The world of retail is changing in ways that many people could not have predicted only five years ago. While online shopping was certainly already a trend in 2015, the pandemic has accelerated our adoption of e-commerce as our preferred way to interact with retailers. The upshot is that more and more people are shopping online, and those that rely on a bricks-and-mortar store are often left with fewer and fewer customers. This article is about how you can take your store decisively into the online space, giving you access to millions of new consumers.
Platforms
Much as your store is located on a street, online stores are located on platforms. If you wish to sell to the most people, you should consider joining a number of different e-commerce platforms, which will give you the best chance, taken together, of selling more and more products. You’ll be aware of the two or three biggest online retailers and the market leader, which is of course Amazon.
You should certainly sell your products on Amazon in order to access the huge volume of traffic that shops there each day. But how do you do this? Well, Amazon has produced a number of helpful guides, which are designed to onboard you, building your store and your product listings, in a matter of hours.
Your Website
You should also consider building a website from which to sell your products. That’s because a website will not cost you as much in fees to sell your products. Amazon and other e-commerce platforms tend to take a cut of your profits, which means that you’re left with a little less in profits when you’re relying heavily on these platforms rather than going it alone.
There are several website design platforms that you can use to create a basic website with product listing pages. Several of these are so intuitive and easy to use that those with no experience building websites can make one for their bricks-and-mortar store. It’s where you’ll sell products directly to curious consumers.
Marketing
Finally, with your own website made and your products also sold on e-commerce websites, it’ll be time to start getting attention from consumers. You shouldn’t wait idly for them to come to you; you should instead work hard to get their attention. After all, you’re competing with literally hundreds of thousands of different sellers in an incredibly busy marketplace.
In order to get more attention on large e-commerce platforms, you should partner with an Amazon marketing agency that can run smart marketing campaigns for you that’ll result in you selling more and more products. If you’re looking to boost the visibility and traffic to your website, you should look to the world of SEO and web design tweaks that can help more consumers find your website when they search for your products on Google.
Making an online store of your current physical store isn’t difficult, it just takes a few hours of set-up and you’ll be ready to sell online.