E-commerce sites have taken over from storefront sites in recent years. The latter only presented the company and the products it offered. Nowadays, potential customers of a brand have the possibility to buy directly the goods they want on an online site.
Therefore, the main key factor of success for a web store is SEO, whether it is natural or paid. The most important thing is to set up a marketing and digital strategy that will allow the website to be known and to develop its visibility.
Nowadays, in France, there are more and more websites dedicated to online sales. Their turnover does not stop growing every day. In 2019, it already represented 103.4 billion euros, according to the Federation of e-commerce (Fevad). This wave has grown exponentially, closely linked to the Covid19 crisis and thus allowing many of them to grow. Indeed, traditional sales have stagnated while in 2020, 40 million French people bought on the Internet, that is 78.3% of Internet users.
Moreover, the online shop is always able to make sales since its activity is carried out from a website. This gives the e-commerce company a great availability to its customers, while a traditional store has only a few hours a day to satisfy its customers.
So the e-commerce allows to make available a product or a service and the digital marketing develops its visibility, if a good strategy is set up. In this case, the customer comes to the company, when the latter proposes what he is looking for. This is how a brand can satisfy needs on the whole territory and even internationally.
The creation of its merchant site
The key is to create a platform as intuitive as possible, while it is initially a complex device.
The e-merchant must call upon experts for the creation of his online shop in order to be able to concentrate essentially on the marketing of his offer. It is a collaboration between the two parties involved: the site creator brings the expertise in his field and the merchant knows his products or services. Thus, there are many companies able to respond to this type of request, in order to take care of the technical side. Most of the time, they offer a monthly subscription. The offers usually include the installation of essential plugins, the integration of secure payment methods, the automatic generation of invoices etc.
It should be noted that some offers are not suitable for all types of activities. Sometimes sites need a more personalized development because each project is unique, just like a traditional store or e-commerce is. This is called custom development, with features specific to each site.
In addition, using a service provider for the creation of an online store has a certain cost. This amount is higher than for a more traditional website, because of the complexity of its content and the integration of a payment method. Indeed, e-commerce sites must allow companies to manage their product sheets, stocks, orders, deliveries etc. The price can vary according to the experience of the professional, added to the number of days of work. The main factor of variation of the cost is the functionalities integrated into the e-commerce site.
In addition, it is important to check the specifications because some features are included in the package and others are not. Finally, companies must be careful to choose a solution where the proposed offer is completely transparent. This avoids that the expert requires to add to the subscription a percentage of the turnover or any other supplement.
Moreover, within the service providers that companies turn to, it can also be interesting to count on a Business Coach who, from the creation of the online store, accompanies and advises the company at all levels. The goal is then to develop sales.
Finally, one of the most important final objectives is that the e-commerce site is the best referenced in the Google algorithm.
Dropshipping, an asset solution for the merchant
In e-commerce, you should not waste time on the technique but rather launch quickly, there is the particularity of dropshipping. It is a turnkey solution where the implementation of the website is done quickly, thanks to modern technologies.
Dropshipping is a simplified online commercial system, which corresponds to one of the strategies of online sales. It is in fact about not having any stock. Indeed, it is then the role of the supplier to take care of the supply.
As far as dropshipping is concerned, there are fewer elements to set up compared to a more traditional site. This method allows to break down the production steps (logistics, negotiation with suppliers, team training…), which makes it much less complex.
It is a strategy that allows the reseller to position itself in a product niche and avoid being too generalist. The margin rate can range from 30 to 80%, depending on the theme chosen by the retailer.
On the one hand, the non-existence of stocks allows to have a large panel of products in its catalog and permanently, which is a consequent advantage for the e-commerce. On the other hand, the company will be able to make an idea of the products which will be the most requested and thus those which will allow him to make the most profit. Thanks to the quantity and the diversification of the range that it proposes, it is then easier to live of its commercial site.
Dropshipping allows us to test a large number of products for sale without risk. This is a criterion that is not least important, that is to say that every day a company can add items to its catalog to see which are the “best sellers”. Only then can brands have an interest in stocking their best sellers, which will allow them to deliver to their customers faster and thus benefit from better margins. On the contrary, when companies operate with stocks from the beginning, they invest without knowing if the quantities will sell.
It is therefore a kind of “must-have strategy” to better understand the risks before turning to inventories, especially since the costs are low and companies can test the value of their products.
In addition, there are many other advantages related to dropshipping. First of all, the absence of logistics (stock management, order preparation, packaging and shipping) for the merchant which is then the task of the supplier. The seller is only concerned with making the sale and establishing good communication. Secondly, the dropshipping results from a low financial investment because it is the management of the stocks which always represents an important cost for the e-merchants. The expenses will be mainly in the creation of the online store and webmarketing levers (natural and paid referencing, emailing, affiliation). Moreover, dropshipping generates cash-flow which will allow you to launch your project later on, thanks to the important funds acquired.
Nevertheless, some elements must be taken into consideration: there are indeed disadvantages on the side of the wholesaler and the seller, both depending on each other. Concerning the e-merchant, the latter can find himself in a delicate situation if his supplier changes the price of his products for example. The competition is often hard between all the online sites, nevertheless, the suppliers are also numerous and rather accessible. Sometimes, the difference will be played especially according to the universe of the site and the fixed prices.
How does dropshipping work?
Dropshipping can be considered as one of the optimizations of online trade, as an innovation. It is divided into three phases. The first phase is when the customer orders the products he is interested in, after having visited the online site. In the second phase, the seller is notified of the purchase and then informs his supplier of the sale. Also known as a wholesaler, he takes care of the logistics and therefore the supply. The third phase is closed by the shipping of the package until the acquisition of the good by the customer. It should be noted that most of the time, the buyer is not aware of this intermediary. The dropshipping always puts in relation three different parties: the consumer, the distributor and the supplier.