It is often said that if you’re not online, you don’t exist. Retailers should take this to mean that if you don’t have an e-commerce website, you’re missing out on many customers.
In Q2 2020, Walmart’s online revenues rose by 97 per cent. Amazon’s revenue and profit increased by 40% in the same year. But it’s not just the major players who are winning from the increased demand for online shopping.
Smaller retailers like Howards Storage World, B-Wear Sportswear, and Plain Jane, among others, are seeing double-digit (and even triple-digit!) increases in e-commerce sales year over year.
Other than that, what do these three businesses have in common? Their modern e-commerce website designs are appealing and well-optimized for conversion. In other words, they excel at customisation and user experience, among other things.
Before we go into how to integrate e-commerce into every website, let’s look into whether it’s better to have your e-commerce store or join a marketplace.
E-commerce Website vs. E-commerce Marketplace: What’s the Difference?
Many merchants choose between selling on a marketplace and having their website when choosing where to sell their goods online.
No doubt, each option has its own set of advantages and disadvantages – and no one-size-fits-all solution is ideal for all – but we believe that businesses that are serious about e-commerce should have their own website.
Of course, marketplaces (such as Amazon, eBay, and Walmart) can be excellent distribution platforms for many businesses, but they have some drawbacks. Some of these limitations include:
1. They aren’t your clients.
2. Marketplaces have massive competition
3. This is not your store, and you must comply with their rules.
4. Because marketplaces favour buyers over sellers, a single negative review can have a significant impact on your exposure.
5. There are little or no choices for personalisation.
We could go on and on about this, but surely you can tell that marketplaces are probably not a viable option, especially if you want total control and customisation power.
Adding e-commerce features to an existing website or creating a new one is a better choice. This way, you’ll be able to develop your brand, attract customers, and customize your website to your liking.
Let’s get started on ways to add e-commerce to your website to start selling products and services to your visitors.
How to Add E-commerce to Your Website
1. Switch to a New E-commerce Content Management System (CMS)
To start this list, we believe that the best way to add e-commerce functionality to your website is to move to an e-commerce CMS. You can then use this platform to build your ideal e-commerce store to suit your taste and requirements.
Several platforms offer this service, including Shopify, but you need a more comprehensive, scalable, and reliable platform like Daalder to ensure you get the best possible e-commerce solution.
Daalder gives you absolute control of your CMS and allows you to customize your website as you desire. Our resources are designed to provide you and your customers with the best experience possible. Read our documentation page for more information on how we can help bring your e-commerce goals to life.
It doesn’t matter if you’re starting as a small, medium, or large-scale business; we have unique plans for each category, and our offerings are more generous than most.
At the core of our values are our dedication to providing you with excellent customer service, flexibility to achieve what you want, and competitive pricing. Drop us an email, and let’s help bring your store to life.
2. Customize Your Website
Do you want to add e-commerce to your website without moving to a new CMS? Daalder can still help with that too.
Aside from having an extensive suite of resources on our Laravel-based platform that anyone can use to build a world-class e-commerce website, we are also developers and can help customize your current website.
You can rest assured that we will bring with us many years of experience in the e-commerce industry so you can expect a top-notch and highly functional store. You can expect to get a user-friendly website that your customers and search engines would enjoy visiting over and over.
Of course, because we will have to maintain your CMS, we can’t fully implement some of the best features of Daalder on your website.
For instance, multi-language, especially if you have foreign customers. For this feature and more, you might be better off using our Laravel-based solution, which has endless possibilities.
3. Use a Plugin (WooCommerce)
WooCommerce is the most common solution to quickly convert your WordPress blog into a fully functioning e-commerce shop. WooCommerce was initially developed in 2011.
WooCommerce’s success has skyrocketed after WooThemes (the WooCommerce creators) was purchased by Automattic in 2015. WooCommerce currently powers 8% of all e-commerce websites online and 21% of the top 1 million pages.
When it comes to quickly launching and expanding an online store, WooCommerce is frequently cited as one of the best options. You could make a five-item shop for your blog or have a wide selection of thousands of items.
The plugin’s cost is always the same: it’s free. As long as your hosting and infrastructure can manage it, you can accommodate an infinite supply of products and customers.
4. Create a Facebook Store
It’s challenging to keep up with the competition in a world of multi-platform businesses if you don’t move to where your customers spend the most time.
It just so happens that Facebook is one of the most popular places for people to spend their time online. This is the single most important reason for selling on Facebook!
Even though you will have to redirect to the Facebook platform, creating a Facebook shop is a fast and excellent way to add e-commerce to your website.
This is a solution for those who do not want to turn their website into an e-commerce shop but still want to sell their products online.
You won’t get as many e-commerce features from Facebook as you will from Shopify or BigCommerce, or our feature-rich Laravel-based solution here at Daalder – where you will get everything you need to start selling right away.
You can do the following with a Facebook Shop page:
- Add as many products as you want
- Sort the items into groups and categories.
- Directly communicate with your customers through the page.
- View information about your sales, visits, and more.
- Get your products listed on Facebook Marketplace, and you’ll be able to reach a much wider audience of potential buyers.
5. Join Large E-commerce Marketplaces like Amazon
Finally, just like Facebook, for people who don’t want their websites to have e-commerce functionality, you can have your products listed on marketplaces like eBay, Etsy, and Amazon.
All you have to do is place links on your website that visitors can follow to complete a transaction.
Earlier, we talked about the disadvantages of opting for an online marketplace instead of having your e-commerce website.
Now it’s only fair that we balance it out with some of the advantages of using online marketplaces. This will help you make an informed decision.
- Marketplaces are popular, and many shoppers use them to compare products and prices.
- Being a member of a well-known online marketplace builds confidence between you and the customer.
- Independent reviews of your products and services may inspire new customers to purchase.
- They provide greater transparency – availability, prices, and stock levels are accessible in an open environment.
- Many shoppers use marketplaces as their search engine, which can help grow your presence across more extensive networks.
What Are the Benefits of Using E-commerce on Your Website?
1. Improves Customer Experience
A benefit of having an online e-commerce website is that it improves the customer experience.
Customers may look up important details such as your store hours, phone number, or address, which helps to increase in-store sales.
Furthermore, if customers are busy, travel away, or cannot visit your store, the website allows them to shop from anywhere.
2. Increase the Hours of Operation to 24/7
Customers can also purchase at any time on your e-commerce website. Your brick-and-mortar store can’t have this level of service unless it’s staffed 24 hours a day, seven days a week.
Customers can search your items, check whether a specific item is back in stock, and perform various other consumer activities using an online shop, even when your doors are closed for business at the end of the night. With the Internet, you can conduct business at any time!
You will fall asleep, but your website (and business) will not.
3. New Market Acquisitions
When you take your company online, it extends its scope.
People across the globe can see and buy your products, while with a conventional physical location, you are limited by time and space.
In essence, an e-commerce website opens up a world of possibilities and new markets to discover and cultivate to increase sales and revenue.
Why not carry those experiences to people in other countries if your products succeed in your hometown?
Why Choose Daalder?
It is not a hidden fact that one of the most significant drawbacks of the e-commerce industry is security. The security challenges are widespread, and some websites take the most hits because of their CMS.
Using Laravel, Daalder creates more sophisticated security systems to keep you and your customers secure.
Apart from providing the best security, Laravel e-commerce software is loaded with powerful features, the performance is top-notch, and it is easily scalable regardless of the size of your business.
Get a one-month free trial now for our smaller packages, or contact us to learn more about the enterprise solution.
