What is eCommerce

E-commerce means commercial transactions conducted electronically by transferring funds on the Internet

This means whenever you buy and sell products using internet e-commerce is involved.

With no barriers of time/distance, e-commerce enables to exchange of goods or services.

The concept of e-commerce came into existence on August 11, 1994 when a man sold a CD to his friend through his website NetMarket – An American Retail Platform.

Since then, e-commerce has evolved to make buying and selling easier, offering benefits to both consumers and businesses.

Alternative names for e-commerce are e-shop, e-store, internet-shop, web-shop, online store, virtual store, etc.

Types of E-commerce:

• Business-to-Business (B2B)
• Business – to- Consumer (B2C)
• Consumer-to-Consumer (C2C)
• Consumer-to-Business (C2B)
• Business-to-Administration (B2A)
• Consumer-to-Administration (C2A)
• Key Benefits
• 
  
• Low inventory cost
• Scalability
• Exciting offers
• Global Market Reach
• Customer Insights via analytics
• Fast response
• Personalized messaging
• Buying/Selling 24*7

It is a convenient way to shop at your comforts, with just a few clicks.

Online stores like Amazon, Flipkart, Shopify are examples of E-commerce websites.

According to statista, retail e-commerce sales are amounted to 3.53 trillion USD and e-retail revenues to grow 6.54 trillion USD in 2022.

hi everyone we will be talking about e-commerce for dummies this is going to be an extremely dialed down discussion on the absolute basics of e-commerce let's get started ecommerce stands for electronic commerce all it is is selling a product or a service online e-commerce has expanded exponentially in recent years and will only continue to do so and the more it continues the more it will continue small and medium-sized businesses all the way through to large corporations and even independent freelancers have benefited from e-commerce their products and services are now so easy to discover and purchase at any hour of any day from almost anywhere in the world the possibility to scale in this day and age is like no other ecommerce is the fastest growing retail market so why wouldn't you want to be a part of that there are loads of benefits to hopping on e-commerce bandwagon with e-commerce being electronic you have a global market this multiplies your target audience exponentially you'll also choose who your customers are and define how to target them with your store being online you're essentially open 24/7 365 days a year there's no need to flip that sign on your front door that states open on one side and closed on the other customers can purchase your goods all day any day you also have the ability to work from anywhere in the world provided that you have an internet connection you're also going to require a lower investment and encourage Oost costs compared to a physical store so who can open an ecommerce store anyone really provided that they have the few essentials to get started these essentials include a product or service to sell a place to sell them a means to process payments and a marketing strategy to attract customers let's discuss each of these a little further so right off the bat you're going to need a product or service to sell you can either make something yourself or you can source it from somewhere else some things you want to keep in mind your are who you want to sell your product or service to is this other consumers or is this other businesses you also want something unique you don't want to sell something that every other Tom Dick and Harry is selling what's the point this means more competition and less chances of sales also try and think of a product or a service that solves someone's problem no one likes having problems so if you have something that can solve enough people's problems you're a winner finally the cost of your goods and your selling price you want to price your products at a low enough rate that you remain competitive to similar products on the market however you don't want to price yourself too low that you don't make a sufficient profit to keep operating on the other hand you don't want to price yourself too high otherwise no one will purchase your products and we don't want that next you'll need to figure out where you will be selling your goods the nature of e-commerce is selling online so you're not going to be looking for a brick-and-mortar location or physical storefront you'll need a website or an ecommerce platform to sell your products from you can either build your own website or use a CMS content management system a CMS provides the basic framework for your website and allows you to add and edit your products accept payments and manage your online store some examples of these include Shopify Magento and big commerce just to name a few beginners generally start here versus building their own website factors to keep in mind when choosing your CMS platform are pricing scalability flexibility and ease of use keep in mind that your website or CMS platform is acting as your physical shop this is where people come to interact with you and purchase your goods this is where you influence them this is where you impact how likely they are to convert from a visitor to a sale and hopefully a repeat sale so the decision of where you will be selling your goods is one of the most important ones that you will make choose wisely the next thing to think about is how you'll be transacting with customers this is a really important decision your payment provider is someone that needs to be credible and trustworthy because after all there are the ones handling your income important points to keep in mind here are compatibility with your ecommerce platform availability in the countries that your business is targeting the ability to accept payments in different currencies the fees charged reliability and reporting and usability and customer support some payment processes that we highly recommend are stripe and PayPal lastly you'll need a good marketing strategy to attract your customers let's face it if you don't attract customers to your online store you aren't going to make sales it's not like having a physical storefront where people may just stumble upon you you have to bring your customers to your online store this area will need a good amount of work if you're going to be successful it's also an area that constantly needs to be revisited reviewed and adjusted based on what's bringing your traffic and what is not there are a few areas of focus for this one social media social media has become a channel of digital influence and is a brilliant tool for building brand awareness it's almost impossible for new brands to be successful online without some sort of social media presence Facebook Twitter Pinterest Instagram and other networks can be used for almost everything from specific targeting and real-time engagement to customer service and direct sales it's a no-brainer to stay heavily active on these platforms and the best part of these are they're free number two SEO which stands for search engine optimization this refers to techniques that help your business rank higher in search engine results pages this makes your website more visible to people who are looking for solutions that your product or service can provide think about how often you click onto page two or three of a Google search to find what you're looking for hardly ever so we don't want our websites to be ranked there because no one will ever find us the first page is where you want to be or at least and to be number three email marketing don't underestimate the power of emails it is a highly successful tool to keep your audience engaged you will however need to find a balance between keeping your audience educated and informed versus overwhelming them with too many emails start working on building your email list right from the beginning there are some great affordable tools out there that can help you they help you manage the list of your email contacts segment your email list they allow you to customize emails create save edit and manage multiple email templates as well as get detailed reports on the effectiveness of each campaign some recommendations that we have for email marketing are MailChimp and clay view ecommerce is a big playground of its own but it's a playground that anyone can play on yes there will always be bigger older kids playing there too but when did that stop the smaller younger kids from playing don't be too intimidated small kids grow into big kids they grow and learn along the way if you want to play on the playground go for it we hope you've shared enough insights to lead you in the right direction let us know if we did like and share this comment below and subscribe to our channel for more ecommerce videos coming your way until next time 

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