Someone has said,
“Business is like riding a bicycle, either you keep on moving or fall down”
Businesses either go up or slide down. There is no concept of a ‘Stand Still’ in the business world. So, we have discussed some parameters that How to grow your eCommerce Business.
Businesses are always in a quest to expand, have more sales, more employees, more activity, and more profits. Once businesses reach the maximum, the next logical step is to expand into new but related businesses.
Horizontal and Vertical Expansion
Growing companies expand either vertically or horizontally and sometimes in both directions.
Horizontal Expansion
Horizontal expansion reduces the competition when the expanding company acquires other competing companies to become their industry's leader.
Vertical Expansion
Vertical competition, on the other hand, means expanding upward ( i.e. taking the role of the supplier and/or manufacturer) or expanding downwards which is going one step further to get closer to their customers.
Example of Vertical Expansion
An example of vertical expansion is a wholesale or manufacturer like Samsonite, Microsoft, and Apple opening their own stores. The purpose is to reach out to more customers and to be on their doorstep.
The Cost and Benefit of Expanding
Expanding vertically to reach out to more customers is an expensive proposition. The cost of opening and running stores in many geographies to extend the reach to a broad spectrum of customers does not come cheap. It may be worthwhile for some big companies but is generally unaffordable for most in terms of investment and maintenance.
A cost-Effective way to expand vertically
Luckily, unlike companies like Microsoft and Apple have a very cost-effective way of expanding vertically and reaching out to more customers without breaking the bank.
The most cost-effective option is opening an eCommerce web store! It provides more value to customers by allowing them to take their time to compare products, read reviews and make an informed choice. It is a simple and effective method of expanding to new geographies and customer groups at a much lower cost.
Is just opening a web store enough for success?
It is similar to a physical brick-and-mortar store opened at a mall or high traffic area. Similarly, advertising and marketing campaigns are run to inform and educate prospective customers about its presence. Promotions are offered to bring customers into the store. An online eCommerce store also requires efforts to reach out to customers and to convince them to visit the eCommerce site.
What is the importance of an eCommerce program like Magento?
Magento has a quarter of a million customer sites running on it. It has a strong ecosystem of 150,000 independent developers. These independent developers are spread all over the world and develop add-ons for Magento. Thus, there are thousands of themes, programs, and add-ons available to meet almost any kind of need that one may have. No wonder stores developed on Magento have 50% less TCO (Total Cost of Ownership) and make 3x more sales than the competition.
Ability to handle the increased workload?
When businesses expand vertically into an eCommerce arena supported by powerful platforms and tools. It helps promote the business and attract customers but what happens when their new customers start placing orders?
The workload is overwhelming: print order, give it to shipping, update items, prices, promotions, categorize and recategorize items and much more.
What is the importance of ERP driving your eCommerce?
Integrating the eCommerce site into your ERP system significantly eliminates the effort required to maintain the eCommerce store. In financial terms, an average size company can eliminate the effort of a minimum of one employee by integrating their eCommerce site to their ERP solution. This is in addition to the errors, omissions,s, and mistakes made when the data moves manually between the two systems.
How x2x eCommerce bridges the gap.
Despite having similarities, eCommerce and ERP are going to be different solutions. They are designed to do different jobs based on the purpose they are meant to serve. x2x fills the gap between the two systems to make them work hand in hand with each other.
x2x eCommerce is an add-on module for Dynamics GP which adds eCommerce-related features into Dynamics GP. x2x eCommerce added features, which do not inherently exist in GP( like Product Catalog, Item Images, SEO) in Dynamics GP.
This enhances the ability of Dynamics GP to efficiently integrate with Magento eCommerce which is also modified by x2x to become compatible with Dynamics GP to provide a fully integrated top-of-the-line solution for your business.
Why x2x eCommerce?
integrates your eCommerce site with your Dynamics GP ERP system. It is like putting the web business on autopilot. x2x eCommerce cuts a significant amount of time required to administer and update the eCommerce site. This leaves more time to concentrate on the marketing and improving your customers' buying experience.
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Now you know How to grow your eCommerce Business. Increase your Market Share and Grow your Business by offering to your potential and existing clients. Earn customer loyalty and trust by providing them with this efficient solution.
