E-commerce is Still Young and Growing

We are all consumers in this world, wither its consuming gas for your vehicle, groceries from your local market, or even the digital device you are using to read this article. Many of us have purchased items from the internet through a site such as amazon, Best Buy, or eBay. So it may come as a shock to some when we tell you that online sales only made up 8.5% of retail sales in the first quarter of 2017.

Even though a majority of us have ordered products online, e-commerce is still very young, and with the success of Amazon, Best Buy, and others now is the best time to get in on the growing industry of e-commerce.

Getting your foot in the door will be work.

There are many reasons why people do not shop online. Two of the major reasons is security and economy. Many people understand the impact of what e-commerce can do to the economy. E-commerce is known to be competitive with brick and mortar stores when it comes to pricing, an online store generally has less overhead to maintain compared to larger stores. This means online stores can sell their products for cheaper, hurting the traditional business. Another economic impact is online stores can be operated by fewer employees, this makes people worry about job loss and a study performed by cigionline.org proved people would rather purchase products online that were manufactured in their own country.

Security is another concern of shoppers. In the same survey taken by cigionline.org, many potential shoppers were wary of cyber criminals and internet companies taking advantage of gaining their payment and personal information.

So is it worth getting into?

Absolutely! The gripes that some people may have with shopping online do not outweigh its benefits people are growing more and more accustom to e-commerce every single day. The current projections show e-commerce sales reaching $4 trillion in 2020, boosting the current 8.5% of all retail sales to 14.6%.
There are many ways to gain a potential consumers trust with your online e-commerce store or service. Even if the consumer prefers to purchase from their own country having a clean website with a simple user interface (especially mobile interface), along with clear channels of communication with the customer may influence them to shop at your store.

From a security aspect, you can influence the potential consumer that they are in good hands by using secure payment systems such as Open Business System and having a security certificate issued to your website.

E-commerce may not be anything new to most but it is growing rapidly.