Why you need an online store
The corona crisis has not only reminded Danes to remember to wash their hands. It has also reminded the retail industry how important it is to be present online.
Not being ready for change can have major financial consequences. For example, one of Denmark's most reputable bookstores, Arnold Busck, recently had to turn the key after almost 125 years in business.
Conversely, other businesses are thriving under the new circumstances. I'm referring, of course, to online shops. For example, one online store has increased its revenue by 300 percent compared to April 2019.
However, the corona crisis is slowly coming to an end and physical stores are starting to open again. But does that mean you don't need to have a webshop? The short answer is: no!
There are several good reasons to have an online store if you're in the retail industry - Corona or not. I'll give you seven of them in this post.
Tip: Do you already have an online shop and want to know how to make your online store more visible in search engines? Then I highly recommend you read my post on SEO in Shopify and other eCommerce platforms.
1. E-commerce is growing
E-commerce is by far the most significant growth area in Denmark - and that trend doesn't look set to change any time soon. On the other hand, it's a different story for physical retail, where store deaths have led to empty pedestrian streets in even large provincial towns.
But what's causing the store death?
Quite simply, Danes are increasingly shopping online. In fact, 80 percent of Danes have shopped online in the last year. This makes Denmark one of the EU's absolute frontrunners when it comes to e-commerce.
And it's not just the Corona crisis that has driven Danes to digital cash registers. The growth of online shopping has been a constant over the last ten years - and will most likely continue to be so in the coming years.
That's why it's a good idea to invest in a webshop. It's an investment in the future of your business.
2. Get customers outside your local area
A physical store relies on customers being nearby. A webshop is not. Here, the assortment is always within reach for customers - no matter where they are in the world. This means your customers don't need to physically visit your store to fulfill their shopping needs.
At Amplify, we have a customer who runs the physical wine and liquor store Østerbro Vin in Copenhagen. But resourceful as he is, he has chosen to supplement his physical store with a webshop - a choice that has given him a target audience that extends far beyond the Copenhagen city limits.
This means that the wine merchant recently sold a bottle of whisky for almost DKK 700 to a customer in Southwest Jutland - a sale that would hardly have happened if the customer had to drive across the country to reach the physical store in Copenhagen.
The point is that with an online store, you can attract customers who are far from your local area. This gives you a much larger potential target audience.
3. You can more easily stand out from the competition
Let's pretend you have a store out in the physical, analog reality - which you probably do, since you're chewing your way through this post.
But in this imaginary scenario, your store sells high-quality bags. Unfortunately, in your quest for uncompromising quality, you've neglected the facade of your store, leaving it anonymous and uninviting.
Your competitor, who also sells bags, lives in the next room. However, her bags are not nearly as high quality as the ones you sell in your store.
Your competitor, on the other hand, has prioritized its facade and visual marketing - including an eye-catching facade with special offers, product prices and relevant information about the range.
For the same reason, customers flock to her store - and they often leave with a new bag under their arm.
So what's my point with this hypothetical example?
Of course, your potential customers are more likely to visit your store if:
- 1) it appears visually stronger than the competition
- 2) Your customers know what to expect even before they visit the store.
The same is true for an online store. But with an online store, it's much easier to stand out from your competitors. You don't need to have a master's degree in visual communication to be visually stronger.
But you (or your agency) should have some knowledge of structured data.
I won't go into what structured data is in this post as my colleague Peter has already written an excellent and quite educational introduction to structured data.
But I will briefly outline how structured data can make your webshop more visible in Google's search results (SERP) - and not least how it can make it more attractive for your customers to visit your webshop.
An example of visual marketing with structured data
With structured data, you can give your customers relevant information in the search result even before they have visited your webshop - just like the aforementioned store owner gives his customers relevant information on his storefront.
This could ultimately mean more traffic to your business - and thus an increased chance of sales. In SEO-speak, we call this increasing your click-through rate (or click-through rate/CTR). Or in Danish: increasing the probability of getting more clicks.
Below you can see the poster retailer Permild & Rosengreen's search results on Google. In the search result, the poster retailer has used structured data to give its customers a quick overview of some of the webshop's categories. Not least, customers can see that the store has great customer reviews.
Permild & Rosengreen has made it easy for their customers to decide whether the webshop is worth a visit - even before they have visited it. This makes Permild & Rosengreen stand out visually from the competition and increases their chances of getting more visitors.
