E-commerce and its potential for SMEs

For traditional commerce and SMEs, e-commerce represents great opportunities for visibility, positioning and sales.

According to the 2020 Annual Ecommerce study presented by IAB Spain, 3 out of 4 shoppers search and formalize their purchase online. This translates into 22.5 million Spaniards between the ages of 16 and 70 who shop online, with the 35 to 44 age group being the most active.

The average monthly expenditure per user of online shopping is 68€.

The frequency of online shopping is 3.5 times a month, with an average monthly expenditure of 68€. Among the most influential factors when making an online purchase are, a good experience and a secure payment method.

In addition to these, according to the opinion of the professionals participating in the study, when creating an e-commerce, it is important to take into account other issues, such as offering a competitive price, good customer service, product quality, a variety of payment methods, and short delivery times.

The frequency of online shopping increased by 51% during lockdown.

Covid-19 has changed the consumer habits, who have increased their online shopping frequency during the confinement (51%), and 25% state that they will continue with a higher frequency.

Analysing these data, we can assess the importance of e-commerce for SMEs, but what are the advantages of e-commerce for small and medium-size enterprises?

Below, we list some of them:

• Creates new business opportunities.
• Allows the expansion of businesses to other markets and geographical areas.
• Offers new forms of distribution.
• Improves competitiveness and service quality.
• Speeds up delivery times.
• Makes more flexible any payment methods.
• Provides a quick response to customer and potential customer needs.
• Improves interaction.
• Greater control of orders and order processing.

In order to sell through an e-commerce, it is necessary to carry out a series of steps.

Being aware of the obvious advantages of e-commerce for SMEs, if we decide to go for online sales by creating our own store, we must take into account some steps to make it effective:

1. Analyse the environment and draw conclusions to define a good strategy.

2. Create a SWOT to identify the weaknesses, threats, strengths and opportunities of your product or service.

3. Recognize your competitive advantage.

4. Define your buyer persona, that is, the profile of your target audience in detail.

5. Choose the name for your online store.

6. Choose good professionals for the design of your e-commerce.

7. Select the products you are going to sell or services you are going to offer.

8. Hire a good hosting service.

9. Choose the technological platform according to the size of your business.

10. Design a good user experience.

11. Define the payment methods.

12. Plan your logistic system (storage, stock control, picking, shipping, delivery times and tracking).

13. Implement an online marketing and sales strategy.

14. Set prices according to your pricing policy if you did not do it before when analysing your competition.

15. Measure and control KPI's with performance measurement tools.

Working on all these aspects and learning from experience will allow your SME to reach buyers who spend more time online.