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eCommerce: Does your business need a Shopping Cart?

By Brian Bennett, Friday, 18th January 2013 | 0 comments
Filed under: UX/Design, Web Development, General News.

Do you need a Shopping Cart?

Over the past 6 months we have noticed a huge increase in the amount of people looking for Shopping Cart Websites. The businesses have varied from old clients, to actual bricks and mortar business that sell on the high street or even new start-up companies who see it as a good way to get into the retail sector.

The First Thing to Remember!

The investment of an eCommerce system or Shopping Cart should be treated as a separate revenue stream. Online and offline are not the same thing.Treat it like another store. The website will probably have a different audience to your current store (if you have one), but you must also educate the people who shopping in the store about the website also. If I were setting up an online store I would think of it as investing in a new "store" at a condiserable amount less than I'd be paying for years rent.

Why sell online?

This is really a question that you will have to answer yourself, but some of the reasons we come across are;

  • We currently do not sell online and feel that there is an opportunity to increase our sales.
  • We're a new start-up company and will be focusing on online sales only.
  • We have an online shop using PayPal but we'd like to upgrade our shopping cart to a more sophisticated model.
  • We're losing business to competitors that have an online store.
  • The way the internet is moving is showing that more people are shopping online and we don't want to get left behind.
  • We're losing money and need to try an modern approach or else face disaster.

Our Findings

We felt that we needed to understand peoples buying habits and online shopping activity; so we carried out our own survey;

  • Stats82% of all the people have bought online at some point - This is a huge number. 
  • Of that 82% of people 60% of these people were buying once in a while. 
  • Our survey was mainly focused on clothing and some of the key results were;   
    • 50% of people bought shoes
    • 48% of people bought sports goods or equipment
    • 42% of people bought outerwear (hoodies, jackets, rain gear)
    • 32% of people bought formal attire and dresses
  • The majority of the people either spent between €20 - €40 (32%) and €40 - €80 (36%)

What we can take from these facts is that of the people who are online and buying they have an appetite to do so. They are willing to spend considerable amounts of money while shopping online and are familiar with the process.

Another interesting fact from our survey was that peoples biggest fear was getting the correct size (62%) followed by product quality (38%), a good returns policy (32%) and shipping costs (26%). This data shows that even though the majority of people feel comfortable shopping online they still have reservations.

What's next for your business?

So what is next for your business? Well only you can figure out if you want to sell online! But we of course can talk you through the Sow the seedsprocess if you like. Have a look at your business and see if this is an avenue that you would like to venture down. Time is going to be your most precious commodity when dealing with an online store, make sure you factor this into any business plan. Your shopping cart is not going to be a success over night, but spending time on the site and researching everything you should be able to carve out a nice market for yourself.

As I mentioned at the top of the article we've received a lot of enquires for eCommerce websites over the past number of months. We're currently designing a number as we speak (a fishing tackle shop, a beauty product website, medical supply company, a toyshop, a bookstore to name a few) and we can certainly try and help you get your foot into your new online store.

For any questions or queries please contact sales@webtrade.ie or call 01 2990655.