The BOOM of eCommerce
Online shopping is more popular now than it has ever been, and the eCommerce industry shows no signs of slowing down. In fact, investors and financial analysts are beginning to believe we may be witnessing a permanent change in the way people shop for the goods they need. While it isn’t fair to say that COVID-19 is solely responsible for the boom in digital shopping, its influence on the eCommerce industry is fairly obvious. Online shopping has been steadily climbing since 2010, but not like it has been in the past couple of years. The eCommerce industry experienced ten years of growth in roughly three months in early 2020. Online sales in the US grew 32% and accounted for nearly 20% of all retail spending, excluding the automotive and restaurant industries.
Repeated lockdowns kept most people away from physical stores and forced them to purchase products online. At the time, many of these online shoppers may have been regularly buying products online for the first time. This upward trend in online shopping may have been born out of short-term necessity, but there is evidence to support the idea that this may be a permanent shift in how we shop. Some businesses have been shrinking their physical footprints and closing storefronts. Some retail analysts even believe that as much as 50% of indoor US malls may permanently close within the coming years.
This isn’t to say that physical storefronts will disappear entirely, but the strategy that companies approach them with may shift. An excellent example of this is contact-free curbside delivery of everyday products like groceries. In this situation, physical storefronts still exist, but they play a more limited role in the shopping experience. In general, though, it seems that digital shopping will continue to grow. There is no better time to join the eCommerce industry than today.
Best Platforms
In order to make the most of your efforts in the eCommerce industry, you’ll need an effective eCommerce platform. There are several options worth considering depending on your preferences and budget. Some eCommerce platforms even offer free versions of their services for smaller businesses that are just starting out. The two most effective eCommerce platforms also happen to be the two most popular platforms: Wix Business Basic and Shopify Basic.
Photo by Andrea Piacquadio
Shopify is the most common eCommerce platform for English-speaking regions, and for good reason. They cater to both large and small businesses, meaning even if your digital store is just starting out Shopify is still a great option. And you can scale your Shopify subscription to match your business’s needs as it grows. Shopify Basic also offers an impressive list of features for only $29 a month. Most notably Shopify comes mobile commerce ready and allows for social media integration. Mobile commerce support is incredibly important because roughly 40% of all digital shopping is done on a mobile device. Social media integration is crucial for growing your online business’s audience and for marketing. Here’s a quick list of some of the other features Shopify has to offer.
- Unlimited orders, products, file storage, and bandwidth
- 24/7 client support
- Intuitive website builder
- Point of sale
- Free SSL certificate
- Full blogging platform
- Drop shipping
- Automatically calculates taxes
The second-largest player in the eCommerce platform marketplace is Wix Business Basic. Wix is probably best known as an industry-leading website building platform that makes website design easy, even if you don’t know how to code. With Wix Business Basic you’ll retain the simple drag-and-drop website building functionality and also receive some of the most powerful eCommerce tools available. Wix is also incredibly simple to use. Everything from eCommerce functionality to new website templates is easy to access and change. Wix is also slightly cheaper than Shopify at $23 a month for their basic plan. Here is a quick list of some of the features that come with Wix Business Basic.
- Over 500 unique templates
- Total design freedom with drag-and-drop functionality
- Mobile-friendly designs
- Open platform API connections
- Free hosting
- SSL certificate
- Social media integration
What Tools Are a Must Have
Though finding the proper eCommerce platform will likely have the largest impact on how your online business operates, there are other tools that are vital to the success of your online store. The first is different shipping options. Offering different ways of shipping your products is important because different customers will have different shipping preferences. Sometimes using USPS flat rate boxes is the best option, and other times your products may need to be shipped with larger corrugated boxes.
This same logic can be applied to the different payment options your online business offers. Online shoppers have grown to expect the websites they purchase their goods from to offer their preferred payment method. And with the number of online stores available for consumers to choose from, there is a good chance that they will leave if an online business doesn’t allow them to pay for their purchase in the most convenient way for them. Fortunately, most eCommerce platforms allow you to implement multiple payment gateways, which should make it easy to meet your customers’ expectations.
