No Fear Of Lockdowns And Curfews
It is unbeatable how convenient online shopping is compared to running a store offline. Comparatively with shopping in-store, when shopping online, customers don't have to worry about maintaining social distance or any covid protocols because they can shop while sitting on their sofa. Customers don't need to travel to the store because they can place an order from the comfort of their homes. Longline queues are not required, and cash is not needed as they can make the payments online. Also, they no longer need to enter card information separately for each purchase because modern browsers securely store the information. Now, I am better prepared for any future curfews and lockdown restrictions in the future. The online store is now my rescue to beat the insecurity of losing my business growth numbers. Availability 24/ 7/ 365 Another great benefit that I have over an offline store is that it (online store) doesn't close after limited hours. Further, I don't have to worry about factors like:
Also, unlike weekends and half days, I don't have to wait to go on a holiday trip. As I can easily operate my store from any corner of the world. With my E-commerce system, my website can operate round the clock and provide shoppers with accurate product details, warranty policies, product reviews, and product descriptions to make a more informed buying decision. But with an offline store, this problem always tipped the scale in favor of the online store. With my online store, I can sell anywhere in any part of the world 24*7. Multiple marketing opportunities With my offline store, the marketing opportunities are limited and traditional. So this got me thinking that how I will market my business online to increase my sales and brand awareness? And that's where my e-commerce partner helped me to perform incredible SEO optimization to increase organic reach for my website. With my online website, I reached more audiences and have more leads for my business. Also, slowly and gradually, my business ranked higher in search engine results. In addition to organically marketing my business, the eCommerce platform also helped me leverage several marketing options. And, now I know how to promote it on multiple social media channels and marketplaces like Google, Amazon, Facebook, and Instagram, all of which were easily linked with my website. Attract new customers at an affordable price Online selling gives me the advantage of expanding my business and reaching a new audience. It is easily done with better SEO practice that helps in better Google ranking, enhancing branding, and providing better customer relationships. All this is done with a low-cost investment as compared to an offline store. A physical business is more expensive to run, whereas an online business has lower overhead costs. A centrally managed management system on an easy ecommerce platform helped automate inventory management and reduce inventory management costs. Also, any overhead costs incurred in setting up the business were covered by the additional profit I made by reaching more customers. Better scalability Another great advantage of selling products online is that it offers better and enhanced scalability options. This was yet another doubt I had in mind when planning to start my online journey. And this concern was smoothly resolved by my online e-commerce growth partner. They helped grow my business by broadening the product line, targeting more audiences, and adapting to consumer and customer demands with detailed product listing and selling in multiple places. With online commerce, I can grow my business without changing my location or having to expand into a larger shop as I might have to with a. Also, I can add more product lines, add more payment options, and ship to more locations. Better customer interaction With online selling, my business has done better and increased customer engagement. Over the years of running my offline store, I now know that customer experience is of the utmost importance. That is why I was determined to put together a website with an engaging interface which helped in great customer satisfaction. With my personalized eCommerce website, I captured and shared data like customer names, birthdays, and brand preferences on my POS and eCommerce system. Using eCommerce features like social media integration, live chat, and automated email campaigns, I increased conversion rates by engaging customers and delivering a compelling user experience.
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Throughout March 2020, many businesses were forced to shut down in response to a global lockdown temporarily. The restrictions are being eased gradually, but the future remains uncertain.
