How Online Retail Shops Benefit with eCommerce

If you’re a brick-and-mortar shop owner, you have had to pivot your business several times throughout the last six months. COVID continues to affect retail, and the push toward online solutions is essential. Although COVID has made a lasting impact on traditional businesses this year, eCommerce is a straightforward solution to increase sales for your store and decrease unnecessary costs. If you haven’t moved to sell online, now is the best time to integrate eCommerce in your business plan.

Download our free guide: Advantages of eCommerce: Why Retailers Should Sell Online

Expand Customer Reach and Sales Volume

With online retail sales, you can generate revenue from outside your demographic and beyond your geographical location. With a traditional brick-and-mortar, you limit the volume of clients you have available to purchase your products. Adding an online component for shoppers allows your business to have an infinite customer reach. Gone are the days where you only see local shoppers within a specific radius of your store. Now, you could have customers throughout the country and beyond.

A second benefit of moving to online sales is eliminating the restriction of operating hours by opening the window for more sales each day, reaping the advantage of 24/7/365 sales. eCommerce is successful because it allows the customer to control how often they want to visit your online store and when they want to make a purchase. Your customers can make a purchase any time whether your physical store is open or closed. As a retail shop owner, who doesn’t want to make money while they’re sleeping? With the world of online shopping, you now have that option.

Increase Brand Awareness

Social media allows retail shop owners to get their brand visible. When you add online sales to your business plan, you’re creating stronger relationships with your customers because they will interact with your brand. The average customer may only visit your store in person a dozen times a year. With online integration, customers can interact with your store online a dozen times a day. Social media is a helpful tool to boost sales, feature new products in-store, and answer questions, so customers feel more connected to you. You’ll create a bond that will make your customers want to support you even more. Plus, think of the free marketing your business receives. With social media, customers can share their purchases from your store to their followers, who could become new, potential customers.

Another benefit of eCommerce is your customers are more likely to impulse buy when they see your brand in multiple spaces online. Facebook and Instagram both have a “shop now” feature where your business can link products in your posts for customers to purchase while scrolling. We are dependent on our phones for information, so it’s crucial to be in multiple spots online to increase brand awareness and maximize sales simultaneously.

Reduce Cost

For shoppers, COVID is still a concern to consider when it comes to your foot traffic in the store. Although many people may prefer to shop in person, not all your guests will be comfortable physically coming to your store to make a purchase. You can appeal to all customers’ needs by selling online. Not only are you able to be considerate of loyal, dedicated customers, but you can also reduce costs overall.

Opening the opportunity for online retail can ease the burden of overhead costs associated with a brick-and-mortar shop. Between paying employees and operational costs, keeping expenses low so your doors can stay open is essential. Thankfully, there are minimal costs to incorporate eCommerce to add online sales to your business plan. Another benefit of eCommerce is that you don’t need to buy a bulk of products upfront, saving money in the long run. You can put product control in your hands selling online because you’re buying what you need rather than what you think you will need.

Gain Customer Insight

The best resource you have for your retail business is your customer database. With eCommerce, you have a client’s email, phone number, and address, which means more ways to market to them in the future. Delight guests with a unique offer on their birthday or celebrate the anniversary of when they made their first purchase in your shop. Taking the time to learn more about your customers allows you to build a better relationship with them, so they are more likely to purchase more often.

Unlike a traditional shopping experience in-store, this information can help you make aligned decisions with your customer in mind. Combined with engaging with customers on social media, you never leave top-of-mind providing a fully comprehensive customer experience.

This year, it has been difficult for traditional retail sales, with ever-changing retail trends and changes due to COVID-19. An eCommerce integration provides retailers with opportunities to increase sales, boost customer engagement, lower costs, and improve customer experience.

The General Store offers eCommerce integrations with your point of sale system to maximize revenue and increase online retail shops’ efficiency.

Contact The General Store to learn more about our eCommerce integrations.