The Vitality of eCommerce in the new era of shopping
Selling products and services through an eCommerce website is the undeniable future of customer shopping, because of various trends including today’s consumer and convenience focussed society. In today’s competitive shopping market, customers do not necessarily always want to venture to physical high street shops to make purchases, the nature of eCommerce bridges this gap.
This was certainly true before recent times, but because of the coronavirus pandemic outbreak and subsequent distancing measures, eCommerce has been granted even more importance and more of a solidified place in the landscape of shopping and purchasing. According to research, 52% of consumers would now avoid visiting physical high street stores in the current climate of coronavirus measures, meaning that eCommerce has become increasingly integrated into the daily habits of consumers, and has begun to replace essential product purchasing such as groceries at a rapid rate.
This therefore means that businesses of all size without an eCommerce website function should consider upgrading their offer, and even those with current eCommerce functions should consider altering and optimising their store (see our previous blog) because of these benefits:
Scalability
One of the major benefits of having an online store within your website is the opportunities for scalability that it provides. The flexibility of eCommerce means that as your product line or service offer grows and adapts in any way, you can quickly alter the capacity of your eCommerce platform to suit this- without the large scale and cost-heavy process of changing location or moving to a larger store that comes with brick and mortar commerce.
This is fundamentally important in current times in which many businesses have found themselves suddenly needing to adopt features to facilitate remote interactions with consumers, and be able to increase or decrease their level of supply based upon fluctuating demand.
Marketing Opportunities
Data collection and analysis which allows deeper consumer insight to be gained is another hugely beneficial aspect of eCommerce. This is where eCommerce can have the edge when it comes to marketing and tailoring your advertisements specifically to the right customers. eCommerce functions can provide businesses with consumer trends data allowing you to track the habits of your customers, and from there target your marketing and promotional offers more directly and appropriately.
eCommerce also allows for content marketing strategies to be easily paired with the products or services on offer. Detailed information regarding descriptions, product/ service comparisons, inventory and pricing can be provided efficiently which will in turn improve both online and in-store shopping experiences for consumers. This is particularly relevant considering that even if a business has a brick and mortar stored alongside eCommerce, consumers now tend to do their research prior and begin the shopping online first.
User Experience
If appropriate time is taken to design the interface of an eCommerce site, the user experience can be much less invasive and much more enjoyable and convenient for customers than traditional shopping in brick and mortar stores. Some customers find the face-to-face shopping experience awkward and perhaps does not provide optimal time and environment for browsing all options. eCommerce solves this issue by allowing customers to be completely in control of their own shopping experience time frame, to what extent they receive promotion, and how they give feedback about the business in general.
This lack of interference generally can improve user experience for all website visitors and may leave customers feeling more satisfied with their purchasing decisions. Alongside this if customers wish to contact employees of the business directly this can also be easily facilitated through live chat functions, email/ Facebook, and telephone numbers provided.
Best Platform?
Taking all of the above benefits into consideration, there is then a major consideration to make when setting up your eCommerce store- which platform to use and why? The two main platforms that we recommend are WooCommerce and Magento:
Key Features:
- Integrated with WordPress
- Various popular payment gateways supported
- Supports marketing campaigns such as discounts & coupon codes
Pros:
- Beginner-friendly & easy to use
- Free to use
- Wide range of free and paid themes and extensions to use
- Large number of resources and documentation to aid set-up
Cons:
- Only usable via the WordPress platform
- Slightly tougher to scale for larger websites
- Additional plugin updates needed
Key Features:
- Supports an unlimited number of products
- Comes within own theming and layout system
- Advanced capabilities for scalability and functionality
Pros:
- Very strong b2b eCommerce capabilities
- Streamlined checkout process
- Built for scalability of eCommerce stores
- Multiple versions including Enterprise, Open Source & Cloud
Cons:
- Relatively steep learning curve- harder for beginners
- Extensions and more advanced versions can be expensive
- Typically higher maintenance required
Conclusion
In conclusion, it is not easy to pick a winner between these two platforms because they’re both brilliant tools for eCommerce. However, it comes down to the specific needs of your business- product management, budget allocation, performance and security. We recommend WooCommerce for smaller businesses perhaps just entering the realm of eCommerce, and Magento for businesses looking to scale and grow their eCommerce operations with more custom features.
It is also fair to say that whichever eCommerce platform you are looking to use for your business, moving to eCommerce in any shape or form is a low cost and low-risk strategy that can pay off indefinitely. One main piece of advice we propose is that you choose a highly professional web developer with good design capabilities.