The rise of multichannel ecommerce – why you need to go for it

In today’s quickly evolving retail landscape, things can change dramatically. What seems to be right today may prove to be completely wrong tomorrow. To overcome the uncertainties, going for multichannel selling is perhaps the best solution for any ecommerce merchant. If you’ve been planning to run your online business through a multichannel ecommerce platform, the entire thing may sound a little confusing. So, here’s a quick review on the rise of multichannel ecommerce and why you need to get started today.

What is multichannel ecommerce?

Put simply, multichannel ecommerce refers to the practice of selling items on multiple online platforms. To become a multichannel ecommerce retailer, all you need to do is sell the products on more than one online platform. For instance, if you’re an artist, and you sell your artwork through your website and have them listed on Etsy as well, you’re engaged in multichannel ecommerce.

History of multichannel ecommerce

The realm of ecommerce today has become a multibillion-dollar industry boosted by giant online marketplaces like Amazon and eBay. According to The New York Times, the first ever online retail transaction was securely performed by a man called Phil Brandenberger on August 11^th, 1994. Competition between the marketplace giants has existed since the initial days of ecommerce, and smart ecommerce store owners have completely utilized this to their advantages. Apart from using various big and popular multichannel ecommerce platforms, numerous ecommerce retailers today operate their own online shops, and some even sell through different social media platforms.

Ecommerce platforms

You can consider these platforms as the online selling equivalent of your brick-and-mortar store. This is your online shop where you control the feel and look of your brand, interact with present and prospective consumers, take orders and fulfill them. Two types of ecommerce platforms are available to merchants today: self-hosted and hosted.

Self-hosted ecommerce

This method requires you to manage the server hosting side of your website. It offers your more customization, but a good knowledge of coding would be required.

• Magento: The open-source option of this product enables you to download a code and allows for maximum customization. With adequate programming knowledge, you can reap complete advantage of this dynamic system.

Hosted ecommerce

In this subscription service model, you pay a company to handle the technical aspect of your ecommerce store. These cloud based solutions manages the bulk of coding, server configuration and security of the hosted site. You can access your online store from a web browser to run it.

• BigCommerce: A popular name in the hosted ecommerce platform landscape, BigCommerce comes with in-built ecommerce SEO functionalities that help your site get more footfalls as well as increased sales. You may need a good understanding of this platform if you are to leverage its marketing tools or tweak some design elements.
• Shopify: This platform empowers entrepreneurs to take care of every aspect of their online business. There’re lots of paid and free templates available to get started, and you can change them to fit your brand. This platform also comes with a big developer partner program with applications, through which you can integrate other apps and plug-ins to fulfill missing components of your store.

Marketplaces

Marketplaces are websites that provide you with information on third-party products and sellers. They take care of the processing aspect of your sales. Top three marketplaces for online retailers are Amazon, eBay and Etsy.

• Amazon: It’s the largest ecommerce marketplace across the globe, attracting hundreds of millions of consumers to its site. FBA (Fulfillment by Amazon) is a service that empowers business owners to send in their products to FBA centers to complete their orders and handle customer service inquiries.
• eBay: In this auction style marketplace, you list your products and consumers will bid on them. The customer that holds the highest bid wins once the time designated by you is up. It can prove to be a great space for possible price for products and testing the demand of them.
• Etsy: This marketplace contains handmade products. If you sell such products, it can be your best choice because here, consumers often pay higher prices due to the personal touch that the listed products boast of.

Why should you get involved in a multichannel ecommerce platform?

From reduced risk through diversification to broader brand awareness and product visibility, there’re lots of key reasons in favor of adding more sales channels through a good multichannel ecommerce platform. Put simply, more sales channels is equal to more prospective customers, which means more scope of potential leads.

Here’re some more prominent reasons to expand your business through a multi-channel selling software.

• Multichannel ecommerce is drawing in huge, international investments. Giants like Amazon, Walmart etc are investing a huge amount of money in their ecommerce platforms to take scaling to a global level. This brings in immense development opportunities for retail businesses as these giants can’t scale up without the participation of third-party retailers.
• Developing a multichannel ecommerce has become cheaper and easier than before. According to an estimate done by BigCommerce, entrance fee for a new online retail business has become only $30 per month and businesses can be built within a couple of days.
• Growing number of customers are shopping across multiple channels. A study revealed that an average customer uses two or more touchpoints when assessing and purchasing a product. According to speculations done by industry analysts, these omnichannel shoppers usually spend more than customers who shop exclusively from brick-and-mortar stores, or buy online (via a single channel).
• The market is still flourishing. Unlike offline retail, the ecommerce industry still lets entrepreneurs find a niche and begin generating profit comparatively faster. In addition, small businesses often gain a competitive advantage over their large-scale peers when it comes to shifting their product focus and fine tuning their business strategy quickly based on changing market demands or trends.
• Presence of inventory management system software makes it much easier to monitor inventory and maintain it at the optimum levels. In a brick-and-mortar store, every rack needs to be maintained well, which may become an uphill task sometimes.
• A multichannel ecommerce platform helps you ensure that your store is working throughout a 24-hour period. It means your store makes sales and brings you profit even when you’re sleeping.
• You don’t need to maintain stock for your every single product. In physical stores, customers browse through product aisles and purchase products as they please. On the contrary, customers who purchase online usually have a category or product in mind, at the least, as they have already made up their mind to make a purchase.

Final takeaway

Now that you know about the different types of popular multichannel ecommerce solutions and some of their unique advantages, it’s evident that your business has to be competitive to maximize profits. One easy way to attain this is by deploying a good multichannel ecommerce platform coupled with a robust marketing and selling strategy.

Contact eChannelHub today to talk to one of our experts and to explore how we can help you choose a multichannel ecommerce platform that best suits your unique business requirements.