Coming to the business world, and still choosing not to go digital is not just a case of FOMO or fear of missing out. You’re not only locking yourself out from a whole host of business opportunities but are forcibly making your business redundant. From production to marketing, E-commerce can lift the productivity of all spheres of businesses.
With the internet of things, you can have sophisticated machinery running in perfect harmony, producing goods. Marketing is propelled by data analytics and social media marketing through targeted ads. After-sales service via constant contact and remote monitoring relieve the customer of buyer’s guilt and retain brand value. We can go day and night listing the possibilities of digital technology, but this article wants to elaborate on how E-Commerce plays a necessary role in 2021.
What is the context for the year?
With 2021 being well underway, it was a breath of fresh air compared to the previous year, which was the year of disruptions. Several industries, organizations, businesses, institutions, and individual lives were disrupted due to the constant lockdowns all across the world.
Today, we are in a state where the fear of the coronavirus persists, however, the global community has already entered the stage of rebuilding and reclaiming the disrupted spaces. In this though, there are still entrepreneurial daredevils who have chosen to ‘reform’. Countless people have noticed redundancies in the current ‘offline’ way of doing things and believe that the temporary shift to online technology should be more permanent. To achieve this, we have been seeing a massive boost in the technological business of E-commerce.
Coupled with the fact that E-commerce was already a rapidly growing industry, the disruption of the established conventions of business and commerce was exactly what it needed to boom.
With this in mind, we can finally explore the unique benefits of the E-commerce business.
Public Safety
The primary process of spreading the virus was through physical contact in public spaces. Now that more businesses are transitioning into the online realm, it takes away the need for a number of people to be physically present in the marketplace of goods and services. Minimal human contact helps to keep rising coronavirus cases and curbs the virus from being transmitted further. This also means that people who are wary of their own, as well as others’ safety, can choose to stay at home, but still indulge in the business of buying or selling. As there is no need for brick and mortar stores, and more and more work is getting digitized or automated, the need for calling staff to physically work in factories and offices is also mitigated. Thus, a transition to E-commerce has played a huge role in maintaining public health safety by minimizing human contact.
Advertising
It is no difficult task to see that E-commerce has not caused a boom in the advertising world. In the modern-day and age, where all of us are connected to social media in some way or form, advertisements being targeted on this platform make a lot of sense. How does advertising operate online? Utilizing the power of big data that users generated, AI software is able to analyze their trends and preferences. Based on this information, the users are then given ads targeted to them specifically.
This is the reason why you might randomly search about how computers work and the next thing you know, you’re getting several ads telling you to buy laptops online. The second way this works is by hijacking the space of media that you love. This involves seeing ads before videos, where your attention is already present. Another avenue of this is using social media influencers.
These people are thought leaders and have internet fame so to say. Products used or endorsed by them are thus directly influencing the minds of their fans. It is similar to celebrity marketing, but social media influencers have a much more direct and intimate connection with their followers, so their influence on their buying decisions is much stronger. Needless to say, these methods of online advertising are mostly cheaper than conventional methods, so it is beneficial for every business.
Logistics
E-commerce was successfully able to change the face of business logistics as we know it. The physical distance created the need for transportation, warehousing, and display stores at multiple stores in order to reach multiple people. Because one store cannot reach an entire city, let alone a whole country, their reach is limited. E-commerce shakes up this formula, where now the only logistics you need are centralized warehouses and transportation for deliveries.
This means that theoretically E-commerce websites have unlimited geographic reach. Your products can be accessed by anyone from any city, so you don’t need to set up fancy retail stores to reach your local populace. Because items are delivered to the customers, you don’t need to set up as many warehouses. All products are stored in one centralized place. This makes them accessible to anyone, at any point in time. Unavailability of the product in that particular warehouse or problems of out of stock are simply done away with. Thus the only headache left with businesses is transportation. Most countries already have advanced systems of rail, road, and air transport as these are part of basic infrastructure. Responding to the need for deliveries, we can see more and more transportation businesses that are helping bridge the gap between digital and physical.
Cost Reduction and Sales
What’s the benefit of having better logistics and easier advertising? Obviously, these are all measures that lead to a reduction in costs. Also, by making the purchase process more comfortable and approachable for customers they boost their own sales. By reducing costs and increased sales, the end result is greater profit and a happier customer base.
This article enumerates the benefits of E-commerce with the context of 2021 and a world recovering from Covid in mind. We hope that this article educates you and inspires you to take the step into E-commerce businesses too!
