Nowadays people spend more and more time in digital environments. This has had a significant impact on where sales are made. As the significance of brick-and-mortar stores has diminished and the popularity of online sales has grown year after year, why wouldn’t you be where the customers are? 

Over the last couple of years, the importance of web stores has only increased with the pandemic being a primary driver of the change. The pandemic has changed our everyday lives and ways of shopping. This has resulted in new kind of consumer behaviour. At times it has been necessary to use services solely online. More and more of people's consumption takes place on the Internet and they have grown accustomed to buying both products and services online.

Difficult, you say?

These days, establishing a web store is quite simple and affordable. It does not require any major investments, only a little bit of your time. You don't have to be a coder or build the web store from the ground up yourself. A web store may be founded relatively effortlessly on a ready-made platform with small monetary investment. This is yet another example of a case where you shouldn’t do everything yourself from scratch, but instead make use of existing and functional templates.

If you want, you may of course build your very own store, but it requires both technical know-how and coding expertise, as well as a slightly larger investment. The most important thing to remember is that everything is possible. You choose the path you take.

Not only for products

Online sales are no longer solely about selling products. Practically everything can be sold on a web store, including services and expertise. You only need to think outside of your familiar box. You have probably made online reservations to the barber’s yourself, so why wouldn’t you sell your own professional expertise online as well? Just make sure that your services are presented on the web store in a clearly productised and priced manner. Easily accessible.

Placing the customer in the centre

One of the linchpins of a web store is that it needs to take the customer into account. It is much easier for the customer to use your web store to check what you are selling and at what price. Nowadays the customer wants to know as much as possible about the product or service you are offering before making the purchase decision. They are not content with simply knowing the price of the product, but they also want to hear about its quality, contents, use examples and recommendations. The better you have succeeded in productising and presenting your products on the web store, the better it serves the customer. 

It is also good to keep in mind that the modern customer wants to shop and browse services 24/7. All these factors make your company more accessible if it has a web store. The web store makes the customer's path towards the purchase easier and smoother. You are easier to find, and the customer has a better understanding of what you are offering. Online retail is a service. You can offer your customer a comprehensive service experience that is built on the customer's own information seeking efforts, product comparisons and purchase process.

Web store or brick and mortar

You don't have to think about the web store and the brick-and-mortar store as being and either/or issue, however. You can make the best out of both. The web store does not exclude the brick-and-mortar store, but often complements it. Often the customer first looks up information online before visiting the physical store. The customer might also check if you have a certain product on offer, and only then decide to visit your store.  Why wouldn't you allow them to do this? The web store can also bring you financial security, especially when the economic situation is in flux. The web store may give you more leeway.

In fact, the web store can be described as having an extensive and deep understanding of how you can help the customer fulfil their wishes. The customer is not only a customer of the web store for the duration of the purchase transaction; they are also a customer before and after it.  Whether your store is online or in the physical world, serving the customer is where it all begins.