If you want your webshop to stand out from the crowd using structured data, you are always welcome to contact Amplify.
4. Target the right audience
Let's imagine once again that you own a bag store. Every day, thousands of people pass by. But very few of them are interested in buying a bag. Even fewer will actually visit your store - let alone buy a bag.
But what if I told you that every passer-by could be a potential customer?
You have that option with a webshop. Here you have the opportunity to customize your marketing to specific segments through online marketing - turning all "passers-by" into potential customers.
For example, you can promote your products to current customers via email marketing, or reach brand new customers via paid advertising(PPC) and organic advertising(SEO).
Both organic and paid advertising allow you to get to the top of Google search results for specific keywords. This means, for example, that you will be found when a user searches for "bags".
You can also use remarketing to market to customers who have previously visited your webshop without making a purchase.
In other words, you can customize your marketing to reach customers at all stages of the buyer journey.
So you have more marketing advantages as a webshop owner than you do as a "regular" store owner.
Want to read about a concrete example of a webshop that has succeeded thanks to online marketing? Read about how Amplify helped the webshop Butik24 give sales a solid boost with extensive online advertising.
5. Automatic sales - around the clock
One of the problems with having a physical store is that your sales are dependent on you and your employees being physically present in the store. And you can only be open x number of hours a day - after all, you and your employees need to sleep and have time for family and leisure.
To put it crudely, basic human needs are causing you to miss out on a lot of sales. But what if I told you that you could have an employee who didn't need to sleep or socialize - and who was ready to serve your customers around the clock?
That employee already exists. And you don't have to worry about getting the labor inspectorate on your back for letting this seemingly tireless employee work around the clock.
Because the employee I'm talking about is, of course, your webshop. Your webshop is not challenged by trivial physical and social needs. It handles all order and payment processing automatically. So your customers can shop in your online store around the clock - late at night or early in the morning.
This benefits both you and your customers. Your customers can shop at their leisure, when it suits them, and you keep your sales going - even when you're sleeping, relaxing on the sofa at night or playing badminton on Sundays.
It's a win-win situation.
6. You keep costs down - both your own and your customers'
I'm not saying that a physical store and an online store are mutually exclusive - one can complement and supplement the other, and of course there are service benefits to having a physical store.
That said, there are clear financial benefits to focusing on e-commerce. For example, your premises and utility costs will be lower because you won't have to spend energy on heating and lighting a retail space with a rent that is as high as the location is attractive.
But your customers will also benefit financially. For example, they will be able to buy cheaper because your lower costs allow you to sell your goods cheaper.
In other words, focusing on e-commerce is financially attractive - both for you and your customers.
7. It's easy to manage and update an online store
Does the thought of managing an online store give you an instant case of technophobia?
Don't worry...
You don't need experience in coding, programming or web design to become a webshop owner. There are several user-friendly eCommerce platforms that make it easy to run a webshop.
An eCommerce platform is basically the system where you manage content, sales and payment on your webshop - and there are many of them. I can mention WooCommerce and Shopify, which are the two biggest providers.
At Amplify, we primarily work in Shopify when we create webshops for our customers. We do this because Shopify has an intuitive and user-friendly control panel where you can quickly get an overview of orders, inventory and sales statistics. It's also easy to create new product and category pages and insert catchy and search engine friendly SEO texts.
Shopify also has well-developed customer support, full integration with Google Shopping, and no need to worry about updating plugins on your online store.
And Shopify is stable. So you don't have to worry about the system crashing due to overload during Christmas, Black Friday and other busy periods.
This is not to say that a Shopify online store is the best solution for you. This post is not an advertisement for Shopify. There are pros and cons to all eCommerce platforms - ultimately, it comes down to preferences and needs.
If you want an overview of the pros and cons of two of the biggest systems, Shopify and WooCommerce, I highly recommend you read the post "Woocommerce vs. Shopify - what should you choose?" written by my colleague Tobias.
Get help with your webshop
Do you need help with your webshop? Then we are happy to help you. At Amplify, you'll be met by web designers and online marketing specialists who are ready to get your webshop up and running - and make sure it stays that way.
Contact us on +45 70 60 50 28 or info@amplify.dk for a no-obligation quote on a customized webshop solution.
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