E-commerce in Brazil grew by around 8% last year, with revenues of R$59.9 billion. Therefore, this is the natural path for those who want to grow and increase their range of customers and area of operation. Of course, physical stores are not dying, but they need to be given special attention. However, this is a topic for a future post.
Imagine a physical store owner inside a shopping mall who decides russia number open an e-commerce site to expand their business. What precautions do they need to take and what challenges do they need to face?
WHICH PRODUCT TO SELL ONLINE? ALL OR JUST PART OF IT?
After deciding to open an online store, you need to find out what product to offer. To do this, you need to find out what the needs and demands of e-consumers are, which products are on the curve (A, B, C). Knowing this, you will know which product should be highlighted on the home page or which should be the first promotion/discount, thus attracting a greater number of potential buyers.
To discover needs and demands, you need to know your audience, so research, ask questions, talk to your customers. What do they like about your products? What sets you apart from competitors who sell the same product for less? Why do they prefer your store?
Remember, e-commerce is like a large display window that can have all your products, but a poorly organized display window or one without separations can create chaos and the customer will leave (no one likes a dirty store).
STORE ALWAYS OPEN
Yes, consumers can now buy at any time and day, so your online store needs to be always, ALWAYS available, 24 hours a day, 7 days a week, 365 days a year. It can take a consumer a few minutes to hours to choose a product, while they decide, your store needs to be 'open', showing options, discounts, prices, etc. If a physical store can't have a power outage, on the internet your store can't be offline, EVER.
FROM A NEIGHBORHOOD STORE TO THE WORLD
It's no news that when you enter the virtual world, you can serve practically anyone, which is great, but be careful. If the order is from another state, how will it be delivered? How long will it take? These are details that can be your Achilles heel. The biggest advantage of a physical store is being able to buy and leave with the product at the same time. Therefore, in e-commerce, the delivery part needs to be very well worked out, with fair prices and fast, very fast deadlines.
More than 50% of customers who abandon a purchase do so due to the high cost of shipping and 39% abandon it due to the delivery time. Don't just settle for standard deliveries, look for options, carriers, motorcycle couriers, Uber, allow the customer to buy online and pick up in person on the same day.
PROMOTIONS
Who doesn't like promotions, right? Well, your customers do too. Explore this huge world of options and varieties. Facebook, Instagram, Snapchat, email marketing, among others. Encourage consumers to want to know your store and your products. If the product is of good quality, the service is excellent, and the payment and delivery methods are acceptable, a promotion can build customer loyalty. This is the perfect time to be creative and look for innovative solutions. Even the giants are always looking to improve in this regard. Take Magazine Luiza, which entered the dating app Tinder to promote its products and increase its sales, seeing a 2000% increase.
HOW DO YOU WANT TO PAY?
If a customer enters a physical store, they only see the products that the store has, and they cannot have a clear view of other options or competitors. In e-commerce, this happens all the time. The user is always browsing between 3 or 4 stores, looking for the best options in terms of price, shipping, and payment. The greater the variety of payment methods, the greater the chance of closing a purchase. You don't know which cards or payment methods your customer has. Always provide the maximum amount you can, whether it's credit/debit card, transfer, bank slip, splitting between two or more cards, PayPal, pickPay?, cryptocurrency?, etc. But be careful, the customer takes time to find the ideal product, but when they do, they want to complete the purchase as quickly as possible. When adding it to the cart, the consumer should be taken on a quick and direct path to the end, allowing them to choose the best payment method.