Websites that offer an ecommerce service have their pros and cons, as do many things digital. Take a look below at some of the things to take into consideration when deciding whether to have an ecommerce website.
Pros
Larger Market
Ecommerce gives you access to a far larger market, these plugins, such as WooCommerce and Shopify, give you access to potential customers across the country and across the world.
Marketing
Having an online presence and an ecommerce function allows you to use techniques such as remarketing and search ads to target customers. You can then drive these to your site where your sales team can then complete the sales funnel with a conversion.
Lower start up costs
Having a physical shop can cost thousands of pounds in rent and rates as well as all the other costs associated with having a physical location such as staffing and merchandising. By having ecommerce functionality, you can significantly reduce your start up costs.
Income 24/7
Another possible benefit for having ecommerce plugins is that they allows you to obtain revenue 24/7, 365 days a year, because nobody has to serve the customers. This will help you target those people that can’t go to your location when you are open due to work/life commitments so an ecommerce site prevents you from losing those all important sales.
Quick changes
Ecommerce also allows pricing changes to be made in the few clicks of a button, this makes it far easier to amend regular prices to sale prices quickly or introduce one off seasonal offers with little notice.
Cons
Lack of personal touch
Being in a physical store gives your customers a personal touch, this is particularly important to consumers buying expensive, high-end products who may be looking for advice and a personal shopping experience.
Comparison Sites
In general, people are cautious about spending money which is why price comparison sites and browser add-ons are so popular. The quickness of these to show a potential customer the lowest available price of a product and where to buy it means you can just as quickly lose a sale as you found it.
Security
Having customer information stored on a database leaves you at risk of hackers attempting to steal this data. As a result you can have some serious repercussions from a legal perspective and from a trust point of view. These plugins should only ever be used when your site has an SSL certificate installed. Plugins like Sucuri are also recommended, if you would like us to install these please get in touch.
Downtime
No matter the size of the business, no company is totally safe from their website going down. This can range from a mistake on the website or something out of your control like the server going down. If all your business is made through your ecommerce site then a significant amount of down time can result in a loss of revenue.
While there are pros and cons to having an ecommerce website I think that the pros come out ahead. The weaknesses of these sites can be significantly reduced with best practise and correct security checks and software updates. In the current climate we have seen the importance of the need to have a presence online because it offers a way to bring money into your business at all times no matter the situation.
