When the internet was still very much in its infancy, there was no shortage of people arguing that they would refrain from using it for purposes such as shopping. Among their objections to the idea were the loss of a personal touch, the fear that you wouldn’t get what you paid for, and the worry over giving their payment details to people they didn’t know and couldn’t see.
Now, the picture could barely be more different. Even people who would have considered themselves hardened digital skeptics little over a decade ago now do much of their shopping online. Groceries, gifts and subscriptions are paid for online and delivered to people’s homes. Statistics show up to 75% of people as shopping online at least once a month, and many do so more often than that. It’s no shock, then, that E-commerce is becoming ever more popular – so if you’re looking into it as a potential next step, here are some reasons to give that step more serious consideration…
Digital providers are putting a lot of work into E-commerce
If there is one sure way to know which way the wind is blowing in a business sense, it’s by looking at developments in business tech – and there are very few days that go by without new innovations in E-commerce. From the payment processing companies who are working on ways to make transactions speedier, to the SEO agency focusing on delivering a more streamlined online store, it’s hard to avoid the conclusion that e-commerce is the wave of the future, and it’s worth getting into it now. Don’t wait for the right time; there may never be a better time to get on board.
It’s popular with customers
As we’ve already seen, more people are shopping online than not, and there are more than a few reasons for the popularity of E-commerce on the consumer side of the deal. For one thing, if done correctly it’s a very convenient way of buying goods; from the comfort of your own home you can order an essential item and receive it the next day – or even the same day, in some cases. The online nature of such transactions also doesn’t seem to have robbed us of the personal experience. Quite the contrary, as the range of customer service and complaint handling options include live chat, e-mail and 24/7 phone lines.
It’s been invaluable in the pandemic age
With much of the world facing some restrictions on public mixing for what has now been a full year, it’s hard to know how we would have got through this without the ability to buy and sell online. Morally, and for their own safety, a lot of people don’t feel comfortable going to a store to buy something they want or even need. E-commerce has meant that items can be bought without facing this quandary. Better still, as we have read more about what we need in order to sit in and be safe in a pandemic, we are able to go from an article underlining the usefulness of a particular item to a store selling it, and have the item delivered.
It gives the smaller businesses a fighting chance
If there is one business trope that everyone can recognize, it’s that of the big box store opening on the edge of town, driving smaller traders out of business and demolishing the concept of choice. If we haven’t seen it in our own hometowns, we’ve seen it often enough in movies and TV drama to get the idea. That this is something which can happen owes a lot to bigger businesses being able to afford the ground rent or land purchases that allow them to build such stores.
When you’re online, that disparity does not disappear entirely – if you have money for land, you have money for digital mastery – but it does mean that smaller traders can fight on a much more level playing field, and the often invaluable expertise of a genuine specialist is not lost. You couldn’t open a city center megastore tomorrow, but you could start an E-commerce arm at any time. That’s not nothing.
E-commerce isn’t a new innovation, by any stretch of the imagination. However, it is such an evolving field that there is always a good reason for businesses to move into the space, and for those with existing E-commerce aspects to put more of their time into that side of their business. Now is certainly a good time to look at what you could achieve with these tools at your disposal.
