Simply put, an ecommerce website is a website that allows the buying and selling of goods and services over the internet. Examples of ecommerce websites include amazon, jumia, and Ali-baba.

EXAMPLES OF E-COMMERCE.

DROPSHIPPING

This type of e-commerce involves the sale of products or goods that a seller doesn’t actually have in stock. Here a seller sets up an ecommerce website where he puts up goods for sale, and then relies on a 3rd party, usually the supplier or manufacturer, to supply the goods to the consumer when a successful order has been made on the seller’s site.

WHOLESALE

This type of e-commerce involves the sale of goods, usually by the manufacturer, in large quantities to the consumer, which is usually a retailer through his or her website. One of the advantages of this type of ecommerce is the incentive of cheaper prices offered by the supplier to the consumer if goods are bought in bulk, e.g alibaba.

RETAIL

This type of e-commerce involves the sale of goods by a business directly to the consumer in relatively small quantities. Here, retailers rarely manufacture their own goods or products, e.g. amazon and Konga.

SUBSCRIPTION

This type of e-commerce involves the regular or recurring sale of products by the producer to the consumer to use for a fixed upon time upon which the consumer can either choose to renew subscription or cancel subscription e.g. Netflix and YouTube.

WHAT SHOULD YOUR ECOMMERCE WEBSITE BE ABLE TO DO.

ACCEPT PAYMENTS

One of the most important things that your e-commerce website should and must be able to do is to conveniently and securely take payments from customers in multiple currencies and successfully provide receipts that they can use as proof.

RECEIVE ORDERS

It is of utmost importance that your website be able to successfully take orders that are made from your ecommerce website. Your site should be able to redeem coupons, record customers’ delivery addresses, calculate and provide the total cost of purchases made regardless of variations like size, and quantity of orders made by users, etc.

PROVIDE SHIPPING DETAILS

Your ecommerce website should be able to properly handle the delivery of products ordered from the site. It should be able to properly and consistently calculate how long a delivery might take, provide these details to the customer and also have a system in place in case returns need to be made.

MEASURE TRAFFIC

 Your ecommerce website should be able to know the number of visitors that come to your website, how long they spend, and also through which medium they used to visit, be it mobile or desktop. Such information is critical as it lets you know your customer base and where they visit from, thus allowing you to create effective advertisements or campaign strategies.

CONVERSION RATE

Your ecommerce website must be able to properly calculate the number of visitors who then turn into paying customers. Information like this is highly important as it lets you know the products which are generating revenue and the ones that aren’t.

ADVANTAGES OF HAVING AN ECOMMERCE WEBSITE.

ABILITY TO SCALE

As demand increases in your business, you as a business owner will also need to increase supply in order not to miss out on potential revenue; thus having an ecommerce website will give you the ability to cater to a global marketplace.

EASE

An ecommerce can make sales and be operational 24hrs a day, there is no time off or break. This opportunity gives business owners the ability to earn passive income without ever breaking a sweat.

LOWER START-UP AND RUNNING COSTS

Ecommerce websites are arguably easier to start up and run; one only needs to pay for web hosting, domain names, web design and online security. This is in huge contrast to physical stores where one has to pay light bills, rent, and staff in order to run the store.

AN NCREASE IN PRODUCT OFFERS

Ecommerce stores give business owners the ability to increase their product offers to customers, leading to an increase in revenue. This isn’t possible in physical stores as they are limited by store room space.

CLEARER INSIGHT INTO CUSTOMER BEHAVIOUR

Through collecting and monitoring the data that ecommerce websites provide e.g. conversion rates, bounce rates and website traffic, entrepreneurs can successfully study the habits and behaviours of their customer base and thus give them the ability to tweak their product offers and advertisements to suit customer needs which will lead to an increase in sales.

INCREASED CHANCE OF REPEAT SALES

Through the contact information such as email and phone numbers that customers provide to ecommerce websites while shopping,entrepreneurs can successfully offer more goods and services that customers might be interested in such as discount codes, holiday sales and clearance sales, thus increasing their chances of repeat sales.

In this day and age, it is simply a necessity for businesses to have an ecommerce website so as to be able to increase revenue and beat the competition. Contact us at Orotortech and we will bring your online storefront to life.