e-Commerce is growing all over the world and Philippines is among the slowest to adapt to ecommerce in Southeast Asia. In the Philippines, the most popular ecommerce sites are Zalora, Lazada and Shopee which are all Singapore-based companies.
There are some locally owned and locally developed e-Commerce stores in the Philippines but Facebook page or Facebook group selling is the number one channel of online selling in the country.
But do you really need a website for your business when you already have a Facebook page?
Your online selling via social media may be working for you now but with the emerging e-Commerce trend plus the economic effects of the Covid-19 pandemic, more and more businesses are starting to level up their business in order to thrive in the New Normal way of conducting businesses.
Based on this May 2020 report by Statista, you will notice the growing revenue of e-Commerce year by year. This means that e-Commerce is here to stay and the best time to evolve your business into this growing trend is NOW.
For sure, everyone is affected by this including you and your competitors. But your competitors maybe thinking ahead of you and they have invested on this already. By the time they have established their brand online, you are still beginning to consider and by then, you will lose your sales to your competition.
e-Commerce, by definition, is commercial transactions conducted electronically on the Internet. You can do it through your own website or via social media. However, unless it is done in the most efficient way, you will still be left behind.
So what benefit do you get by having a website aside from a social media page like Facebook or Instagram
1. Reach hundreds to thousands of audience easily
In a Facebook page, your content is only limited to your fans and post shares. When you have a website, if a customer searches for bakeshops in your city through Google, your competitor with a website will most likely show up in Google search.
Your prospective customers will see your competitor’s phone number, address, store hours and even their product catalog with pricing info. Naturally, they will go to your competitor’s store because your store did not even show up in the search.
2. Facebook is only your advertising partner, you need a store where the actual transaction happens
Sure you have a Facebook page where thousands of fans follow you. You post your product pictures, communicate with your customers through chat — you give the price info, how to order, consolidate and send invoice, arrange delivery and finally prepare the product for fulfillment.
While you’re doing all these manual things, your competitor with a website has already processed multiple orders while you just finally finished one. They concentrate their time and effort on providing quality service and boost sales through marketing and advertising instead of dealing with manual transactions.
3. You have full control with your website
What if Facebook suddenly disables your page? Why does that happen? Well, they’ll give you a whole list of community rules and you have to figure out yourself what rule you actually violated. Of course, you can try to appeal and lucky for you if your page gets reinstated.
That’s how it is when you put your business in someone else’s control than having your own rules with your full control.
4. Credibility
Both you and your competitor have a Facebook page. You both post your products in your page. However, your competitor has a website. Your prospective customer checks your competitor’s page and goes to their website and thinks this way “Wow, this is legit seller. They even have a neatly-designed responsive website. I’d rather buy here.” Another lost sale.
5. Digital Marketing Ready
Of course, online presence doesn’t end in just having a website. Just like a physical store, it needs to be advertised in order to be seen. Obviously, having a website is the first step for digital marketing. More on this in the coming posts.
So in summary, websites
1. help your business reach thousands of customers
2. provide you with an automated store
3. provide you with a stable and controlled web presence
4. make your business look credible
5. are digital marketing ready
You maybe thinking now, “So how to I get my own website? Can I do it myself even if I’m not a techie person? Do I need to hire someone to do it for me?”
Our answer is YES to both. Yes, you can definitely do it by yourself. And yes, you can also hire someone to do it for you if you want to reserve your time and energy in your business operations.
If you want to do it yourself, you can watch this tutorial from WordPress “How can I create my own online store?”
If you think you might need help, no worries, we can help you. You can ask us for free consultation. Just shoot us a message and we’ll try to answer your questions. CHAT with us.
