How To Digitize Your Business and Sell Online?

The way we do business has undergone tremendous change thanks in no small part to the digital revolution. Ecommerce apps and websites have seen an unprecedented boom in the past decade around the world. From multinational corporations to small-scale startups and shops, each and every product and service can just as easily be procured in the digital world as through the physical one. 

For entrepreneurs seeking to start a new business or expanding their existing line of business, one of the most lucrative ways to do so would be to make money online by developing an e-commerce app. The success stories of Amazon, eBay, Ubuy, Getit prove that online shopping is here to stay for the foreseeable future. If you are still on the fence, let us show you the advantages of creating an app and selling online:

Almost everyone in the world has access to a smartphone these days. The increased usage of online modes of shopping, with the help of mobile applications, has gradually become the norm. Much like every piece of information available online, an e-commerce app enjoys the accessibility that a physical store cannot enjoy - 24 hours a day, 7 days of the week, 365 days a year. In other words, any person in any corner of the world can access the app at any time, thereby widening the reach of the business beyond geographical, physical, and cultural boundaries. 

With the help of advanced marketing tools and technologies that the internet has to offer such as Google Ads, it is now easier than ever before to target your ads to your desired demographic/audience. You can deliver tailor-made ads and marketing solutions to the specific gender, age group, region, and a slice of the population that is your target audience. Marketing your app and its range of products in a way other modes of advertising simply cannot, is the USP of digital marketing.

As far as online shopping apps are concerned, the support of ancillary services is crucial if not equally important to the business in itself. Tying up with delivery partners who are experienced professionals in their field can smoothen out the supply chain and in turn boost business for everyone involved. The delivery of the products can be outsourced to third-party supply chain partners like DHL, Aramex. 

What makes or breaks a shopping app is irrefutably how the payment gateway has been incorporated into it. Mobile applications make it easy to integrate various modes of payment options in it such as credit/debit card, wallets, mobile banking, or net banking thereby elevating the whole shopping experience of the user. Many payment gateways also support instant loans and EMIs to support customers in managing their purchases.

In these precarious times that we live in, due to the global COVID 19 pandemic, online shopping apps integrated with contactless payment and/or cashless payment modes have risen in popularity at a scale hitherto unheard of. And by the looks of it, the boom in online shopping apps is here to stay. 

One of the biggest differences between offline and online shopping stores is that while the former predominantly deals with only physical products, the latter has the advantage of being able to provide both physical products as well as online products and services. Take the example of an e-learning app. Tuition classes used to be a largely present scenario where students had to travel to where the teacher is to attend the classes. This resulted in a restricted number of students due to geographical limitations. But with an e-learning app, any student anywhere in the world can attend the classes and not miss out on the benefits of education. The popularity of such an app needs no further introduction than this.

Also, read - What type of software beneficial for your business?

Last but not least, the costs, time, and resources required to set up a business are definitely on the higher side of the scale as compared to setting up an online app. These huge savings can help provide economies of scale and thereby resulting in an increased profit to the business. None of the constraints of setting up a physical store/shop/office, yet with an e-commerce app, the benefits are tenfold.

If you are sold on the idea of setting up an e-commerce app now, here are the steps you need to take to get you started:

Before you venture into e-commerce applications, first you need to draw out a detailed plan of the proposal - a type of product/service that you are planning to sell, target audience and the market size, budget and app development costs involved, resources required, legal requirements, etc. At the same time, you also need to plan the essential features, analytics, and functionalities of your app, the platform it is supposed to be launched on, the range of products to be added, whether the app is going to be of a particular niche or a comprehensive one.

Designing and developing an e-commerce app involves two crucial elements - aesthetic appeal and user experience. It is very important to ensure that the app is easy to navigate and understand, and the functionalities included therein are user-friendly. You also have to ensure that the checkout process and payment gateways therein are functioning fault-free.

Once the developmental activities are completed, the next step is to test the app for quality checks, bugs, core functionality, infrastructure, and back-end and front-end UI design integration. Proper and intensive testing ensures that the app is flawless in the mobile app development stage itself, i.e before launching to the market.

With the rising competition and market for e-commerce apps, it is imperative that your app stands out from the rest. This is where branding and marketing come in. you can resort to a wide variety of marketing strategies, crafted to suit your brand perfectly, to place your app in the minds of the customers. A good marketing strategy makes half the job done and sets the tone for your app to penetrate the market with ease.

The final step in creating an e-commerce app is going live to the market. If all the above steps are executed to perfection, launching the app would be as fuss-free and smooth as possible. You can either go for a soft launch, testing the waters before dipping in, or a full-fledged launch, by piercing the market with your app and taking the competitor's head-on. 

Now that you are fully equipped with all that you need to know about creating and launching an e-commerce app, take the next step and talk to the experts for launching your e-commerce app to the market?