Summary:

1. Five benefits of having your own website
2. Some tips to know before you create your e-commerce website

Having a digital presence has become a fundamental and a vital element for your business success. If you create an e-commerce website,this will help you to get your product to stand out of your competitors and make your brand more recognizable and more visible to potential customers. After the crisis and the Covid19 pandemic; the emphasis of the importance of your digital presence is much greater.

Launching your online store has never been easier with the emergence and the availability of e-commerce business platforms presenting different and various features with reasonable prices. As a whole, the majority of e-commerce platforms offers a free trial, traditionally about 15 days and can go to even 1 month.

To start by having a better understanding of advantages of e-commerce platforms, we should note that it is pretty simple to use. Using an E-commerce platform doesn't require you to know how to code or even to have a big knowledge related to web design, thanks to the different features that allow you to drag and drop, quickly insert certain things; which is going to make it a lot easier for you when you are building your e-commerce store.

Consumers rely more heavily on e-commerce due to the Covid19 and businesses growingly went digital. To illustrate the magic an online presence can do, we will look at Amazon as an example. In 2018, small and midsize businesses in the U.S sold over 4000 items every minute through Amazon platform. In Morocco, there is Jumia, one of the most powerful online marketplaces that also operates in more than 13 countries around Africa. In 2018, Jumia had 81,000 active sellers and a total of 4 million active consumers.

Actually, with an e-commerce store; you can keep selling your products while you’re at home, all day, every day. Also, low cost is another key benefit of an e-boutique. By having an online store, you eliminate a lot of expenses like rent; utilities and the cost of a large stuff to maintain the store. Furthermore, having an online website gives you the opportunity to remarket your products to every customer who browses your shop by placing you ads in front of people who have previously interacted with your e-commerce store. Moreover, e-commerce stores remove the boundaries of a physical store and let people across the world access to your store and make a purchase.

After choosing a platform to host your website and to provide you with the tools that you need to launch your online store, you should necessarily think of a name for your website accordingly, if you are just getting started, in order to create your domain name and then associate it with the platform you have chosen, to give the world chance to know you closer. Also, choose a hosting service to your website depending on the number of visitors you expect.

In the next step, you have to choose a theme for your online shop to make it more attractive and captivating to your visitors. For this, you can either choose between free themes available on the e-commerce platforms or maybe invest some money to get more sophisticated themes that better represent your activity. Then, you need to fill your store, as most themes are plug and play, which means that you literally upload your product images, videos, descriptions and fonts without custom changes.

Later, add the logo of your brand. A logo is considered as the visual reference to your brand, speaks a thousand times larger than words and can transfer an idea about your brand much quickly and raise your brand recognition.

After that, set the price points for your products and think of adding different payment methods that customers want to use or are accustomed to, in order to earn more conversions.  Then, you need to set how much inventory is available for those products and add a connector payment system to get your money through.

If your website is the showcase of your business, you will also need a professional email address to keep touch with your clients. Having a Gmail address doesn’t give a very professional image. For this reason, it is better to spend about 5 euro per month to have an address with the domain name of your website and gain real credibility with your customers and prospects.

Over the last decade and a half, the digital business environment is moving from static to dynamic. E-commerce platforms and social Media facilitate the opportunity for you to share your brand with potential customers and change the way we do commerce forever.  In order to optimize your digital presence, you first need to have a clear definition and understanding of your audience, their wants; needs; motivations and pain points to reach them and inform them about your products.

Here are 5 benefits to create an e-commerce website:

• Think global: Global internet users have reached more than 2 billion people, which present 30% of the world’s total population. These users spend the average of 16 hours per month and make 7 billion Google searches daily
• Reduce costs: If you create an e-commerce website , you can save more expenses and more time. You can even control your business anytime and anywhere
• All-in-one platform: In a website you can easily display different products and every bit of information that your customer may need all in one platform
• Access information easily: A website eases the process for people to know and understand every detail about your product with convenience
• Opportunity with big players: Your website will allow you to have more credibility and more chances to approach investors and big companies and impress them with your products or services

Be ready to grab bigger opportunities for your business with an online store, double your revenue and grow your e-commerce business quickly

Here are some tips to know before you create your e-commerce website:

To have a better vision, a more successful launch and a long lasting company that pays you for years and  years, you should know that:

It is never too late neither too hard to start e-commerce:

Firstly, you should know that opportunities in e-commerce are vast and never saturated. E-commerce has been growing very strongly since 2015. There is always a never-ending and growing group of people who are ready to buy everything online. If you succeed in e-commerce, your life will be changed completely.

You constantly have to keep learning about marketing: 

You should always be updated about the last changes and renovations when it comes to e-commerce and digital marketing. The fact that the digital marketing field is always changing, e-merchants must persistently keep experimenting and learning in order to get the best ROI (Return on investment). Also, you should always focus on the raise of your brand awareness and the increase of sales.

You should never try to find a product that appeals to everyone:

Products that are meant to appeal to everyone are not that likely to be very successful. Because of that, your product should be more specialized and addressed to a specific niche. This way, you would have a smaller marketing budget and a better conversion rate.

Pre-launch is very important:

With a pre-launching strategy, you would certainly make more sales. Marketing should be started before even creating the product or buying a large number of products in order to have engagement and create an initial audience.

Always think about differentiation:

When you think about creating a product, you should at least change one thing about it to make it better  and improve it (color, functionality, dimension, design, price …). This differentiation factor is highly recommended to distinguish your product from competitors. To do this, look similar products and analyze their pain points and customer’s reviews and use them as a free marketing research for your product and start implementing to give more value to customers.

Think of creating a story around your brand:

Story telling adds a value to your brand and creates its identity. It also helps you to connect with your audience in a whole different level. People don’t like only to buy the product, but also the story behind it and that creates a big in for you.

Customer service is fundamental:

You should always prioritize the satisfaction and the happiness of your clients above everything because a satisfied and happy client will always buy from you and more than that; recommend you to his friends and family members.