Definition of E-commerce
He e-commerce Or also called electronic commerce, it is a buying and selling system that is carried out through the internet. There are businesses that have a physical place to sell their products in addition to their online business and, others, instead have this modality only.
Examples are Zara, which has physical stores all over the world where it exhibits and sells its clothes, or the Amazon company, which only operates through the internet.
Having a website to promote your product or service will turn your company into a virtual store, available and open 365 days a year, 24 hours a day. In addition, with this service that Gmol Solutions offers you, you will be able to manage a new portfolio of clients, even when they are on another continent.
Advantages of having an e-commerce
A virtual store is synonymous with the perfect balance between having your own business and more time available.
There are many advantages that come from having e-commerce ; The first is that you will work from the comfort of your home and you can be a self-sufficient person.
Your investment will go down because you will not have to think about the usual costs of electricity, rent and employee salary; everything will be automated. At first you will only have to acquire a domain and hiring a hosting server.
In addition, your sales will scale quickly because the buying process is more dynamic and you can make several sales from the same ad.
Is e-commerce the same as business?
Not. The term e-commerce refers to the transaction between customer and seller, while business refers to the entire process involved in managing an online business. In fact, e-commerce is part of business since it is a type of business model.
How to start a successful e-Commerce business
The first thing that every company that wants to enter the virtual world has to assess is its potential customer. It doesn’t matter if you have the best shoes on the market; all your competition will also say they have them. Being an online business, your audience will not know who is telling the truth until they make their first purchase. How will you get to that first contact if your client doesn’t know yet that you have THAT pair of shoes they need?
You will succeed if you understand your audience. You will get it if you know their customs, you know what they need what you sell for, you know how often they will want to replace it and you know how much they are willing to pay …
One of the most important benefits of selling online is that we can measure the audience of our website and, in this way, know the types of customers who are interested in our page. Some tools like Google Trends and Google analytics are used for this purpose.
By measuring our audience we will find different types of clients; for example, a middle-aged lady who sees a post on Facebook. This takes you to our website. María, the lady we are talking about is very thrifty, so she goes directly to the OFFERS section, without even paying attention to the rest of the sections.
Then we have Pilar; a very busy young woman who has no time to surf the web; has two meetings today. Pilar looks only for what she needs and goes to the section: SHOES FOR EVENTS.
We can also meet the type of client Jorge; a grandfather who is very good at technology, but is very distrustful. You think that giving your bank account over the internet is unsafe. Jorge will first go to the WHO WE ARE section to make sure that we are a reliable company and will not illegally keep your money.
These are just some examples of clients that can enter your e-commerce once it is created.
Types of e-commerce
To classify the different existing ecommerce we will divide them into two groups. The first based on who sells and who buys, and the second based on their business model.
With respect to who sells and who buys, a differentiation is created:
-B2B (Business-toBusiness) Companies that offer a product to another company. Example: Cement manufacturer to a construction company
-B2C (Business-to-Consumer) Companies that sell to end consumers. The most common. Example: Zara
-C2B (Consumer-to-Business) Portals in which consumers publish products and companies bid for them. Example: Influencer who publishes a link for the sale of a product and receives a commission from the company in return
-C2C (Consumer-to-Consumer) company that facilitates the sale between consumers. An example of this is Wallapop or Ebay.
There are also different types of ecommerce regarding the business model they use, depending on how their income is generated or how the exchange between buyer and seller is carried out, they can be divided into:
1.On-line store with own products. Example: Zara
2. Dropshipping. The difference with the first is that the seller does not have the product, the issuer is a third party.
3. Affiliate e-commerce. In this case, the store not only does not send the product, but the closing of the sale is not done on its website, it is referred to a third party and he pays a commission.
4. Membership. Look for recurring purchases. The best way to acquire it is with periodic subscriptions, whether annual, monthly, weekly, etc. Example: Manolitoandco.com
5. Marketplace. It is a store of shops; different vendors sell their products. Example: Amazon
6. Services. Products are not sold but knowledge, consultations or non-physical services. Example: GMOL Solutions.
Should I invest a lot in my ecommerce?
That depends on what type of e-commerce you want to create. If we want to create a clothing store, we have to have enough stock for the level of sales we want to achieve, with which the investment volume will be high.
However, if we are English teachers and we create our business online, the most expensive investment will be that of our time.
Beyond the business you plan to start, GMOL Solutions will give life to what you want to create. Remember that it does not matter if you have the best shoes, the important thing is that you have a good marketing team that helps you show that you are the best option.
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