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The business world is getting more and more competitive now, and this growing competition has led some business enterprises to move their businesses online.

Pushing your business to go online has a lot of advantages over the traditional way of running a business. For example, you necessarily do not have to own a shop. Also, you don’t have to employ any workers, which will greatly reduce the cost of running their business, etc

The continuous growth of the e-commerce sector has only just shown how much the business world has changed over the years. According to the United Nations Conference on Trade and Development (UNCTAD), the share of retail sales in the e-commerce sector rose from 16% to 19% in 2020, and this figure is expected to rise even higher in the coming years.

Although the e-commerce industry is growing every day, it is still faced with some challenges. For example, if you are new to this industry, you might be faced with challenges such as, how to get or attract customers, what e-commerce tools to use, how to get noticed and stand out among your competitors, how to find the right customer service for e-commerce, etc.

5 Benefits of Pushing Your Business Online

The advantage that the e-commerce industry has supersedes that of traditional commerce.

E-commerce industry facilitates a faster buying process: the e-commerce industry has made it possible for customers to simply pick up their phone or laptop, then browse through many items at a time and buy what they like. This saves a lot of time and effort.

Reduction in the cost of running businesses: One of the main reasons why a lot of business owners are embracing the e-commerce industry is the reduction in the cost of running it. Unlike the physical store where you will have to pay a lot of money to maintain it, you simply don’t spend much when you move your business online. For example, as a seller who still sells his products in physical stores, he would have to pay for rent, store designs, repairs, workers’ salaries, electricity, etc. At the end of the day, the seller might not even recoup the desired profits and ROI.

It makes you reach out to many customers: What this simply means is there is no distance barrier in the e-commerce industry. Typically, sellers that operate physical stores may find it hard to reach buyers from far and wide, thereby limiting their business network. E-commerce on the other hand connects you to millions of buyers at once.

It gives buyers the chance to choose from the several payment modes available: Unlike traditional stores, the e-commerce sector offers multiple payment modes such as Card on delivery, Cash on delivery, net banking, UPI, and even pay-later credit facility.

As a seller, it makes it easier for you to gain customers simply by search engine visibility: When you move your business online, your store automatically becomes visible to every internet user.

Now that we know SOME of the benefits of the e-commerce industry. Let us dive into the necessary tools that your e-commerce business needs to make it a standout among other competitors.

5 Tools Your E-commerce Business Needs

To be successful in the business world, you simply have to stand out, there are no two ways about this. The more unique you are, the more you make sales and amass customers.

In this section, we have compiled 5 must-have e-commerce tools that will make your online business work rather smoothly.

ECommerce Platform

The first and arguably the most important tool is to get a website platform. When you create your own ecommerce website, you can build and design the web pages so that they would suit your business strategies. You should however note that a website that can easily be navigated is the one that customers often like the most. It doesn’t have to look complex, the simpler the interface of the e-commerce website looks, the easier it is for clients to navigate.

Another thing to note is, your e-commerce website should be able to display your company’s products, name, and promote other related content while at it.

Shopify, Wix, Magento are some of the best e-commerce platforms out there, and they offer multi-channel sales for an easier buying process.

Customer Service Tool

The second most important tool that will appear on this list is the Customer Service Tool…and this is due to the fact that it concerns the heartbeats of every business venture – which of course, are the customers.

Before you can even think about moving your business online, you need to have a solid online customer service tool in place.

For any business to function, you need the customers, and the best way to amass more customers and also build solid trust and connection between you two is by satisfying them.

And to provide the best customer experience,  your customer service tool should feature chatbot support, live chat, ticketing automation, and calls.

You can also outsource your e-commerce customer service. You can simply liaise with some Business Process Outsourcing (BPO) services that offer outsourced support.

Payment Processing Systems

Unlike traditional stores that afford you the chance to either pay by hand or by your credit card, e-commerce stores mostly accept card payments alone.

That being said, payments for any purchases from an online store have their own challenges,  they include reliability, credibility, and security.

The good news is, there are several third-party tools out there that can facilitate faster digital payment and stuff.

For example, PayPal.

PayPal is already a household name in the e-commerce industry as it is a famous digital payment processing system. By using this payment tool, you can easily offer card payments to your customers.

Digital Marketing Tools

As mentioned earlier, the competition in the e-commerce world is overflowing. And when you have a situation like this, all you have to do is look for ways to dignify your online store. And therefore the best way to set your store apart is through the use of digital marketing tools.

Digital marketing tools will help you distinguish your brand from your competitors.

Social media listening tools are also a great tool that you can utilize to connect your brand to millions of social media users.

Analytics & Tracking Tools

The moment your e-commerce platform is up and running, you will need these tools to track your progress and extract sales information.

Using analytic tools, you get to know about the purchasing habits and behaviors of your customers.

Google Analytics is one of the best tools for tracking such data. You use these tools to collect store data, and then thoroughly analyze them in order to maximize your business efficiency.

Conclusion

Thanks to the introduction of these digital tools into the e-commerce industry, running online stores just got a whole lot easier and more efficient now. Since there are tools that now handle the payment process, customer service, analysis, etc the burden of doing most of these things manually has just been lifted from our shoulders

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