Recent years have seen web-based businesses becoming more and more accessible. Thanks to advances in online technology, even if you have little experience in web design or development, you can still have your own website or even your own online store. Here, we will look at how ready-made Ecommerce platforms are helping more and more people to launch their own online stores.
As more and more businesses move online, ready-made Ecommerce platforms are becoming more sophisticated and offering more services. If your business already has a website - and many do, of course - Ecommerce platforms work alongside that site. For example, Airblast AFC currently operate two existing websites and have recently launched their own complimentary Ecommerce platform to sell their products online.
These out of the box solutions offer a simple and cost effective way to get your products online even if you have no experience in web design or development. Most allow you to choose your own design and customise it to suit your branding. It's then just a case of using the inbuilt content management systems to add images and create great content that really sells your brand. These content management systems also allow you to specify a Meta title and description for each product and/or product category, which will help when you come to optimise your pages for search.
Newer Ecommerce platforms not only give users a simple means to display items for sale online but can also offer a range of other services that a first-time entrepreneur will find invaluable. Firstly, they can manage stock levels for you, which is incredibly helpful when you're just starting out. Having a simple way to monitor how many items you have left makes re-ordering a much simpler process as well as helping you to see which items are selling well and which are not.
Ecommerce platforms can also be used to manage customers as the site will keep track of every person who buys a product from you. The customer will provide certain information during the checkout process, which allows you to start to analyse demographics - are the majority of your customers male or female, are your products popular in particular areas etc.
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You can also use this information to contact them at a later date (with their consent). Some Ecommerce platforms now offer in built mailing services using the customer data collected during the checkout process and through people who opt in on the site. This can be used to either gain additional feedback on the product or to update them on additional goods and services to get more sales.
Some Ecommerce platforms also allow you to link up to other services to increase your online presence. For example, Big Commerce allows you to directly link your store to Google Shopping, Amazon and eBay so that your products are visible on the three of the most influential retail platforms on the web without having to set up separate stores on each one.
These are just some of the benefits that the new wave of Ecommerce platforms are offering, and these platforms will continue to develop and broaden their offering as online businesses boom.
