Would I like an eCommerce Website? Why Sell Online?
Put yourself out there.

It’s the age-old question, isn’t it? Why sell online if your physical store sales are soaring. Well… the age-old answer is all you’ll get here, we’re afraid…why ever not!?

A lot of companies can become content and comfy with the success of their physical store. Don’t get us wrong – it’s an incredible achievement if you’re seeing month on month and year on year increases in your in-store sales..! But, why become comfortable? Why stop there?

Use your readily available business data to your advantage. In having a successful offline/high street store, you already know which of your products or services are best sellers. You’re at a solid advantage. Why not capitalize upon this and sell these online too? If you’re just getting down to dip your toe into the refreshing, welcoming water of the ‘online pool’, your best-sellers are the perfect place to begin.

Don’t accept just in-store sales. Here are a couple of advantages of eCommerce to satiate your interests:

You’ll reach a broader audience.

There are actually several people searching the net each day for products and services and also the frequency of transactions made online is increasing year on year. the net world can seem daunting, yes, (but that’s what the BridgeWebBots are here to assist with! this can be what we do!) especially if eCommerce could be a new concept to you… But why would you like to miss out on these additional sales? Don’t just accept ‘doing well. Exceed all of your initial expectations.

It is relatively inexpensive.

Okay – yes. There are costs attached to putting in place an internet store, and if eCommerce is involved, you don’t just want to be spending a pair of hundred on something that's so complex. In fact, we’d strongly advise against it as you’re only setting yourself up for failure. You wouldn’t believe the number of companies coming to us with their website in ‘SOS status’ trying to find advice or a quick-fix. Well, the reality of the matter is (unfortunately) if you pay peanuts, you get monkeys – it’s far more budget-friendly to speculate in an exceedingly future-proof, well structured and fully-eComm-capable website once than spend some hundred on a bog-standard template, must get in an arm and a leg for it to be fixed when it inevitably breaks, they should invest in an exceedingly well-built site finally that anyway!

Being so complex, eCommerce websites have to be built from the bottom up and no two companies are identical, so there really isn’t a one-size-fits-all solution.

eCommerce websites are often an investment, that’s true. However, the value of getting a very bespoke eCommerce website built from the bottom up is significantly less costly than coming out of a physical business venture.

If you’re looking to start out up a business and forced an entry into new markets, fixing an internet business is remarkably less of sway on the budget than it might be to line up an offline business, because the whole sales processing system for the business is automated online.

You can operate from anywhere.

Take your business on the go with you! On the train, on your lunch, in a very different country! the chances are endless, as long as you have got internet access. Log on, process a transaction, log the order, and exit. Simple!

There are not any time restrictions.
It’s near-unprecedented to possess a 24/7 main street store; transactions can only be made in opening hours which are usually between 9 am and 5.30 pm. As of June 2017, the UK’s employment rate was 75.1% of the whole population. If we assume that the bulk of those employees have a typical 9 to five job…they’re visiting find it difficult to spare time to try to to a bit retail therapy, except on their lunch break if they will spare a moment. does one want to miss out on a possible 75% of sales? we predict not!

However, making yourself available at any time, from any device, in any situation means the working population isn’t excluded and may make an acquisition at absolutely any time that's convenient.

Measurability: Use instant data to your advantage.

eCommerce sites provide you with instant data on transactions, interest, on-site searches, and revenue.

You can use this data to analyze which of your products are your best sellers, which helps you identify scalability – once you’ve got yourself established you’ll be ready to have the correct amount of inventory of every item available, meaning you chop company losses and also keep your customers by happy by having the ability to ship out right away without awaiting an item to return back available.

You can also use this data to undertake and encourage the acquisition of products of your choice. as an example, it’s a widely known incontrovertible fact that items above the fold tend to sell out quicker than those below the fold or on subsequent pages. If you have got a stock of 100 on a product you’re looking to shift, have a manipulate along with your page structure and A/B test where your users are presumably to convert.

The on-site search is a motivating feature. People may come to your website trying to find a particular product, but the overwhelming majority of consumers may use a special search term for the particular product title. you'll use this data to re-name your products to it which your website users search, meaning that you’re increasing the likelihood of conversion as you’re providing them with exactly what they’re searching for.

Higher Margins and Improved income.

Selling online means you're able to increase your margins, increasing your profit. income is additionally improved because the majority of the better-known payment gateways (Paypal, Sagepay, WorldPay, etc) demand instant payment, meaning you’re receiving the whole transaction right away (unless you’re employing a credit gateway like the likes of Klarna and their ‘buy now, pay later feature, of course, to avoid abandoned carts – but we’ll get in this another time!).

