of products offered for sale on that day. It just goes to show how people value a combination of convenience, cheap pricing and product specificity.
It is important to note that consumers will also tend to opt for a long lasting business relationship with certain businesses if they find that these businesses have what they had been endlessly looking for. E-commerce can therefore help you to find long run sustainable markets.
- E-commerce can be very useful in getting you a bit more information on your consumers. This information will be availed to you since consumers often have to fill in certain online forms as they purchase your products. The information pertains to their geographical location and certain demographics such as their age bracket. You can then use this information to further develop your products to suit particular market niches.
Ensure that your business is ready for 2013. Do not let the sales that will be witnessed in next year’s Black Friday and Cyber Monday pass you by. Take advantage of E-commerce today. E-commerce will help you business boost sales, reduce costs and increase its market share. Your business needs E-commerce in 2013. Be sure to take advantage of it.