With the advent of the 21st century, our planet witnessed the lucrative success of personal devices such as iPhones and iPads. The entire history of e-commerce initially began 30 years ago, and it continues to be one of the most thriving industries in the world, to this day. If you take a glance at someone near you, you will notice that every single soul has one of these smart devices in their hands. No one goes anywhere without them. For us humans, going somewhere without our phones is like leaving behind a part of your body; everyone behaves like they cannot function without their glass portal to the ‘World Wide Web’. It suffices to say that e-commerce mainly depends on the internet for most of its functions.
Online selling did exist before smartphones took over our lives. It wasn’t as blossoming as it is now.
Why is E-Commerce exceptionally prosperous?
Well, the answer is amazingly simple. We lead busy lives, would you rather waste your free time roaming around in a store or a mall or would you rather spend a little time doing the same browsing on your phone, order the product and have it delivered to your doorstep in just a few days? In Amazon’s case, you get it the very next day! The convenience is indeed admirable, and the safety is incomparable because a majority of the work is done in bulk by large machines.
By this we can easily understand what e-commerce aims to provide for us; by definition, it is electronically communicating and transacting with the seller and having the products transported to us with little to no effort from the side of the consumer. All the consumer has to do is select the product and make the payment. Many people depend on e-commerce like their life is banked on it, they cannot even fathom of a life without it because they believe life would be inconvenient and complicated and they are right about that. E-commerce has indeed impacted the lives of countless people in a positive way. It has provided jobs many, by means of warehouse working and packing. Small businesses, independent freelancers and mainly large corporations have all benefited from the success of e-commerce since it makes it easy for all these businesses to make sure that their products reach their customers in an efficient and agile manner. This kind of evolution has resulted in the Global E-Commerce sales reaching upwards of $28 trillion by the year 2020.
There are indeed a couple of different types of e-commerce models, and here they are:
(BtoC) Business to consumer:
Business to consumer is precisely when a business directly transacts with the consumer and provides them with a good or service. For example: when you purchase a pair of sunglasses from a retailer on the internet, like Topglas that has a tagline of “we sell glasses“.
(BtoB) Business to business:
When a business provides another business with some goods or services and gets paid for it. For example: when Samsung sells display units to Apple to use for their line of iPhone Xs and Xs Max models. Samsung manufactures the AMOLED displays since they are experts when it comes to displays, Apple has a contract with them. Any infringement of the contract can result in litigation.
(CtoC) Consumer to consumer:
Consumer to consumer is when a consumer transacts with another consumer. The transaction can include the sale of a good or a service. For example: when you sell an old TV on eBay to a consumer.
(CtoB) Consumer to business:
A consumer is selling a product or service that they have manufactured, to an organization or business. For example: a photographer selling his/her photos to a business for their official use.
When one talks about e-commerce, digital marketing is something that comes into mind because it’s right there in the name. A brand would usually market their product on the internet which is used through a digital product. Digital marketing has penetrated almost every field on the planet. One of the primary reasons behind this very phenomenon is that businesses are evolving daily and learning to adapt to the new changes in the world of technology.
Since e-commerce is a business where buying and selling of products entirely depends on the internet, digital marketing plays a pivotal role as it is the one and only medium that helps e-commerce grow. Utilizing digital marketing, e-commerce creates huge revenue since it helps acquire new customers and also helps retain existing customers. Brand value is also increased with the help of these two. Consumers no longer depend on the word of mouth because they can just go online and read the reviews that are indeed honest and will be filled to the brim with opinions of people who have actually used the products. Digital marketing mainly focuses on incorporating the appropriate channels to make the process butter smooth and more manageable for e-commerce to carry out its practices.
Search engine optimization proves to be a boon for the website of an organization that is carrying out its businesses with the help of the internet. SEO is the practice of elevating and increasing the quality and the quantity of the traffic that one receives on their website with the help of organic search engine results; SEO agencies like SERPninja can help your business climb up the ladder. In this confusing digital world, they allow you to sit back and relax while they focus on helping you soar high. All business owners must get information on link building and should be interested in link building as it helps their website get traffic with the help of other sites. For long term viability you need to depend on and engage in the natural link building.
On a concluding note, we can agree that digital marketing has indeed had a gigantic impact on e-commerce and surely all of it has been positive. According to a recent study conducted by a trustable resource, 78% of searches made on a mobile phone leads to a purchase. Therefore we can understand that e-commerce is a force to be reckoned with and all of us can surely benefit from it.