Are you an offline retailer or online store player?
Last time, we talked about how you can get your business online with only RM500 capital, and we receive quite a number of enquiries regarding this.
Many offline retailers are starting to take interest in this ecommerce business market. Why? Because it is growing dramatically over the past few years.
Look at what we have now in Malaysia – Zalora, Lazada, Ebay, Lelong, Rakuten, Expansy and even Taobao SEA. All the big ecommerce players are entering the market of Malaysia, can you still ignore this trend on purpose?
Just a few days ago, a pure ecommerce based in China – Alibaba has just gone public in the United States, getting them a value of US$25.03bil, putting them on par with the social network giant Facebook (Facebook is an Internet only business too).
So, what are the other signs that are telling you to invest in ecommerce now?
1. Ecommerce has huge potential
Quoting the Alibaba’s IPO again, you can see that ecommerce businesses do have a big potential to grow. 15 years ago, the Internet is not popular at all. 15 years later, a pure ecommerce business can even go public and putting getting a value of more than a billion.
The Internet gives ecommerce businesses a great opportunity and potential to success by the right hand, in a right way.
2. Rapid Growth of Internet Users
From July 2013 to July 2014, the total internet users have increased by 81 millions, making more than 40% of the world population now as Internet users. In Malaysia alone, there are 657k of Internet users.
Just imagine, if this number keep on growing at a constant rate and you are able to grab 1% of the users as your customers, how much can you earn?
3. Getting into Ecommerce is now easier
Few years ago, there are simply too many infrastructure and procedure to go through if you want to start an ecommerce site. Today, it is different.
Starting an ecommerce website is now easier than ever. Just hook up with any ecommerce provider and they can provide you with the best ecommerce plan that is suitable for your business needs.
There is no need of sky high investment like opening a brick-and-mortar store, and everyone can access to your store any time, any where.
4. Rise in Online Spending
You need facts of people are not afraid of spending money online now? Here you go.
In a research, it is said that 91% of Internet users in Malaysia now shop online. This is a huge amount as how many people you meet these days are not using Internet on their mobile phones or PC?
With the spending of buying apps and games through mobile phones, the users are now more confident in spending their money online than before.
5. Spend less, Get more
In our post about the advantages of online advertising over offline, we mentioned that you will spend lesser in online marketing than offline in order to achieve the same result or effect. This is because online advertising are cheaper in nature, and the exposure and reach is so much better.
Of course you can spend on online advertising but still operating solely offline, but that is not a good integration and we think it does not make any sense at all.
Grab your users’ attention, get them to take action immediately on your online store. Don’t give them the “cooling duration” to reconsider their decision when they need to visit your physical store to make a purchase.
Sanz Teoh
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