You must be wondering who I am. Well, my name is Ratan Kumar, and I own a silk saree store in Varanasi. This Banarsi Silk Shop has been in my family for almost 100 years and was founded by my great grandfather. Our shop is famous for its brocades, fine silks, and opulent embroidery, all made of gold and silver. In the wake of the covid outbreak, I wanted my business to thrive in the 'new normal' environment. With all these COVID restrictions, my silk sarees store was not performing well as sales and profit dropped drastically. After that, I decided to take my Silk Saree offline retail store online to sell silk sarees. Not just this, but the reopening of businesses was subject to tedious and frustrating social distancing policies, mask-wearing, and limits on the number of individuals allowed into a space. All these points indicate that it will take a long time for retailers like me to recover from such a loss. But that got me thinking that due to covid-19, people are increasingly turning to online shopping. And the reason was clear - traditional shopping is turning scary, unsafe, or becomes time-consuming because of numerous safety checks. And now, this new Omicron variant is raising more questions about the saree industry in eastern Uttar Pradesh. That's when I thought, why should I bear so much loss, debt, and disappointment? Wouldn't it be better to take a more creative and practical approach to revive the business? I definitely had done my fair share of research and found Covid-19 made the transition significantly easier for several online marketplaces like Amazon and other online retailers. And the best part was that consumers already welcomed them with open arms. Also, I read in the Internet Revenue Association, online revenue grew 44% in 2020 and increased 6.8% in Q3, 2021. In the post-quarantine world, this trend is likely to continue. Even when retail businesses reopen fully, online shopping will retain its advantages. Considering all of these factors together, I thought now might be the best time to start selling clothes online or expand my e-commerce business. But, Why Was I Nervous? While I was thinking about expanding my local and global sales by moving my business online, I had several doubts. First, I wasn't clear about how to do it and faced challenges along the way, like how I would be able to manage the technical aspects of starting an online store. It was my lack of understanding about how I will promote my online business and what would be the next step to sustain. All these thoughts made me hesitant to break into the e-commerce space. However, I researched online and found a good eCommerce platform that helps retailers start their online business with no-code websites. And the best part is, one doesn't need to hire a developer and pay hefty fees for launching an e-commerce site. Not just did the platform help me start my store for free, but it also made it easier to market it later on popular social media platforms, allowing my business to become a successful brand. Now that making a website was easy, here are some of the other benefits that intrigued me about moving my retail shop online. Conclusion: Along my journey, I have learned that today's businesses can no longer afford to ignore e-commerce as it has become a necessity. It is relatively easy to start an e-commerce company, even if you own a physical store. For me, it was a huge relief as I started my online website for free without having any technical and online selling knowledge. As a result, I can rightfully say that I am now prepared to face any future pandemic challenges. Also, with an online store, now I have plenty of opportunities to sell my sarees in the global market. Additionally, I have multiplied my online sales by 30% in just six months by displaying a wide variety of sarees online and implementing a solid online selling business plan. Most of the new startups and aspiring entrepreneurs are fueled and inspired by these numbers. However, taking the most of it is still a dream of many of them. To help you with the same and learn the key considerations to grow your clothes business globally, We decided to list them for you. Keep scrolling to learn about these basics and how you can implement them to grow your clothing business. Pick a niche The clothing industry is vast with numerous sub-segments. Even if we’ll go with gender and age-specific bifurcations, you can have a good number of choices. Acknowledging this, when you plan to grow your clothing business, the first thing to consider is being niche-centric. Do not try to have your hand in everything. This will also help you focus better on your target audience and define a strategy to grow your business. Let’s say, for example, you are willing to sell clothes for men. This can be further bifurcated in traditional wear, formal wear, and casual wear. In each of these, the target audience and approach are distinct. When we talk about women's wear and the one for kids, there’s an entirely different list. This is why you must have a defined niche for your clothing business. Create a website Your brick-and-mortar store would surely be gaining a lot of traction, but expanding with another physical outlet may call for humungous investment and efforts. This is why numerous brands and startups choose to create an online store rather than expanding a physical outlet. Even you probably have had thought once in while to start your online store and could have stopped considering the technical expertise it may require. But wait, this isn’t the actual scenario. You may start selling clothes online with zero investment and in just five minutes. You read that right. This can be attained by doing free registration on Builderfly. The platform offers you numerous tools to customize your website and has a filtered list of leading payment and delivery partners. Once you create your free online store with Builderfly, you get to access its tools that will help you grow clothing business online. Market your brand smartly Be it a physical store or an online brand. You need to have a strong marketing strategy in either case. And in today’s digital world, marketing goes online. Perhaps this is what gives creating an online store a firm cover. While promoting your clothes business online, you can give your audience a digital landing page where they can come and buy your products. Researchers have proved that there are more chances of turning your campaign’s target audience into a buyer if you have a website. Also, you need to keep in mind that you define the target audience wisely in your campaign. Experiment with ad timings and days and keep a close eye on analytics. This will help you learn the performance of your marketing campaigns and you’ll eventually be able to make better decisions. Builderfly marketing tools and channels offers you a various techniques to promote, grow and upscale your online business. Not just this, it also allows you to promote your products using an inbuilt email marketing tool. Also, you may always have a command of real-time analytics. The Indian textile industry is booming with every passing day. The textile and apparel industry is currently valued at 75bn USD including around 3,165K manufacturing MSMEs spread across the country.
