While you may have heard of eCommerce you may not be exactly sure of what it is. So what is eCommerce and how can it help you and your business? The easiest way to understand this term is to think of it as a method of doing a transaction across the internet. If you purchase something online you are buying via an eCommerce solution.
An eCommerce website can sell a variety of products from music, books, clothing to cars and everything in between. You can even trade products via an eCommerce website.
Any type of electronic transaction is classified as an eCommerce one. These types of transactions are quick and extremely easy for both seller and buyer. It is a perfect solution for selling all types of products, but especially digital ones. The customer literally pays and is then given access to their product, which they simply download.
With the arrival of eCommerce, all that has changed. It is much easier and more affordable for almost anyone to set up an online store. Shopping cart software is available for purchase and is easy to set up. WooCommerce is one of the easiest ways to set up your own store. It is a WordPress plugin that you install and active and turns your website into a fully functioning store within seconds.
This allows you to have a shopping cart or basket that your customers fill before going through the checkout process. There are several ways to take payments online with PayPal and Stripe being two of the most popular and best solutions.
One of the biggest downsides to running an eCommerce site will be your shipping costs for physical goods. This is definitely something that you want to take into account before setting up a store. If your shipping costs are going to be outrageously expensive you will be lucky to see any type of profit margin.
While eCommerce solutions are a viable method of conducting business online. You still need to ensure they will suit your business model.
So there you have it – the answer to the question – what is eCommerce? If you have any questions, please shoot me an email to tim@timlumsdendigital.com and I’ll get back to you shortly.