What are the Benefits of eCommerce?

The Global Market

An online store has the whole world at its fingertips. The entire market is available to you as a business owner. You can make a store as general or as niche as you want it to be, whereas a brick-and-mortar store is limited by its geographical area.

Available 24/7

The internet never stops, and neither does eCommerce. Some may see this as a benefit and a burden. Yes, your shop is open 24/7 for customers to buy, but that also means you need your shipping and your team to also work 24/7 so that customers are always being attended to. It's convenient for the customers, and for the merchant its more opportunity for sales.

Lower costs

The biggest cost saving is in not having a brick-and-mortar location. There are no overhead costs from renting a place to put and build your business. Typically hosting sites for eCommerce platforms are fairly cheap as well, and they're typically easy to use. You also don't need sales staff. Granted, your costs will go to warehouses and product storage, as well as potentially to covering some shipping costs. But you could also consider drop-shipping, which may even save those potential costs!

Available anywhere

As we said, eCommerce is a global business and market. You can sell virtually anywhere and anytime. If you're the merchant running the business, you can also typically be working from anywhere. All it takes is a connection to the internet and a computer to get to your eCommerce store to manage it.

Marketing

You have the world at your fingertips-and also its data! This will help you start to understand customer behaviours and buying habits. You can see your market, and what industry trends are. This allows you the opportunity for targeted marketing. As a merchant, you can better understand your customers and their wants and needs, and then cater to those exact wants and needs.