With the different restrictions around retail stores opening over the past year in the UK the need to place your products in front of your customers had become a growing requirement for businesses in order to survive.
Internet Retailing has carried out research that shows online shopping has surged by 130% in the UK and Europe as a result of Covid-19 and this is expected to increase even further as we move into 2021 and beyond.
The UK is the third largest online ecommerce market in the world behind China and The US, with sales reaching in excess of £110 billion annually.
The UK is one of the most developed ecommerce markets globally and is responsible for 19% of all retail sales, far ahead of the US market.
While businesses could easily operate without an online presence in the past. The current climate with Covid -19 is making this a necessity and business are either adapting or being left behind.
What is required to sell my products through the web?
Firstly, selling online is something that retailers should not be sacred of doing. The tools and methods to accomplish this today are much easier to use and understand. There is no need to understand code or be able to carry out great graphic design, however this can be of benefit to some ecommerce websites.
Selling online can be done quickly and doesn’t have to cost a lot of money.
We have a number of options available for businesses today:
Option 1 : Use an established Marketplace
This is the simplest method to selling your products and it make use of recognised sales platforms already available.
Marketplaces are online websites (portals) where businesses create accounts and upload their products and start selling. In the UK, two well known and trusted marketplaces are Amazon and eBay. Both work by charging a fee for selling through the platform. Users of marketplaces like convenience, the ability to compare prices and providers.
Customers use them similar to the way they’d use Google search and start their online journey at Amazons homepage.
There’s a lot of trust placed on companies selling through Amazon and eBay as the marketplace offers a good level of protection from questionable sellers and also customers.
To put into perspective the amount of traffic these platforms generate, Amazon takes around 420 M visits a month with eBay seeing in the region of 245M.
There are other marketplaces in the UK but they are more focused and operate on specific industry markets. Etsy has a focus on arts, crafts and gifts. Game sits in the electronics sector, Wayfair focuses on homeware whilst Zalando looks at fashion.
Amazon and eBay are general marketplaces and retailers should look at using marketplaces as another route to find customers.
Its easy to register on a marketplace and start to list and a lot of business have used them to test there products before launching into their own ecommerce website. With the need to respond quickly and the number of customers this is a quick and simple way to start listing products and selling.
This route does require and understanding of the costs involved in selling and distributing the product to the customer and it’s important that you understand the margins and charges to sell before listing products, so you can make sales and also make profit.
Option 2: Easy Website Tool
Easy website tools provide all the technology to easily start an online store. You as the customer can set up a store in a few minutes and be ready to upload your first product and make it available to customer in a matter of minutes.
These tools are growing in popularity due to the ease of access and also, they provide a range of template that give a professional look and feel to the website. They have a range of features built in that customers expect ecommerce websites to provide such as one-click checkout, integration of payment options, email notification and parcel tracking.
You’re effectively paying for a onestop solution that is managed by a third party. They provide the platform for you.
These solutions are low cost an effective and as the business grows they grow with you. So they give a simple solution to start that can be expanded.
There is no need to access and edit code to make them work and all the hosting and security is provided by the platform.
There are a number of tools available and some of the main ones available are Shopify and BigCommerce.
Option 3: Hosting it yourself
A self- hosted solution can give you more flexibility but will require you to have a level of understanding on how the website works. This may mean you’ve approached a digital agency to provide a website for you and they’ve used an opensource tool such as WordPress with WooCommerce, Magento or a bespoke package they’ve built over time.
It is possible to do this yourself but it’s not advisable if you have very little knowledge of websites as getting a professional look and feel along with a robust, secure solution can be timely and difficult.
This option would typically involve using a digital agency that can build and support the website for you allowing you to focus on promoting and selling your products.
This type of solution requires you to source web hosting (where you put the website so people can see it), SSL certificates (making is secure) and payment options.
For a flexible solution that may require you to link into other systems within the business this may be the best option as it typically gives a lot more flexibility but with that comes costs and management aspects.
All three options enable businesses to sell online, the question is which one fits your business best. Is it an off the shelf easy build or a customised solution, that’s something only you can decide with help from ourselves.
If you’re needing to get your products online and do it quickly, we can help. Whether that’s getting you listed on Amazon, creating a Shopify website or building a more tailored and designed solution using WooCommerce or Magento.
Give us a call, and we’ll help you understand, plan, select and build.
Once your products are online, marketing them is the next step and there’s lots of different options available depending on the customer you’re trying to reach.
The key thing is – don’t miss out on the opportunity ecommerce can bring to your business.
We’re here to help and we’re happy to discuss the options with you.
