Since the first online sale on August 11, 1994, Ecommerce has made products and services easier to find and purchase through online retailers and marketplaces. Today, ecommerce allows individuals, freelancers, small businesses, and large corporations to sell their goods or services at a scale that was not possible prior to this evolution.
In 2021, ecommerce accounted for $4.9 trillion USD, or 19.6 percent of retail sales, worldwide. Revenues are projected to increase 50 percent over the next four years, reaching $7.4 trillion USD by 2025 (see chart). In this blog, we outline ecommerce models, platforms, and features to help businesses capture more of this rapidly growing channel.
Retail e-commerce sales worldwide from 2014 to 2025 (Source)
What Is Ecommerce?
Ecommerce, simply put, refers to the buying and selling of goods or services using the internet, and also involves the transfer of money and personal data to execute or complete these transactions.
Today, most ecommerce traffic is driven through the mobile experience. With the influence of smartphones and mobile devices, people are becoming more comfortable making purchases over the internet. So instead of sitting at your desktop, mobile devices allows people to make purchases anytime, anywhere in the world.
Here are some key ecommerce statistics:
- 56% of organizations are expecting a majority of their revenue to come from ecommerce within the next three years. (Salesforce)
- Approximately 21.8% of the world’s population shops online. (Sleeknote)
- In the U.S. B2B ecommerce will reach $1.8 trillion by 2023. (Forrester)
- 73% of online shoppers use multiple channels to do their shopping. (Social Media Today)
What Is An Ecommerce Website?
An ecommerce website allows people to buy and sell physical goods, services, and digital products over the internet rather than at a physical store location. With the use of an e-commerce website, a business can process orders, accept payments, manage shipping, and provide customer service.
These are some of the most popular examples of eCommerce websites around the world:
Types of Ecommerce Models
There are four main types of ecommerce models that can describe almost every transaction that takes place between consumers and businesses over the internet.
Business to Consumer (B2C)
Business sells goods or services to an individual consumer.
Business to Business (B2B)
Business sells goods or services to another business.
Consumer to Consumer (C2C)
Consumer sells goods or services to another consumer.
Consumer to Business (C2B)
Consumer sells products or services to a business or organization.
Examples of Ecommerce
Ecommerce can take on a variety of forms involving different transactional relationships between businesses and consumers, as well as different objects being exchanged as part of these transactions.
Retail
The sale of a product by a business directly to a customer without any third-party intermediary.
Wholesale
The sale of products in bulk, often to a retailer who then sells them directly to consumers.
Dropshipping
An order fulfillment method that does not require a business to keep products in stock. Instead, the store sells the product and passes on the sales order to a third-party supplier, who then ships the order to the customer.
Crowdfunding
The collection of small amounts of capital from a large number of individuals to finance a new business venture.
Subscription
The automatic recurring purchase of a product or service on a regular basis. This can be weekly, monthly, or yearly reoccurring purchases.
Physical Products
Any product or good that requires inventory to be replenished and orders to be physically shipped to customers as sales are made.
Digital Products
Downloadable digital goods, software, eBooks, or media that must be purchased for consumption or licensed for use.
Services
A skill or set of skills provided in exchange for compensation. The service provider’s time can be purchased for a fee.
Key Ecommerce Website Features
Ecommerce Website Platform
The framework or tool your website is built with. Examples include WooCommerce, Shopify, BigCommerce, etc.
Shopping Cart
The part of your website that facilitates checkout and product purchase.
SSL Certificate
Security technology that keeps your website secure for financial transactions.
Payment Gateway
Technology that accepts payment information from customers and approves or declines payment based on whether the funds are available.
Payment Processor
The company that manages the credit card transaction – the third party between the customer and you as the merchant.
Business Bank Account
The checking account where funds go to after transactions are complete and processed through the merchant account.
Fulfillment
The method by which a company processes a sales order to the customer's specifications.
Top Ecommerce Websites Or Examples
These are some of the most popular examples of ecommerce websites across the world
Ecommerce Website Platforms
Wordpress & WooCommerce
WooCommerce is an open-source platform just like WordPress and one of the most popular solutions for building an ecommerce website using a theme. About 35,000 websites — or 27% of ecommerce websites hosted worldwide — use WooCommerce. Here are some key features:
- WordPress is an open-source CMS and it easily integrates with WooCommerce. With WordPress and WooCommerce, you can create your site the way you want it, depending on the products you’re selling.
- To add more functionality to your ecommerce site, you can easily install various WordPress and WooCommerce plugins.
- For ecommerce websites, a premium WordPress theme is a good option as they have good customer support and are even more customizable.
So, whether you are planning to start a small or large ecommerce store, WooCommerce gives you all you could ever need for building a high-quality ecommerce store with the power of WordPress.
7 benefits to using WooCommerce & WordPress combo for making an ecommerce website:
- Suits every budget
- Easy to use (especially for people who already use WordPress)
- Hundreds of extensions (plugins)
- Can sell all kinds of goods (virtual, physical, downloadable, services, etc.)
- Works with almost all payment gateways
- Open source – can be customized to suit our needs
- Big community of developers, marketers, and experts
BigCommerce
BigCommerce is another top option to consider if you’re looking for a reputable and trustworthy ecommerce site builder.
BigCommerce has features like bulk pricing rates, quote management, customer groups, and custom price lists. BigCommerce is specially designed to help larger ecommerce sites scale quickly.
So, if you are willing to start a high-volume ecommerce store which is fully functional and has all the advanced features, BigCommerce will be perfect for you.
Shopify
Shopify is the most popular ecommerce platform, used by more than one million online stores worldwide. Shopify is suitable for those who are planning to start a high-volume ecommerce store.
Shopify provides 70+ free and premium themes that are easy to use and customize. The Shopify app store contains over 3,200 apps that you can choose from to add features and functionality to your ecommerce website.
Adobe Commerce (Magneto)
Adobe Commerce (Magneto) gives B2C and B2B merchants extensive integrations, intelligent workflows, the agility to handle spikes in traffic, and the foundation to seamlessly grow — all the way to enterprise scale.
Adobe Commerce (Magneto) has powerful tools to let you confidently launch, manage, and scale your business, including the ability to host multiple instances on one platform, and cloud deployment, while native integrations with Adobe products like Analytics, Target, Experience Manager, and Creative Cloud help take personalization to the next level.
The Future & Evolution of Ecommerce
Over the past several years, we have witnessed the closing of many brick and mortar stores in favor of ecommerce websites. The COVID-19 pandemic has accelerated these trends. Ecommerce will continue to pull market share from physical retail stores in the future. But as online sales continue to grow, so does the competition. This is why it is important to find your niche prior to developing your online ecommerce business.
If you are interested in more information about starting an ecommerce website. Give DaBrian Marketing Group a call at 610-743-5602, or schedule an appointment so we can go over available options based on budget and needs.
