In its early days, Ecommerce looked like a luxury, but with changing market dynamics, it has become a necessity. In the fast growing age of Internet, most of the brick and mortar shops are seeing immense competition from growing popularity of ecommerce businesses.
The globally eCommerce market is seen to be growing much faster than our imaginations. According to several statistics, over 80% of the world’s population has made an online purchase at least once. The retail ecommerce sales barring travel, restaurant and event ticket sales, etc. already closed the year 2016 at a whopping $2 trillion.
These sales are further expected to grow to almost $2.5 trillion by the end of 2018, and then jump to $4 trillion by 2020.
In the US, the world’s largest market alone is already being anticipated to rise by somewhere between 11% and 16% from 2013 to 2018. Moreover, while China will maintain its dominance at the second position with a projected $1 trillion in retail e-commerce sales by 2018, the UK market will generate about a quarter of that number.
That said – Starting an ecommerce business has never been easier!
Even if you have no idea about codings, starting with an eCommerce platform, like YoKart and Shopify, is as smooth as butter. These present us with a complete package including — pre-made design templates, multiple payments getaways, easy checkouts, secure architecture, etc. to initiate a Plug & Play like automation. All that you need to do is list your products and get things running. Additionally, you also have the availability of a range of tools for marketing, optimizing and tracking your online sales as well.
So, how does one decide when is the best time to take the leap towards eCommerce? Here are a few signs that will help you understand the readiness to invest in your own eCommerce store…
1. The costs of your business are too high…
On one end – the eBay and Amazon of the eCommerce world, stifle with their fees that often touch 15% (sometimes even more) on each transaction, which is one of the main revenue sources for these marketplaces. This percentage does not matter much in the initial days when the sales are low. It starts to pinch only when you start touching high numbers. Imagine you have sales of $1 million and have to give away 15% of it, i.e. $15,000 + taxes, just as fees!
On the other end, if you have a physical store – it goes without saying that you end up paying fixed costs to run the store, but you also pay a huge cost to maintain and manage the inventory as well.
But the case is very different with your own eCommerce store. Not only is it economical to run your own ecommerce website, but the overall process from managing the inventory to handling sales and work orders is far simpler too. It helps you automate certain responsibilities and allows you the time to do other important tasks.And now, with Plug-&-Play platforms like Shopify, WordPress, YoKart etc. to help you install the eCommerce platform on your website in a matter of few hours or a day, things have never been easier.
Start Your Online Store with Ready-to-launch Ecommerce Platform – Yo!Kart
2. Your Sales have reached its Stagnation Point
Every business has a Stagnation Point when it reaches the highest point of its sales (keeping in mind the surrounding factors). This is when the sales stop growing, become slow and even begin to dip at times. It is mostly because the business has reached its peak, in all aspects, and is a hint with an underlined message saying that, “your business has reached its endpoint, and a change or innovation must be brought in to continue growth”. If not acted at the right time, the consequences can turn out to be irreparable.
This is where eCommerce comes into play! Once you control that much of the market, it becomes a necessity for a business to expand to become a full-fledged standalone marketplace.
A well-designed ecommerce site, a quality product and use of Analytics can: –
- Get you the opportunity to capture a global market, which does not have any geographical or time constraints.
- Help you get hold of new audiences that you wouldn’t be able to reach otherwise
- Help your business drive conversions, sales and also help your business experience a new level of growth
- Improve your marketing strategies to reach the right audience
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