Part Four: Potential Benefits of E-commerce

RevenFlo serves the Greater Charlotte NC area with web marketing services including strategy, management, marketing, consulting, design, development, content creation, content marketing and search and social media marketing. Recently, an increasingly important part of RevenFlo’s service offering has been to assist retailers – both new and existing brick-and-mortar businesses – in launching powerful, cost-effective e-commerce websites to sell their products and services.

In this series of e-commerce articles, we discussed the history of online retail and the state of the marketplace today. We discussed a path to online retail success by way of a focused, narrow niche – as opposed to the “general store” approach.  And we discussed utilizing effective open source e-commerce software such as Wordpress, Drupal and Magento.

Throughout this series we have hinted at some of the benefits e-commerce can provide for the retailer. In this final installment, we will discuss these benefits in greater detail.

E-commerce can Benefit Your ENTIRE Business

RevenFlo firmly believes that e-commerce can provide system-wide, holistic benefits to the retailer. For CEO Jason Broadwater, convincing the potential e-commerce client of these benefits is his first priority.

“Of course, I always want the client to buy in. But I want him to buy in at the deepest level of commitment, to truly understand the benefits he can derive from whatever service I am proposing.

“A surprising number of retailers considering e-commerce say, ‘Well, if this website sells five units, that’s five more than I would have sold.’ That’s when I know my job isn’t done. I have to help him to see the entire gamut of benefits e-commerce can offer, in terms of his sales and marketing, his business processes and his customer satisfaction.”

E-commerce Can Lower Marketing Costs

E-commerce allows you reach your current and potential customers in a focused, efficient way. Every time your customers log on, opt-in, complete a form or place an order, they give you valuable information about their preferences. You can track where they click, learning the steps they take in making their purchase decision. You begin to learn their spending patterns. And you know where they live, online and in real life!

This wealth of information you accumulate will allow you build a comprehensive database of customer preferences. With this information you can market and promote to your customers and their peers with accuracy like you have never known.

E-commerce Offers Expanded Market Presence

E-commerce can help your business to break out of your local market, and gain new customers regionally, nationally or – with the right software – internationally.  As your business expands in this way, your online presence begins to level the field and mitigate the advantages enjoyed by large companies. Yours can truly be one of those companies you hear about that offers “the market reach of a large company with the personal service of a small company.” And, cliché though it may be, your customers will appreciate that.

E-commerce Helps Improve Business Processes

E-commerce offers improved inventory management. Basically, you will integrate your public showroom and your inventory management system, so that your product display is your inventory.  The immediacy and precision of your online inventory management system can reduce inefficiencies in your supply chain. This can reduce your inventory and improve delivery times.

As you automate and streamline your backend business processes by way of your e-commerce system, your business naturally becomes more efficient. Further, this new baseline of automated, smooth-running processes will allow much easier upgrades in the future. All of those hot new business process re-engineering models that have eluded you until now (ISO, Six Sigma, etc.) will be much easier to apply, leading to new potential markets.

E-commerce Can Improve Customer Communication, Service and Satisfaction

A print catalog is outdated almost from the moment the ink dries. By contrast, your e-commerce website is almost a living electronic document. This is due to the user-friendly functionality of open source content management systems (please see Part 2: Tools.) With instruction, you can usually perform these updates without “pro” assistance.

This immediacy offers several benefits that, together, can lead to increased customer satisfaction.

• Pricing: Your prices – TODAY’S prices – are easily displayed. And those prices can be programmed to reflect the customer’s status. Loyalty Club? Preferred Partner? Active Military Discount?  If and when your prices change, again, they are easily updated.
• Selection: Ever have your heart set on the picture in the print catalog, only to find that the item is backordered or discontinued? Frustrating, right? With open source CMS, you can easily remove the item, swap it with the replacement SKU, or slap a Temporarily Out of Stock banner across it.
• Delivery. As we state elsewhere, your online showroom IS your inventory. So, backorder situations are greatly reduced, and delivery estimates are more accurate.
• Ease. Every time your customer returns to your site, the shopping experience is a little easier and a little quicker. Utilizing cookies, address and credit card information forms that are filled in once need not be filled again.
• Promotions.  The information you collect about customer preferences can be used to send targeted promotions. Loyalty Club software alerts the customer to special deals “Just for You!”

E-commerce Offers Increased Sales Potential

In the brick-and-mortar retail world, one way to increase sales is to open an additional location to serve more customers. Launching an e-commerce site is very much like opening a new branch of a retail store, and can increase your sales in a similar way. However, there are important differences that make an e-commerce site even more attractive.

The operation of this virtual branch location entails low startup cost, practically zero salary and benefits, and a tiny fraction of the “rent.”  An e-commerce site does this while commanding vastly larger market exposure. So, whatever additional sales this new branch achieves, it achieves them at a lower cost, i.e., more profitably!

Contact RevenFlo for a Custom E-commerce Solution

E-commerce is not a fad. It isn’t something to dive into just to keep up with the times. If it sometimes seems like everyone is jumping on a bandwagon, it is because more and more retailers are realizing the growth potential e-commerce offers! Retailers large and small are seeing tangible benefits in increased sales, expanded market presence, improved business processes, lower marketing costs, and improved customer satisfaction.

Whatever your retail business, whatever your size and at (almost) any budget, RevenFlo can craft an e-commerce solution for you.  Never a pat, off-the-shelf set of online retail tools, but a true solution that takes into account your business model, your market and your goals.

If you have been considering entry into the world of online retail, or if you have any questions about web design, web marketing or web strategy, please contact RevenFlo!