An ecommerce system or electronic commerce setup is an arrangement where goods or services are bought and sold over the internet. Electronic commerce has transformed the way business was perceived and conducted through brick-and-mortar shops. The transition from bricks-to-clicks has made it possible for classic commerce to benefit from the inherent advantages of ecommerce.
By doing away with the requirement of setting up a physical shop online commerce has made it possible to do away with the limitations of geography, customer groups and timings. Nowadays literally anybody can start an online business and start selling goods and services to customers in a limited geographical area or across the world.
Growth Of Ecommerce Systems
With the increasing penetration of ecommerce and smartphones ecommerce has been growing at a tremendous pace in the past few years. Global retail or B2C ecommerce sales have been pegged at $3.46 trillion in 2019 while B2B ecommerce sales for the same period was estimated at $12.2 trillion.
Recent statistics reveal that 40% of global internet users have bought products or goods online using devices like desktop, mobile, laptop etc. Put together this means more than 1 billion online buyers and the figures are growing continuously.
Benefits of Using Ecommerce Systems For Business
Going online has opened up new business opportunities not only for SMEs and solopreneurs but also for the established brands. With an online store for their business, they can now reach new markets at a fraction of the cost of launching their product in the new market.
This means they can sell their products and services to a wider audience base anywhere in the world. Also, the shop is open 24x7 making it easier for customers to order online from the comfort of their home. By eliminating the travel time and cost, e commerce portals entice customers to shop more frequently thus increasing their sales.
Also, with the help of advanced ecommerce system software businesses can get a better understanding of their customers preferences and buying patterns. This helps them plan marketing strategies and promotions that yield higher ROI. By offering personalized deals, pricing comparison and value-added services like same-day delivery online stores have become the favourite shopping destinations for modern buyers.
The ecommerce system offers a tremendous growth opportunity to businesses of every size. However, amidst the cut-throat competition, it takes a modern ecommerce platform to help the businesses achieve their full potential.
To begin with, a modern online store should be future-ready and offer a seamless buying experience to its buyers. The store design should be beautiful and engaging. The online store should work well across devices and have fast page load speed. The technology used for building modern web stores should be based on the mobile-first principle as up to 80% of online purchases are done through mobile devices. There should be an easy option to build iOS and Android apps. Also if the stores are PWA this would help the online store to reach out customers on slow internet connections.
Additionally, the navigation and search should be smart and granular to help the customers find the exact match for their products. Product display should offer a 360-degree view to the customers so it is easier for them to make an informed purchase decision. Along with this, there should be multiple payment options for the customers to ensure a fast and frictionless checkout. An added benefit for the seller as well as the customer will be to have an integrated logistics channel that ensures fast and safe order delivery.
Along with these elements of the ecommerce system, the merchant should have access to a powerful and feature-rich admin that helps in running the business smoothly. The admin should offer rich analytics, customer order details, order, product and inventory management systems along with a powerful discount and tax engine. Also, the ecommerce platform should have marketing tools and social media integrations to promote the business. Having an SEO friendly ecommerce software would be a plus as this would help in ranking higher on SERPS and getting better organic traffic.
Along with the above features, easy integration with CRM, shipping channels and payment gateways are a must. The ecommerce software should be scalable and customizable to accommodate the requirements of a growing business.
While all the above may sound a lot, StoreHippo ecommerce platform has all the above features and many more to take care of the end-to-end selling needs of an online business. The fully hosted solution offered by StoreHippo is secure and offers 99.99% uptime. It also offers complex features like online marketplace, multi-store out-of-box. It also offers a host of go global features like multi-currency payments, multilingual websites, location based pricing etc. for B2B and B2C businesses planning to sell in international markets.
Ready to explore our feature-rich ecommerce platform software to build your next-generation online store? We recommend you to check our Ecommerce Platform Features and explore StoreHippo by starting your 14-day free trial now.
