The power of e-commerce — even small businesses can grow big online

It is difficult to imagine a successful, growth-oriented company today that sells its products exclusively through its own physical store. A brick-and-mortar location drastically limits the potential customer base, as not all interested buyers can visit frequently enough. Consequently, online sales have become an essential component of business. While concerns that some customers might not know how to use new digital tools held many back from investing in an online store just a few years ago, the pandemic has since resolved those uncertainties.

Now, even the elderly are clicking items into digital shopping carts and heading to parcel lockers to pick up their orders, or receiving them directly from a courier at their doorstep. The expansion of parcel locker networks across the country has significantly boosted online shopping, as delivery has become both affordable and fast. This means that for manufacturing and retail companies that do not yet have an online store, it is high time to implement this digital tool—even for the smallest businesses.

Cheaper than renting space

Since e-commerce has been booming globally for a couple of decades, a wide variety of solutions are available for setting up a virtual storefront. Their costs are quite reasonable—significantly lower than the rent for a physical retail space. For example, a small e-store can be built independently using ready-made modules and templates, with maintenance costs ranging from 15 to 25 euros per month. If the turnover is at least a few hundred euros, building a digital storefront pays for itself. Furthermore, it will help increase revenue by reaching customers in other cities and even other countries.

E-commerce data platform Littledata surveyed online store owners last September and found that Shopify users generate an average of about 90 euros per customer annually, while the top performers managed to reach around 320 euros. WooCommerce platform users saw average revenue per customer of about 100 euros, while the top 10 stores exceeded 620 euros. Adobe Commerce, formerly known as Magento, shows an even higher average of over 130 euros per customer annually. These figures are convincing enough that the anticipated expenses should no longer be considered a significant obstacle.

Marketplace or your own shop?

Where should you start when creating an online store? First, it is advisable to define your requirements. You can connect to major trading platforms such as eBay, Amazon or Etsy, by setting up your own stall in a massive digital marketplace and trying to get noticed using the advertising tools offered by these sites. The second option is to build your own online store, tailored to your own tastes, requirements, and capabilities. For small businesses, custom-coding a store is not financially viable, so it is more pragmatic to choose one of the popular platforms used by thousands of other companies in Latvia and abroad. These include WooCommerce, Shopify, Squarespace, Mozello, Weebly and many others. All of them offer a free trial period, after which the costs are quite similar. WooCommerce has a free base version, but you will have to pay a transaction fee for each sale, Shopify costs around 27 euros per month, Wix is 25 euros, Squarespace – 17 euros, Mozello – 12 euros and Weebly – 20 euros.

Clarity and ease of use

Once a platform is selected, you must design your store, which involves both visual layout and functionality. This includes how products are arranged on the site, how they are grouped into categories, and how searching, comparing, and adding items to the cart will work. This is the most critical and complex part of the process, as it determines the customer experience—how intuitive the page is, how quickly it loads, and how easily users can find what they need. Popular platforms simplify this work with various modules that have been refined over the years based on user feedback. Furthermore, you have the opportunity to draw inspiration from the most successful examples.

Once the design is ready and products are uploaded, you must add payment and shipping options. Most platforms support bank transfers, card payments, and payments via PayPal. They also allow you to add shipping methods of your choice and assign different prices to each. You will be able to offer in-store pickup, courier delivery, and parcel locker services.

The finished store must be hosted on a server of your choice or one recommended by the platform and integrated with your company website. Often, the site is merged with the e-store so that the customer can find all necessary information about the company and products in one place.

The more well-known, the more customers

Next, work begins on strengthening the store's brand awareness. This ranges from SEO optimization—ensuring the store appears as high as possible in search engine results—to advertising on social networks or in mass media. This is essentially an ongoing process, but it determines how many people will notice the store, visit it, and make purchases. Of course, one must never forget about product quality and customer service standards, which also include the fastest possible delivery of goods to the customer.

It is equally important to ensure you have high-quality accounting software that will help you quickly and conveniently consolidate incoming payments and prepare the reports required by government authorities.

Even if creating an online store seems complicated at first, once you start, the process can be truly engaging. Especially with the first signs of success. The arrival of your first customers is exciting and motivates you to continue developing the site so that revenue grows steadily. And digital commerce truly has no boundaries.