Talking about the online apparel category combined with footwear, experts believe that the market will reach 25 trillion INR by the end of 2030. According to a survey, 42% of respondents said they shopped at least once a month online in the second quarter of 2020. While 12% of respondents shared, they shopped as much as 2-3 times in a week. This indeed proves the potential that lies in the clothing business. In fact, according to IBEF, between Jan to July 2021, India exported textile products worth 1.77 lakh crore. Need to be noted, this is 52.6 % more compared to sales during the same period in 2020 and 13.7% more than 2019. Yes, the sales figures were more than post-pandemic times. What does this prove? It proves that the market has huge potential and some brands are leveraging all its benefits. Interact with your audienceThe reason buyers and brands love social media platforms is that they can interact directly with each other. You would have heard about people writing a post on Facebook/Instagram or tweeting to their brands about their experience? Even the biggest brands will take no time to acknowledge it and reply to them. This isn’t due to fear of defamation, it’s to earn goodwill and create a positive impression amidst those reading it. Your interactions are read by millions of other people and the message goes clear, “You value your customers”. Acknowledging this, you got to be active and ensure interacting with your audience from time to time. This will help you earn goodwill and eventually you’d be able to grow your clothes business. Sell clothes on social media using the Builderfly platform. Provide seamless supportOne of the primary reasons behind some brands making big is they prioritize customer satisfaction. Not just from the moment they visit your portal to making a sale, but even after that. Most users have abandoned a brand due to a lack of after-sale support. It could be through web chat, a phone call, WhatsApp, or email, the gist is, it should be prompt from your side and effortless for your target audience/customers. Just to add to support and satisfaction, I would say experience (in whole) also matters. This begins the moment they visit your store and stays until the customer is linked with you. This means you have to keep a close track of how users are responding to your ad campaigns, their behavior after visiting your website, and are coming back to shop from your ecommerce website. Businesses with a good retention rate have a better growth chart. ConclusionVarious aspects influence the growth of your clothing business. It can be the market flow, user response, competitors, and most importantly approach. Most brands sell the same thing. However, some make it big and some fail to create their presence. This is all because of how you present yourself and value your customers. Create online shop using the Builderfly platform and grow your clothing business. In today’s digital era, the bars have raised for businesses. Your buyers will require a little extra every time. While you cannot add much to your product without changing its prices (pun intended) it’s better to improvise service and the modus operandi you follow. The latter can be sorted using Builderfly and the former comes when you are ready to put in some time and effort. Builderfly will help you save some while growing your business. We hope the blog helped. In case there’s anything else, please feel free to connect with us in the comment section. We’d be happy to answer them for you. Christmas is around the corner and I’m sure you’d have started preparing for it. Particularly for the kids, the festival is the time when they receive their favorite gift. Perhaps this is why according to a report 53% of Indians do not plan to compromise with their Christmas spending.
This means that despite the negative impact of Corona, people have no plans to compromise with their spending on Christmas. Particularly when it’s about gifting toys and games to their kids. Market analysts have observed that during Christmas time, people spend a good amount on buying toys and games for kids. Considering this, we thought of bringing some of the toys and games, that are anticipated to hit maximum sales. But before we move further, let’s learn about: Following are the ways to increase sales:Retail outlets are good to establish a local presence, however, they confine you to a defined geographical location. This is why creating an online store is the best idea. You can create your free online store in just five minutes using Builderfly. Besides the exposure to buyers across the country and globe, it gives you ample tools to build, market, and grow your online store. Also, the platform guarantees that you’ll receive your first order within 30 days of starting an online store with Builderfly. Considering that Christmas is close and possibly you may get your first order by selling a toy or game this festive season. Having said this, Builderfly may prove to be the right ingredient to your fresh success journey in selling toys and games market. Creating an online store has commendably helped numerous startups and independent sellers to increase their sales during the festive season. If you too want to attain the best results, it’s recommended that you create an online store and start your online toys and games business this festive season. Now that we are acquainted with the secret to growth, let’s find out the top 5 most trending toys and games this Christmas season. Need to mention, the list below highlights an outer category instead of product names in particular. Since we are focusing on growing business, we want you to prioritize these categories and include them in your online store. ConclusionWhether you are starting an afresh toys or games store or you have a physical outlet but are willing to expand your business and increase sales this festive season, creating an online store is exactly what you need. With Builderfly, you can create an online store for free, and that too in just five minutes. The platform offers you numerous tools to further market and promote your business. We would suggest you no longer delay the same and start your online games store with Builderfly at the earliest possible. This will help you get your first order soon and mark your presence above your competitors. We hope the blog helped you. In case there’s any other question you have, please feel free to leave your query in the comment section below. We would be happy to answer. |
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January 2020
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