What Options Are Available For Ecommerce?
Online shopping has grown in its popularity over the recent years, with customers appreciating the fact they can shop in the comfort of their own homes for various reasons. (For introverts like myself, it is a God send!) Not only does online shopping offer many benefits for the customers but for the businesses as well.
But here's where some businesses may struggle.
You know you can reach more potential customers if you had a web store or an ecommerce site but:
* You don't have the time to set it up properly
* Setting up an online store can be intimidating
* You're worried that an online store will take away from your customers in your brick & mortar store
Time To Set It Up
I've worked with a few ecommerce sites in the past, so I know they can be time-consuming. If you are a business owner, the thought of having to come up with the time to build a web store can be impossible. As a business owner who focuses on retail, you probably spend most of your time helping customers, working on inventory and dealing with administrative tasks such as payroll, scheduling, etc. Sure, there's time in the evening to work on an ecommerce site but you already feel like most of your free time is spent working on work as it is...
How Hard Will This Be?
What if you aren't a web designer? How hard can it be?
Sure, some of the platforms look easy, but there are a lot of steps involved to make sure everything is right -- especially the shopping cart. You want people to be able to add items and check out easily, not feel like it's wasting their time to order on your site. Plus, you want it to look just right, too. That can take time.
Will It Take Away From My Existing Store?
Not necessarily. An ecommerce store can actually accentuate your current store. Think of the customers you currently have: are they local? are they tourists? are they raving fans of whatever you offer? Any of these can be potential ecommerce customers that help grow your business. If they are local -- they may want to order online and have it sent to someone else. Or, even better, they may want send a link of your website to friends and family to check out what you offer. (Think of how many times you've had something you wanted for a gift giving occasion and wish you could show someone exactly what you wanted. Wouldn't it be easier to send a link to someone?)
Tourists who find your store may want to buy more of what you offer when they return home, especially if they didn't have enough room to pack some goodies on their trip.
How about when you find the perfect store and know you college best friend who lives 5 states away would love it? You want to share that with her, don't you?
The internet has made shopping global and having a website, particularly that can be bringing in sales for you is a great addition to your business.
And for many artisans and craftsmen, having a brick & mortar location can drastically cut into their profits or be impossible to afford. An ecommerce site provides a professional looking site without the overhead and expenditures of a physical location.
A Possible Solution
These are all natural concerns -- but you do have some options available to you.
Precision eCommerce is one such option.
Precision eCommerce founder, Glenn Walker found Zoey when he was looking for a better ecommerce site for his wife's store and knew this was something other small business owners would need...but maybe didn't have the time to implement themselves.
As a small business owner himself, he understood the unique challenges entrepreneurs faced with trying to run their business and handling their website. That led Glenn to launch Precision eCommerce, complete with not only ecommerce site builds but providing business owners with graphic designers, such as Sheila Bentley, to create your logos; and myself, to offer web content for their ecommerce clients.
Having an ecommerce site can enhance your current brick and mortar location, or provide a professional site for those without a storefront.