Ecommerce has become a standard in the shopping habits of most Americans, so much so, that we don’t even think twice about making an online purchase from an ecommerce store that we have never heard of or seen before. You may use ecommerce to sell B2C or B2B, you may sell on an ecommerce website, app or marketplace, regardless of where you sell online there is one thing in common with all platforms and that is the transactional technology behind the slick ecommerce interface.
Yes, ecommerce is a highly technical and often changing method for generating revenue. The question is, how can your company harness this technology to consistently increase your sales? Affordable Marketing has been in the ecommerce business since 2003, having worked in ecommerce since the early days of clunky attempts to generate online we have seen ecommerce grow, blossom and even explode into its current state.
Why this matters to your companies sales and long-term growth; ecommerce will continue to grow and will most likely continue to morph into different versions of its current state. Any businessperson who understands even the basics of economics can grasp the fact that if your company is going to prosper long-term, then you better have a long-term strategy in place to harness the ever increasing power of ecommerce.
Now, you might be thinking to yourself that you know all this already, and the concept is academic. Perhaps it is academic and even a simplistic way to look at such a wide reaching phenomenon as ecommerce. But if your long-term vision (3, 5,10 years) is not seeing that ecommerce is a fundamentally core aspect of your company’s growth, then maybe you’re not seeing the entire picture. Here are some thoughts to hang your hat on:
- Brick-and-mortar real estate will continue to be more and more expensive
- Loss prevention will always be the Achillies heal of physical locations
- Acquisition costs of physical customers -vs- virtual, will always be higher
While it may seem at first glance that we are making a sales pitch for using ecommerce, we’re not. In fact, what we are saying here is that the long-term prospects of your company’s growth may hinge on your ecommerce strategy.
Affordable Marketing has thought leaders in the ecommerce space, we can help your company to create a long-term growth oriented strategy to harness the power of ecommerce for years and even decades. Call us today to start the conversation.
Ecommerce Services
Question, is your company taking advantage of every opportunity to increase sales, streamline technology and build your brand? Most ecommerce business owners will agree that they are trying to increase sales, but don’t always see the opportunities due to the complexities of ecommerce. This is where you should think outside the box by partnering with Affordable Marketing ecommerce services, to ensure that your ecommerce business lands every opportunity. Due to the highly technical nature of ecommerce, ecommerce store owners will often require shy-away from asking for assistance from an experienced ecommerce service designer of developer.
Think of ecommerce services as part of your long-term strategy for success, you will always have an ecommerce component to your business and that component will always require some level of ecommerce service. Often companies will sign a yearly contract with us, to provide ecommerce services. Those services may range from technical services to marketing and advertising, or simply consulting services to help your team fill in the gaps. We have been supplying all these ecommerce services to large and small companies for 20+ years. We also contract with overseas manufacturers that are entering the US with their own retails brands, as well as B2B supply chains selling ODM, OEM and OBM.
Having helped so many different types of businesses with our ecommerce services, we can help your company find the best ecommerce services to fit your needs and budget. We can help with your long-term growth by being a steady partner in your companies journey.
Every business owner who sells retail understands that increasing sales is crucial for the growth and even survival of their business. With so many new ecommerce business competitors entering your market this must be a concern, your long-term ecommerce strategy must focus on maintaining your own competitiveness. With 20+ years of experience in the ecommerce space, Affordable Marketing understands that short term growth is a fool’s errand that doesn’t lead to long-term competitiveness. Long-term growth is essential, and it requires commitment. In fact, most companies fail after the first year or two primarily because they fail to ever mature past the short-term (startup) vision.
Pragmatism helps the successful ecommerce business owner to understand that while short–term goals are essential for every ecommerce business, if your ecommerce business is going to prosper for years and even decades there must be more than a just short-term vision. At Affordable Marketing we get it, your company is working hard to generate revenue and must jump through what seems like endless hoops to see profit. If this is your ecommerce business, try to understand that every other ecommerce business that you are competing with must jump through their own hoops.
Casting the long-term vision for your company might seem impossible when you’re busy, that is the best time to call Affordable Marketing to learn how we can help you to plan for tomorrow.
With modern technology comes a plethora of ecommerce platforms all promising ease of use, fast setup and remarkable results. But are these ecommerce platforms really all they are hyped-up to be? The short answer in no, often ecommerce platforms come with complicated setup and configuration and sparse instructions.
This is why we only recommend the following ecommerce platform to our clients:
- Shopify: Shopify is designed to be easy for beginners to use. With Shopify, you can create an online store using drag-and-drop templates and no coding. Start accepting payments immediately with the built-in payment processor.
- WooCommerce: Because WooCommerce is open source, you actually own your store and data — instead of renting them from your ecommerce platform. No matter where you need to take your business in the future, you’ll have peace of mind knowing that it’s truly yours.
- BigCommerce: BigCommerce is an open-source SaaS customizable platform for an eCommerce store, offering a range of features from multi-storefront to Google Shopping integration and a variety of pricing plans for businesses of all sizes.
- Magento: Magento Open Source is a free and open-source platform and is suitable for small to medium-sized businesses with high customization demands. Merchants without a development team will find this ecommerce platform very challenging.
We have worked with these platforms for 10+ years and have hands-on experience with each ecommerce platform. While there are many more ecommerce platforms than those mentioned, we only recommend the ecommerce platforms that we have proven to be solid builds (technically), dependable, and secure. The complexity of each ecommerce platform listed ranges from simple (Shopify) to very complex (Magento), and each ecommerce platform has its own attributes that make them a good fit for certain companies.
We highly recommend consulting with our team at Affordable Marketing before deciding on the ecommerce platform your choose for your business. We have helped to steer many companies given their needs and technical abilities, to choose the best fit for their ecommerce platform. The one key thing to remember about ecommerce platforms is this, the easier (less technical, faster-startup, etc.) an ecommerce platform is, the less freedom the business will have once engaged with the ecommerce platform. In other words, there is a trade-off between Shopify/BigCommerce and WooCommerce/Magento, and this is just one example why it makes great sense to call Affordable Marketing before you decide on your ecommerce platform.