1. eCommerce
eCommerce is a great solution for companies. In fact, selling online has a lot of benefits in addition to being a great opportunity, since, in 2021, over 2,14 billion people worldwide are expected to buy goods and services online. In the following paragraphs, we will present you with some benefits of selling online and a few ideas to optimize your time in this unusual period.
Benefits of Selling Online
Selling online allows your company to be present worldwide. With the pandemic, we saw eCommerce gaining further traction with consumers. In Canada, online purchases have almost doubled in two weeks following March 11th, 2020. It is also a 99% increase compared to 2019. (Source)
Furthermore, eCommerce does not restrict you to a defined region. A transactional website allows you to present your products no matter where your customers are. They can find what they are looking for with Internet research. With online sales, you can offer a bigger range of products, while customizing the client experience for each of your site visitors. Being accessible 24/7 also represents a notable advantage. With a well-referenced website, you could potentially increase your sales. Besides, offering discount codes valid only online may be a good incentive for in-store customers who wish to buy virtually. By doing so, retailers can also increase their chances of standing out from the competition.
eCommerce has other benefits, like newsletters. Sending newsletters to customers is an excellent way to keep in touch with them. You can inform your customers about promotions, new products, and more! Informing your clients increases the chances of them coming back to your website to view your new items and possibly purchase one or many of them. However, you have to make sure you have your client’s approval before sending any marketing materials by email (in Canada).
Cross-selling
eCommerce has many tools that allow you to sell even more. Cross-selling is a great way of increasing your sales. The goal here is to suggest similar or complementary products to clients when they are about to complete a transaction. For example, a customer buys a laptop. Before proceeding to the payment, your site can suggest the customer purchases a protective cover to go with the first item. This helps the buyer be sure they have everything they need, provides a better service and potentially increases sales.
Free Shipping
Encourage your clients to buy online by offering free shipping. That is an interesting way of increasing online sales. Customers tend to buy even more online because the products can be less expensive with free shipping compared to your competitors who may charge for delivery. According to a study, free shipping could increase online orders by more than 15%. (Source) Also, offering home delivery encourages potential clients to buy, especially since many of them avoid going outside, due to Covid-19 risks. This initiative allows you to retain customers while promoting the Health Organization Guidelines, and the importance of your customers’ health. Finally, do not forget that fast shipping is oftentimes greatly appreciated, which is why offering different shipping options at different price points can help provide for different budgets and delivery requirements.
Web Data
One of eCommerce’s biggest strengths is the possibility to know your customers really well. With online sales, you can obtain information on shopping habits and some interests your clients might have but your store may not offer. This allows us to adjust according to trends.
For instance, it is possible to analyze Internet users that have visited your website. Google Analytics is one of the best-known platforms that collects information on your visitors. You have access to a great variety of information concerning the people who visited your website. It can be the number of visitors, the average length of the visits on one page and much more!
With this information, you can understand your clients’ habits, and realize some modifications to match their needs and improve their experience. With the Covid-19 crisis, customers tend to shop online. As shown in an Engine survey, people spend 10% to 30% more time online. (Source) It is then possible for you to look at the data. Thus, it is possible to elaborate beneficial strategies regarding changes among the clients’ purchasing habits.
Ultimately, if you need details on where to begin with eCommerce, or even improve your actual website with our partners, many solutions are available for you. For example, Alice POS allows among other things to synchronize our point of sale system to our partners like Ecwid, WooCommerce or Shopify, which greatly facilitates eCommerce.