You are a merchant and you don’t see the point of creating an e-commerce site in addition to your store? Yet the web brings multiple opportunities to local businesses. An e-commerce site represents an extension of their activity and not a totally separate service.

Still not convinced? Here are 5 good reasons to open an e-commerce site in addition to your store!

Reach new customers

An e-commerce site, in addition to adding a sales channel, is also an important vector of communication. With a digital presence, your store and your brand become visible nationally if the referencing is optimized. You can then capture new customers who didn’t know you and who discover you during an online search.

With the web, you talk to your current and potential customers everywhere and all the time, whether they are looking for your products from a computer or a smartphone, whether they are at work, on the road or at home.

Create and bring together an online community of buyers

The web makes it easier to gather and retain your customers. Whether by using social networks or your web customer database, you get new ways to communicate with them, offer them promotions and build loyalty: newsletters, discount codes, community management to keep them informed… The communication methods are more numerous and more reactive than with a simple paper mailing, and they bring a more precise targeting.

Generate more store visits

With a web presence, you increase your visibility and can therefore acquire more visits in store.
This can be indirectly with local referencing, which will make your store appear on Google Map and make your shop known. Or the e-commerce site can be a direct vector of visits, notably with the click-&-collect function, or in-store booking to try products on the spot.

Increasing your catchment area, making your products known nationally

Think bigger! With an e-commerce site, the notion of catchment area widens and becomes national! With home delivery options, you can acquire customers from the other end of France. You can then make your products known to a much wider audience, and even have a cross-border or international reach if you have the strategy.

Increase your global business by adding a sales channel

While an e-commerce site connected to your store can be a significant upfront investment, the addition of this sales channel is a real driver for your business. You increase your overall sales, both online and in-store, acquire new customers, increase their loyalty… The web is now anchored in consumer habits, don’t deprive yourself of it!

Moreover, with an e-business solution, you can manage web and store stocks from the same interface, while connecting them to your checkout. All information on your products and stocks being synchronized between the e-commerce site and the store, you have a coherent sales strategy on all channels.

An e-commerce site has the advantage of not depending on the “physical” hazards of a store to sell: store work or in the street, days when the store is closed, holidays, orders continue to be made online! You just have to take into account the specificities of online sales (preparation and sending of parcels, e-reputation management, e-marketing), but an e-merchant is above all a merchant. So grow your business with this online presence!

Do you want to create an online shop connected to your store?
Contact now our freelance team, Work On my home.