Don’t come in eCommerce all-guns-blazing, get into with a methodical strategy.

You wouldn’t open up a physical store without doing all your research and forming a method, so don’t jazz online either. Commonly, as a website isn’t a ‘tangible item’ they’re deemed as the smaller, and less focus is allocated to the net aspect of a business, but this may set you up for disaster.

First things first, do your research and evaluate your software.

Different software can suit different businesses in numerous ways.

If you’re just starting out and need something small scale, WooCommerce is usually a reliable and simple option.

On the opposite hand, if your website is complex and you wish for something that's multi-faceted it’s common for us to make completely custom e-commerce platforms in Laravel.

If you’re undecided, you'll be able to call us on 01325 631729 and that we can advise what’s best for you support your requirements, but it's so important to try your research!

Think multi-device.

As we touched upon earlier, lots of eCommerce transactions are made on the go. so as to form your website inclusive to any or all and fully user-friendly, you would like to be thinking multi-device. you would possibly have some customers preferring to impulse-buy from their laptop late evening, but you furthermore may have people doing a touch little bit of guilt-free online shopping on their commute to figure employing a tablet or mobile device. Your design must be responsive and optimized for every device.

In Mid 2018, we’re expecting Google to roll out their ‘Mobile-First Index’ update. In summary, currently, Google crawls your website focusing totally on a desktop, but they’ve realized that in doing therefore the algorithm is also returning results for mobile users that aren’t as appropriate as they might be. We’ve been designing in a very ‘mobile-first manner for a long time now, to enhance the responsiveness of the website on each device, giving your website a far better chance of success.

Don’t know which device your users are using the most? Create yourself a Google Analytics account if you haven’t already – you may be shocked by the result!

Build your brand. Don’t forget customer service!

For your eCommerce website to glean success, you wish to make the trust of your customers.

Your website has to be expertly designed, provide accurate and honest product information, high-quality images, and have all the right security procedures in situ, like SSL. As of January 2017, Google began penalizing websites that captured personal data that didn’t have SSL in situ.

Including testimonials and merchandise reviews on your eCommerce website is additionally beneficial as this demonstrates to new users how reliable and trustworthy as a corporation you're, and what quite quality product you offer. It gives new users a way of security and trust within the business knowing that others have previously purchased, and are happy enough to supply you with glowing feedback.

This is also a decent thanks to showing your customers your impeccable customer service. If someone isn’t entirely proud of their product, as an example, if it had been broken transit, you'll provide them with a fast reply that resolves the difficulty. Ideally, you would like to produce a reply within a pair of hours, but you need to leave it not than 24 hours from the instant the feedback was provided. (Did you recognize that Amazon will often suspend your selling privileges if you respond later than 24 hours? Customer service is actually that big of a deal!)

Keep the sale ongoing… a.k.a MARKET MARKET MARKET!!

Marketing is de facto key to the success of your business and there’s little question this. the utilization of a multi-channel marketing strategy ensures you’re protected against all angles when Google inevitably rolls out yet one more algorithm update, moving the goalposts around where best practices are concerned. It’s frustrating, but it’s just the character of the beast, unfortunately.

Through the mixture of SEO, PPC, Social Media, and Email Marketing, you make sure that you mostly have a line of communication open along with your customers. as an example, if Google rolls out a brand new update and your website feels the effect, during the interim recovery period you'll be able to fall back on your PPC, Social Media, and Email Marketing strategies and really amp them up while you climb your way make a copy the SERPs.

In terms of repeat business, it’s always easier to win the second purchase once you’ve brought within the first because as long because the user’s experience was a positive one, they’ll trust the corporate and need to shop for it again. you'll make this easier for yourself by targeting specific users with certain offers or ‘you haven’t shopped with us for a while’ emails to remind your users to return.

Abandoned cart emails also are so effective at saving lost orders. what number of times have you ever had a cheeky shopping spree, adding X amount of things, visiting your basket, deciding against it after you see the whole cost, and clicking the cross. You’re able to send automated emails at certain intervals to your users, to re-spark the will to get. A sneaky, but effective method is to send these emails at intervals of two hours, 9 hours, and at last 24 hours. It’s not uncommon to supply a little discount like 5% off on the last abandoned cart email sent, as a final try to get the customer to process the order (and you’d be surprised by how often it works!).

KEEP OPTIMISING.

You need to constantly be improving because so is that the web and its users have gotten savvier annually. an internet site needs a refresh generally every 3-4 years so if your sales have dried au fait a 5+-year-old site, it’s probably because you’re out of date, out of fashion, and not meeting the currently accepted practices online.