What Is Ecommerce?

Introduction

This is a quick guide to understand what Ecommerce is and what an Ecommerce business is. We will be looking at the types of Ecommerce, the benefits of using Ecommerce alongside your current strategy, and how to get started with Ecommerce.

A good starting point would be to uncover what Ecommerce actually is, so here we go…

Ecommerce is most commonly known as the buying and selling of products through an electronic medium – like the internet, but any transaction that is completed through electronic measures is also considered to be Ecommerce.

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Types of Ecommerce

There are three main types of Ecommerce: business-to-business (B2B) (websites such as Shopify), business-to-consumer (B2C) (websites like Amazon), and consumer-to-consumer (C2C) (websites such as eBay).

Business-to-Business (B2B) Ecommerce sites

Business-to-business, or B2B, is the practice of selling online from one business to another, in other words, wholesale. Wholesale B2B models are present in many industries including retail, food service, construction and medical, among many others. Like most things, being able to do tasks over the internet has been a big help with B2B e-commerce.

Business-to-Consumer (B2C) Ecommerce sites

Nowadays, a lot of Ecommerce is B2C, as it’s easy for businesses to target specific consumers online. Businesses, like Amazon, are able to put their products online, allowing the consumer to purchase the products in the comfort of their own home, saving them some precious time. This super useful trope comes in pretty handy this time a year!

Consumer-to-Consumer (C2C) Ecommerce sites

The next area of Ecommerce is consumer-to-consumer. This is where ordinary individuals are able to sell and buy between each other. Thanks to websites like eBay and Vinted, you - the consumer -  are able to upload images of the product and sell it on to others that may be interested in buying it. With all the apps available at the tap of a screen it’s never been easier to get started selling.

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The Benefits of Ecommerce 

Because the internet is so broad, it can hold a vast assortment of things. In contrast to a physical shop, there is no limit to what the internet can stock. Its shelves are endless! Anything and everything from Super Noodles to sofas to socks is available for purchase on the internet. 

What’s more, there are no restrictions on how the items may be purchased. Many businesses are using social media platforms like Facebook and Instagram to target specific clients and promote certain items. And since the internet is always open it makes it available to anyone's target audience all hours of the day. So whether you’re looking for early birds, night owls or someone in between, thanks to the internet's opening hours they may wind up on your website!

Ease of Ecommerce

Putting anything online is now simpler than ever before. It’s as easy as 1, 2, 3 - literally! Snap a picture, write a description and wait for your target audience. Easy! 

Naturally, there is more that happens in the background, particularly with SEO to help promote your website, but it's simple with assistance from an expert Ecommerce team.

Knowledge is Power

Finding out additional details about your clients is now considerably simpler if you have an internet presence, you can learn a tonne of information about your website's visitors' behaviour with a little bit of research. With help from free online resources like Google Analytics, having access to data like how frequently target audiences visit, which pages they click on, how they found it, and many other things is a great help. It will prove beneficial and very insightful to track events including conversions, acquisition path, ROI from different channels and much more.

With the launch of the new GA4 Analytics tracking, a property created for the future of measurement, this is made even more straightforward. In order to better understand the consumer journey, GA4 collects data from both the website and the app while using event-based data rather than session-based data. Privacy protections including cookieless measurement, behavioural modelling, and conversion modelling are also delved into all with the aim of collecting the best, most accurate data out there..

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Custom Ecommerce Building Platforms

Shopify

In many experts' eyes, Shopify is the king of Ecommerce with a solid and robust platform and integrated marketplace. Shopify is a software-as-a-service (SaaS) sales platform that is subscription-based. Through a simplified interface, Shopify assists small companies in creating an online store and conducting online sales. Shopify sellers can create a cutting-edge online store and sell using email, SMS, chat, seller marketplaces, other blogs, and websites. 

With its integrated point-of-sale (POS) for retail storefronts, pop-up shops, market sales and more, Shopify makes it simple to do in-person transactions as well. Shopify has a variety of templates and can make it easier to launch a straightforward business quickly. Although the platform is used by over a million merchants, individuals with extensive product catalogues may wish to steer clear of it because Shopify and Shopify Plus (the Enterprise edition) both have stringent choice and variant limitations for each item.

WooCommerce

WooCommerce is a free, open-source plugin that can be added to a frontend WordPress site to give it backend Ecommerce functionality. Both WooCommerce and WordPress are free and easy to use with reasonable levels of flexibility and several features such as inventory and tax management, secure payments, and shipping integration.

Used on about 2.3 million e-commerce stores around the world, WooCommerce may be a good choice if you’re looking to quickly monetize an existing WordPress site; however, it may be difficult to scale as adding additional payment, catalogue management and marketing features can become costly and time-consuming.

Wix

Virtually all of the features that the majority of small Ecommerce shops require to run a successful company are available with Wix Ecommerce. As an online store, it provides you the option to employ a variety of third-party plugins and tools to manage your inventory, personalise your checkout experience, and simplify shipping when used in conjunction with the Wix website builder.

Wix offers a wide variety of free themes, quick setup, and a drag-and-drop interface, making it a great choice for small company owners and creative entrepreneurs. 

Squarespace

Squarespace is primarily a content management system, but for users who want to sell tangible or intangible goods, Squarespace Commerce provides additional specialised capabilities like expert templates and automated mailings, making it a fantastic choice for novice sellers and smaller organisations.

Webflow

Webflow was initially built for marketing websites and a leading CMS; it wasn’t until later that Ecommerce functionality was built in and so it falls short in some areas of Ecommerce as it stands. However, it is possible to harness the design and CMS superpowers of Webflow and integrate a platform such as Foxy to create a robust Ecommerce platform with a bespoke Webflow website.

Having said that, with bespoke tools and components along with the introduction of Memberships, Logic and increased CMS sizes, Webflow is stocking up to start making its mark as one of the best Ecommerce platforms out there. We predict within a couple of years, Webflow will become one of the best Ecommerce platforms on the market. Just watch this space!

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Conclusion

There you have a quick resource on Ecommerce and the builder platforms out there. So if you’re thinking about making your mark on the World Wide Web you know a few places to start looking! If you have any questions, don't fret to get in touch.

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