It is tough to set up a physical retail shop especially in country like Singapore where rental fee is high, good location is hard to find, manpower is scarce and competition is fierce. Many retail businesses struggle because of these factors so as to minimize the risk of failure, there are many retail business owners beginning to look for alternative. They realize that setting up a virtual retail shop or commonly known as ecommerce store could be one good strategy to survive in the cut-throat retail world.
Advantages of a Virtual Retail Shop
Cost effective
The number one reason of setting up an ecommerce store is cost effectiveness. It is cheaper to set up a virtual shop than a physical shop. You only need to register for a domain name, web hosting, purchase ecommerce software with a shopping cart and payment gateway. Compared to the expenses of a physical shop, all these costs for setting up a virtual retail shop are very little. Some web hosting companies such as Bigcommerce which is a self-hosted ecommerce solution provides everything under one roof so saving you costs and time purchasing ecommerce functionality separately.
Tech-Savvy Customers
Customers today are getting more and more tech savvy. Most prefer shopping online as they have more options and could order almost anything from the online world. Online customers prefer reading other customers’ reviews before making purchase while some enjoy comparison shopping and finding good deal or bargain online. These online shoppers would normally share their findings with their friends and family and this is made easy by one of the ecommerce store features – social media sharing tool. With just a few clicks, customers can easily share their findings, view and opinion on Facebook or Twitter.
Customers Tracking
An ecommerce store make tracking of customers buying habits and behavior easier as it has a robust tracking and reporting system. It is usually difficult to track what the customers are buying, when or how they are buying in a physical shop but a virtual retail shop has a management system that can list out detailed information on customers buying pattern. This information facilitates future product promotion and customer relationship building.
A Retail Shop that Never Sleep
It is not possible to operate a physical retail shop at 24×7 due to resources constraint but this is possible with a virtual retail shop. You can open your virtual shop 365 days non stop so that your customers can access your virtual store at any time, any place as they wish. It is also convenient for those customers who are at different time zones. They can continue making a purchase even while you, the business owner are asleep.
Less Manpower Required
The biggest problem of local retailers is not able to find enough manpower due to the long and irregular working hours. However, setting up a virtual retail shop will eliminate this problem as it does not need a cashier, sales person, store assistant or manager in the virtual shop. Manpower is not required to maintain or manage the store as there will be no stealing of merchandises or messing up of the store by the customers. Most of the tasks like ordering of products, payment, verification of credit card, issuing of invoice and receipt are already automatically handled by the ecommerce software.
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If you are planning to open a retail store or looking way to improve sales, consider the above advantages and get an ecommerce store. Setting a virtual retail store or an ecommerce store is a good way to test the market before diving into the physical world. If you are interested to set up a virtual retail shop, click here to find out more.
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