What is an Ecommerce Store
What Is an Ecommerce Store?
An ecommerce store enables people to buy and sell goods online without the constraint of time and distance. It allows sellers to reach a wider audience and reduce certain costs. For customers, it makes possible fast and convenient shopping with delivery at their doorstep. Read on to find out more about what an ecommerce store is and how it could benefit you.
How Does an Ecommerce Store Work?
Ecommerce stores or online stores feature a website storefront accessible on desktop as well as mobile devices. An online storefront is essentially a website optimized to provide the best experience for online shoppers. It often integrates with an inventory management solution, allowing customers to see stock availability in real time.
Most ecommerce store visits start with a search on Google, but shoppers often bookmark their favorite stores and return to them for repeated orders.
A key feature of online stores is the shopping cart, which makes it easy for customers to add to a digital cart the products they want to buy. User profiles, wish lists, and the ability to manage multiple addresses are other popular features.
Ecommerce stores can integrate multiple payment options including credit cards, e-wallets, or pay on delivery. After checkout, online shoppers can choose their preferred payment method.
Products are usually shipped through delivery services at the customer’s doorstep. The delivery time can range from 1-2 days to several weeks depending on where the products are shipped from, whether they are in stock at the moment the order is placed, and other factors.
Ecommerce stores maintain a catalog of products or services which are constantly updated to reflect their availability. Products sold online usually feature at least one photograph and a description with specifications. At the same time, many online stores integrate customer reviews to enable shoppers to rate and comment on products.
Successful online stores are easy to navigate, provide detailed product information, and have fast search features. Shoppers can easily browse through products, sort them according to specific filters, or compare them.
Ecommerce Store Types
Depending on their business model, ecommerce stores can sell products to businesses, customers, or both. They can sell products from a single brand or within only a specialized niche, or bring together multiple sellers into a major online retail store or marketplace like Amazon.
Online stores can be local, catering only to customers within a specific region or country, or international, shipping products all over the world. Some online stores operate exclusively online, others started out as brick and mortar stores and later expanded online.
Advantages of an Ecommerce Store
An ecommerce store saves time and often reduces costs for both sellers and customers. It enables sellers to set up shop at a lower cost and reach a wider audience. Customers, on the other hand, can order the products they want within minutes and have them delivered at home. No visit to the store required.
For an ecommerce store to provide these advantages, however, it needs to be well built and optimized. Many online stores rely on Google for their online visibility. Without search engine optimization and proper marketing, online stores can be difficult to find.
A Faster and Often Better Way to Shop
At the end of the day, an online store is for many people a better way to shop. More than saving time and money, ecommerce stores provide a viable alternative to traditional shopping, and in many cases, can even replace it.
Whether we’re talking about mobile or desktop users, online shoppers value the speed and convenience of ecommerce stores and take advantage of them to save time. No wonder then that ecommerce sales are predicted to reach $6.5 trillion by 2023 .
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