With online store sales due to hit €2.7 billion in 2020 and grow to €3.8 billion by 2024 can you afford to ignore eCommerce for your business website?
This number is just the market size in Ireland and with more and more business taking payment and selling products and services online are you missing out on those critical sales.
Think about that for a second.
With the big players in the market (Amazon etc…) that now ship globally, you can order a product and have it delivered in 2 days. They design their sites to get you to buy something every time you visit – and they are very good at it.
With the festive season just finished how many products, that you sell via traditional sales methods were bought via one of the main online shopping sites?
These are your customers – but instead of walking into your shop they are simply clicking a product on ecommerce websites, adding it to a shopping cart, and entering their credit card.
A very simple process but a lost customer for you. A well planned and designed ecommerce website can change that.
Today, a website needs to deliver more than just information. It needs to drive sales and add to the bottom line.
Read on to find out more…
You do not have to sell physical products to operate an ecommerce business online.
When it comes to ecommerce website design things are slightly different to a traditional website.
The main aim of ecommerce websites is to drive people to your online store or shop, buy something, hit the checkout button and make a payment.
Everything else in that process is backend and up to you, the company to get right, but essential for a smooth transaction and a happy customer that will come back another day to buy something else.
One of the most important elements of a great ecommerce website is the checkout process.
If you can attract customers to your website with great content, products and offers then you really don’t want them to drop off before they pay you and checkout.
Yes you can have a list of additional options and products to upsell / cross-sell, but keep these till after the initial checkout process so as not to confuse your potential customer.
In short yes.
If you sell anything, and let’s face it you are in business so must be selling something, then an ecommerce website can help you stay ahead of the competition.
Some examples of where we can help:
There are a couple of things to look at when you want to move toward ecommerce for your business online?
Do you have an existing site and what platform was it created on? WordPress is the most popular CMS (content management system) used today and is probably the easiest route to building you online store.
There are plugins that can be installed as part of WordPress that work straight out of the box and integrate with the major payment processors like Stripe and Paypal (more on that later)
If you site is static HTML or some other bespoke CMS then we normally advise a rebuild of the overall site.
Yes this may seem a bit drastic, but in the long run its the most cost effective way to get trading online.
That leads on to our next point – which website builder is best for eCommerce?
The majority of the sites we build today are based on the WordPress platform, and for our ecommerce websites we use a plugin called WooCommerce.
There are a few good reasons for this.
We have a range of clients in Ireland covering many different industries that utilise eCommerce online stores to sell products and services.
You don’t have to have physical products that you sell to clients or customers. You could be a business that provides services and want to improve your payment processing and collection of fees.
We have business customers like consulting companies that provide advisory and training services. They utilise ecommerce website design as part of their company website to collect fees online.
The courses and services are listed as products and their clients just pick the one they want, add it to the cart, checkout and pay online. This generates an email order which is then processed then came way as a traditional request but you have the payment secured up front.
Traditionally selling this service could have involved a phone call, several emails, a cheque posted in and maybe a company PO raised before any money changes hands.
With an online store you can generate sales when your normal sales team are offline. Get the content right on your website and you will attract leads and customers via Google search all day long.
Give those leads the right direction on your website and make it as easy as possible for them to pay for whatever you are selling. Ecommerce sites can really make a different if you get it right.
In Ireland we are slow moving with online ecommerce marketing strategies but need to up the pace a bit or risk getting left behind.
It used to be the case that a potential client would pick up the phone and call your business, now they pick up the phone and research your business online before they do anything else.
Get the products right, hone your messaging, and give them the ability to transact as quickly and smoothly as possible and you will win.
Unlike traditional payments there is no cash or cheques changing hands. Every online transaction is processed by an approved provider like Stripe or Paypal. In Ireland these would be the most popular providers and most people are comfortable using them.
We use these providers because you can offload the payment management process to their secure payment systems – no need to worry about PCI compliance (which is a minefield)
Yes there is an associated fee for using these services paid as a small percentage of the transaction amount or set fee if volume is high enough but this is offset by not having to pay for complex payment process design and functionality or PCI compliance implementation on your site.
We integrate these cloud based platforms right into your website and they take care of the rest.
The first place to start is to speak to somebody who understands the online eCommerce market. That’s where we come in.
With experience in building eCommerce websites across a broad range of industries, we have the expertise to help you get your site up to speed and generating revenues via online sales.
Did you know there is also a ‘Trading Online Voucher grant available from your local LEO office that will pay up to 50% of the cost of your website work if you meet the qualifying criteria.
Click the button below and get in touch to find out more.
Unit 19, Enterprise House,
O'Brien Road,
Co. Carlow,
Ireland.
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