What is an e-commerce website

So what is an e-commerce website?

In simplest terms, an e-commerce website enables you to sell online, as opposed to through the traditional bricks and mortar shop location. Most internet users will use an e-commerce website on a regular basis – perhaps to purchase clothes, do their supermarket shop or purchase subscriptions from a website like our client The Half Yard Club.

Why may you need an e-commerce website?

There are a number of potential reasons for needing an e-commerce website for your business which include:

• No physical presence – Unheard of 30 years ago, many retailers now have literally no bricks and mortar physical presence with all sales done online. In this instance as you can imagine, an e-commerce website is essential for them to be able to function.
• Remote physical location – You may have a physical location but if it’s remote, difficult to get to or you just don’t get much footfall, an e-commerce website can help extend your offering and greatly extend your audience.
• Extend your reach – You may have a physical shop but want to extend and be able to deliver your products or services to a wider geographical audience. If you take our friends at The Secret Cellar as an example, they have multiple shops located in the South East but their online shop allows them to deliver nationwide.

How has e-commerce evolved?

The stats on e-commerce are quite incredible. I started working in this industry way back in 2010 when worldwide e-commerce sales were reported to be $510 billion. That number has soared with buying habits of many permanently moving online, and it has been suggested that in 2021 this was as high as $4.9 trillion.

With this explosion in online sales, never has a good quality e-commerce website been more important than it is now, and the trend doesn’t look like it is going to slow down, in fact this number has been estimated to reach as high as $7.4 trillion by 2025.

These numbers show the message is pretty clear; if you don’t have a strong online e-commerce presence and you have a business that could transact online, you are likely to be missing out.

What platform options are there for e-commerce?

If you are looking at either getting or enhancing your online presence, there are a number of options when it comes to e-commerce. These include:

Off the shelf

There are a number of off the shelf e-commerce platforms which you can use. Generally these are good if you are limited in terms of time, cost or both! The drawback of an off the shelf platform is you are often limited both visually and in terms of functionality, particularly as your online shop evolves. So, they are great for starting a small online shop relatively quickly but not so good if you require a platform that needs to scale with potentially complex functionality and integrations with other systems.

More customisable platforms

There are a number of e-commerce platforms that are more customisable than off the shelf alternatives. Magento is an example of this, you have a number of features built in but can build custom functionality on top of the platform if needed. The problem with this, and Magento in particular is that, in our experience, clients have found it clunky and difficult to use and there is also a very real security threat that comes with open source platforms like Magento.

A bespoke e-commerce website

I always maintain that there can only ever be two reasons for not going down the bespoke route, both in terms of a website, or a bespoke CRM system. These are linked to cost and timescale. Sometimes a bespoke platform can cost more than off the shelf alternatives and will by nature take longer to complete. But as long as you plan in advance, you get the significant benefits of complete control over the look, feel and importantly functionality of your website. And a bespoke platform can scale and evolve alongside your business much more effectively and efficiently than off the shelf alternatives. In addition, you may be able to benefit from the R&D tax credit government scheme if you have a bespoke e-commerce website built.

What can be sold through an e-commerce website?

Traditionally, I personally associated an e-commerce website with buying products – so the aforementioned clothes, food shopping etc. but e-commerce means so much more than this. Here are some examples of what you can buy online:

• Subscriptions – We have built a number of subscription platforms for clients, such as The TN card where members can subscribe through The TN card website or app.
• Digital products – It is not just physical products that you can sell online, you can also sell digital products such as a digital download of a piece of content you have produced.
• Insurance – It’s not just the large insurance companies that sell online through price comparison websites. Smaller insurance brokers can as well. Like our clients The SFS Group, a school fees insurance specialist who sell policies through their website.

Studio44 have been developing bespoke e-commerce websites for many years and have worked on many successful projects in that time. If you are looking at a new bespoke e-commerce website for your business and don’t quite know where to start then get in touch, we would love to talk through options with you and see if we can help!