When looking for where to start selling products online, many businesspersons choose between selling on a marketplace and creating their own website. Since each option has its own set of pros and cons and there is no presence of solution that works perfectly for everyone, we believe businesses that are truly determined and committed to ecommerce should have their own website.
Many marketplaces (like Amazon, Etsy, eBay, and Walmart Marketplace) can be great sales channels for many sellers, but there are plenty of limitations. And according to BigCommerce’s History of Ecommerce, customers will soon look forward to “research, browse, shop, and purchase seamlessly between different devices and on different platforms (like a standalone web store, an Amazon presence, etc.)” since a marketplace alone is not enough.
Why your ecommerce company needs its own website?
Let’s discover the necessity of a standalone website for the long-run business!
1. Build a customer email list and market directly to them
One of the most important features of having your own website is that you can advertise directly to website visitors and customers. Selling directly to consumers on your own website means you are collecting their contact information. Since once you are in possession of your customers’ email addresses, you can provide them email marketing promotions, offer discounts, and announce new products.
Getting several deals with a same client is much more difficult on a marketplace, because you don’t have direct access to your customers. This gives you fewer opportunities to provide good customer service and promote your other products. Communicating with existing customers is a necessary part of generating revenue for your business because we all know that it’s easier and cheaper to retain a customer than getting a new one.
Since you have all their data and you are familiar with their interests, you can use these kind of information to influence and suggest future purchases.
2. Establish and strengthen your brand
When you sell your products on a marketplace, they are listed in a generic way. From character limits or word count restrictions to logo usage, there is little to no room for customization or branding. In fact, it is the marketplace’s brand that is in the forefront – not yours. This makes it nearly impossible to build brand awareness and recognition.
Most of the time, visitors and customers assume your product belongs to the marketplace without realizing you even exist. In other words, those who purchase your product will remember the marketplace instead of you.
Your main goal should be then to associate your product with your brand and think of your brand in the first place when they think of that category. When you run your own website, you should maintain full control, including the way it looks, what it says, and how it works. The possibilities are endless. You can even think of reinforcing your brand during the unboxing experience and use custom boxes to leave a lasting impression on your customers. Best of all, you get credit for your product – not a third-party marketplace!
3. Learn more about your audience
Having your own ecommerce website helps you better recognize your customers. This includes associations such as their location, as well as how they figured out your website and noted your presence. You can analyze their practices on your website, like what they were looking for, the search they want.
If at any specific place, you can find sources that are bringing in great customers for your business, you can adapt them since you know they are profitable at some point.
It’s not only about gaining information about your existing customers, but you can also recognize the main reason regarding a failed purchase. It could be related to a product page that doesn’t have enough customer reviews or good enough photos, or perhaps people are abandoning shopping cards due to high shipping costs. Or maybe your homepage is not good enough and lacks a user-friendly website design or your checkout process lacks the payment methods and payment options that your target customers expect to find on your ecommerce store.
Just as critically, you need to use these insights to make improvements and optimize your website to increase conversions and help you sell more.
4. Make your own rules for your eCommerce site
With running your own ecommerce store comes the privilege to influence on the spot the customer journey and user experience:
• You can add product photos and videos in certain places.
• You can alter the layout and navigation.
• You can change the color scheme and website theme.
• You can edit button placement and text.
• You can tell your company’s story.
• You can add a blog.
• You can feature certain customers.
Most importantly, you don’t have to worry about your competitors’ products popping up next to yours as you would with a marketplace.
Ecommerce website builders allow you to organize clearer product categories, product descriptions, product images, and any other ecommerce features in your website in order to give store owners a customized ecommerce design solution.
You can also decide how to manage price products or how to offer free shipping if it’s applicable. Offering something for free at the checkout process can influence online consumer behavior, as customers want to believe they are getting a good deal.
With your own website, it’s easier to experiment with this type of offer, since there are no strict rules or regulations with which you must comply. You also don’t have to worry about the impact these changes have on your conversions, since you don’t owe a percentage of each sale to a third-party, like you would on a marketplace. With a website, you ultimately control your storefront and have the ability to test and validate what works for your online business with no boundaries.
5. It’s never been easier with plug-and-play eCommerce platforms
With the rise of out-of-the-box ecommerce platforms like Shopify, Magento, Squarespace, and WooCommerce, creating a website can be taken as a pretty straightforward and fast process and this because of the store builder plugins that makes running your small business easier than ever before. You can enter your details, choose from free or affordable templates, and create the shopping experience you want for your customers in real-time with site builders that allow you to drag-and-drop ecommerce store features to your preference.
Several of the ecommerce platforms available today are hosted and easy to maintain, with no web developer or design team needed. These do-it-yourself tools make it effortless to update content, add products, and make other adjustments all on your own.
Once your website is ready, up and running, it can even be easy to integrate it with the other software you are using. One common example is connecting your ecommerce platform to the system you use to manage order fulfillment.
If you outsource fulfillment to a 3PL, this can streamline the flow of information, eliminating the need for you to send your orders to the 3PL each day. This means your store automatically sends orders to your fulfillment provider to begin the process of picking, packing, and shipping.
6. Run creative marketing campaigns
Just because you have your own website doesn’t mean customers will automatically come flocking to you. Once you have a store, you need to work on getting shoppers there. The first step to acquiring customers is to drive traffic to your site through a mix of SEO strategies and a strong online presence on social media. It’s not always easy to set up the right campaigns; however, you have a lot of flexibility with the ways you can get people to your ecommerce website.
Ecommerce businesses can customize their marketing strategy tailored to fit their audiences and their specific shopping habits.
Some common tactics include using Facebook and Google ads to reach your audience. You can also create content for your website by researching and incorporating the keywords people use to search for a solution like yours. You have the ability to run promotions or flash sales to generate interest and retarget past purchasers.
According to Clutch, 37% of shoppers say discounts or coupons can attract them back to retailers’ websites. Overall, there are countless ways to attract people to your brand, it could be from creating videos to running a contest, and these strategies could lead to a sale.
Conclusion
Creating and possessing your own website is very essential for your ecommerce strategy. It is a remarkable way for you to expand your brand, acquire loyal customers, experience new insights, and become more creative with your marketing. However, you should never rely on a single channel for all of your sales since the diversity of selling online can help you reach new customers, especially that ecommerce becomes more competitive.
dooklik can be your digital partner to help you fulfill ecommerce orders from your online store. It can build your own ecommerce website in order to increase your sales or to get more visitors.
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