Why your small business should consider an eCommerce website

Here at Payzone we truly value local businesses, who often play an integral part in their community. But, having said that there are many reasons why we would also recommend becoming an eCommerce business.

It’s crucial to give your business the best possible chance to succeed and there is no question having a website in which people can purchase your product or service can prove hugely advantageous. Let’s have a look at exactly why we think eCommerce is the way forward.

Anytime anywhere

Don’t worry, we aren’t challenging you to a fight. But simply having a website, which allows your product to be bought, means there are no restrictions in terms of when customers can purchase from you. It’s not like having a store with opening hours that customers need to adhere to. The beauty of having an eCommerce site is that this barrier is removed. If someone wants to buy a deck chair at 4am then they can do so. And having a site also means that anyone from around the world can also purchase from you. So just like that, the boundaries of geography are totally removed. Having an eCommerce site opens up possibilities that simply aren’t feasible with having a physical store.

Know your audience intimately

The marvellous thing about having an eCommerce site is that it allows for many possibilities in terms of integration with platforms such as Google analytics. Tools like this are incredibly valuable in terms of gauging an understanding of your audience. You might be interested to know where your site traffic is coming from; how long people are spending on your pages and just the general monetary return each bit of site content is providing you. Google analytics will give you all that and a lot more. There’s no guess work involved, you’ll get a proper breakdown of exactly how your customers and prospects are behaving on your site.

This will allow you to cater your site to the type of audience where you are resonating most effectively. For example you can enable cookies on your customer's computer. This will mean they will allow you to target them with extra information on products or any discounts related to purchases or frequent searches they have made.

It’s better to be seen and heard

An eCommerce site isn’t only important in terms of giving your audience greater options it also provides limitless possibilities in terms of search engines. Many businesses are particularly fond of SEO (Search Engine Optimisation) which is essentially the method of making sure that your website achieves a high search ranking on SERPs (Search Engine Results Page). The higher your site is ranked on SERPs, from say Google, the higher chance you have of getting people to purchase from your site. So if your site is constantly uploading interesting content (blogs, white papers, product descriptions) then this will allow you to be ranked highly on keywords which best reflect what your product does.

Extra information

With an eCommerce site customers won’t need to ask you what your product/services does. With a functioning website, that people can purchase from, you can provide all the information your customers will ever need. Product description pages are a great way to highlight the functions and overall benefits of what people will be getting for their money. You could also create additional blog posts if people are getting confused with certain terms or alternatively create an FAQ page for further clarification. There’s also other options which can help with handling customer queries. Many websites are now able to embed a live chat function. This allows someone from your organisation to answer customers queries right there and then.

Reduced physical costs

A huge positive to come from having an eCommerce site is that it can help a small business massively reduce costs when it comes to physical amenities. If you are selling online you probably won’t need a dedicated space/store to do this as well. This will enable you to save on business rates and staffing. And with automated checkout systems on your site customer payment will also be much easier as well.

Here at Payzone, we believe in unlocking the immense potential of all small to medium-sized businesses. We have a range of online payment solutions available including payment gateway and pay by link. Enquire for your free quote today.

David Goulden Copywriter
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