Yesterday I was pleasantly surprised to see a local brand of snacks from my hometown on a Facebook. “Now shipping across India” the Ad said. Isn’t it wonderful how we feel so pleased to see old familiar names online? Needless to say, I immediately clicked on the Ad and ordered my favorite stuff.
But for many such brick and mortar stores, it is terrifying to change their processes and finances that have been always been done the traditional way. In 2013 when Amazon started its service in India, many of them were really disturbed by the uncertainty of how it will affect them.
Today, 6 years later, the scene has completely changed. Small local businesses are driving the next wave of ecommerce online. In fact, many of them are able to charge a premium for their exclusivity.
Offline businesses have a starter advantage when going online:
- They already have a brand equity. They have loyal customers who can drive initial demand and even spread the word about them.
- Their backend business processes are already in place. All they need is to scale up for the new demand.
- With so many existing delivery partners in the market, ensuring timely and safe delivery is not a hassle as was some years ago.
So let’s see how a friendly neighborhood brick and mortar store can start going online.
Selling with Ecommerce websites
The basic thing that any store can do is start selling online with big ecommerce websites like Amazon and Flipkart. Both have an easy seller onboarding process that can help anyone register in few minutes and start selling immediately. All you need is a PAN number, a GST number and a bank account and of course a nice product to sell.
Amazon for example charges a referral fees and closing fees. A referral fee is a fixed percentage of listed price (like 9% for toys, or 6% for apparel), depending on the product category. Closing fee is a fixed amount for handing the money transaction for you. Listing is free and you get money in your account within 7 days of sale.
Both Amazon and Flipkart have extensive information on their websites to guide new sellers through the complete process and help them increase their business.
Advertising online
Once you are able to sell online, the next step is to advertise yourself. This is all the more important for a services business since you will not be able to sell through ecommerce platforms. But being visible will give you an equally big opportunity to get new customers.
Google and Facebook are the two most popular platforms for any business to advertise. Together they cover almost 99% of audience online. Online ads are different from TV spots because here you can target specific audience. Instead of just broadcasting to everyone (though that is also an option), you can specify the geography and demographics that you want to target.
Facebook Advertisement
Facebook offers a simple pay per click advertising option and helps you with a nice interface to start off.
Google Ads
Google ads work in slightly complicated way. They have a very intricate algorithm running in background that decides which ads to show on which device depending on a variety of factors.
Some of the important things to keep in mind when advertising on Facebook or Google are:
- Though Facebook ads may look easy, know that both work differently. Facebook targets specific audience based on demographics.
- Whereas Google targets audience based on keyword searches from a device and the relevance of your ads to someone searching for those keywords.
- So while Facebook will help you mass advertise to a particular type of audience, it may not always be effective if you are a niche business.
- Google on the other hand needs some more intelligent effort on keywords and identifying your target audience. Otherwise yours ads will show up but you will not get any traction.
Social Media presence
Lastly it is also important to keep your customers engaged online through active presence on various platforms like Facebook, YouTube, Instagram, Twitter and recent ones like TikTok. You need to show regular activity on these pages because these are the places your customers’ attention is. An average Indian spends at least 3 to 4 hours online every day.
To engage customers actively you need to have:
- Visual posts that catch the attention of audience
- Regular activities like contests / giveaways
- Customer testimonials
- Business updates / new products/ new shop openings
Are there specialists to help an offline business in this process?
Definitely!
Digital marketing agencies are dedicated to helping any business make the most out of digital world. These agencies work with several clients and hence are experts at guiding you through your digitization process. They help you with:
- Defining your objective to be present online
- Suggesting a digital media plan
- Creating websites/ business pages/ social media accounts
- Maintaining active presence on each of these
- Planning your budget spend for online presence
- Spreading your spend across various channels to get the best returns on it
If you are a newbie to online marketing, it is always advisable to get guidance from experts. The fees you pay for their services is negligible compared to the time and money you can end up spending without