ECommerce Explained: Building Online Success

1 August 2021

What is ECommerce?

As businesses rapidly gravitate to the online space, you’ve likely heard the word “Ecommerce” thrown around, even in casual conversation. 

In fact, if you’ve just Googled “What is ECommerce?” under the table on a first date so you can keep the conversation going, we’ve got your back.

Customer on online ecommerce shop
"ECommerce is basically an online shop."

Our friends at Shopify put it simply. “Ecommerce, also known as electronic commerce or internet commerce, refers to the buying and selling of goods or services using the internet, and the transfer of money and data to execute these transactions. Ecommerce is often used to refer to the sale of physical products online, but it can also describe any kind of commercial transaction that is facilitated through the internet.”

So, ECommerce is basically an online shop.

There are pretty important nuggets of wisdom you will want to know before you jump headfirst into an ECommerce business. For starters, you’ll want to know how to succeed.

How to Succeed as an ECommerce Business

There are a lot of moving parts to ensure any business’ success, but an ECommerce business has its unique needs.

The success of an ECommerce business is heavily reliant on a fully optimized website. After all, the website is the storefront, customer support, and cashier of an ECommerce setup. There are key elements that an ECommerce website must have that go beyond impressive product photos. 

To succeed as an ECommerce business, your website needs to be:

  • Mobile-friendly
  • Optimized for a seamless checkout
  • Designed for an optimum shopping experience
  • Robust in tracking inventory
  • Able to calculate shipping
  • Easy to integrate with other apps essential to your business
perfect gift factory

Shopify is really the one-stop-shop (see what we did there?) for ECommerce entrepreneurs. Not only does Shopify check off every item listed above, but they make marketing your business effortless right from the app! You can also utilize other sales channels like Walmart Marketplace, eBay, Facebook, and Instagram with Shopify. If you’re wanting to test the waters, let us know here and we’ll sign you up for a free 14-day trial. 

How to Market Your ECommerce Business

There are so many ways to market an ECommerce business. So many, in fact, that you may feel overwhelmed on where you should start. Marketing trends are always ebbing and flowing as algorithms change. At Woggle, we’re all about empowering you with resources and automation so you can keep it simple. ECommerce businesses don’t market themselves, but Shopify can do the heavy lifting for you. Here’s how.

Email Marketing

Email marketing is still effective! Yes, even in the world of social media. It turns out that people still want to hear from businesses in their inbox. The proof is in the stats. 

  • Nine out of ten marketers say they look at email metrics such as open rates, click rates, and downloads to determine how successful a piece of content is, more so than website traffic and social media analytics.
mail marketing

Shopify knows the proof is in the pudding (do people still say that?). That’s why they offer email marketing capabilities right in the app. ECommerce businesses can utilize pre-made templates to cut down on time. An added bonus is that you don’t have to hire a designer. Once you have customized your template, Shopify allows you to:

  1. Choose your recipients (this is great for creating VIP programs, etc.)
  2. Send up to 2,500 emails to customers per month for free!
  3. See the analytics of your email performance and pivot to increase conversions.

Business Chat

This Shopify marketing feature is one of our favorites. Chatbots are an amazing tool for an ECommerce business to have. They elevate the customer experience by making product recommendations, lending a hand with FAQs, and offering discount codes in real-time.

  • Chatbots saw a 92% use increase since 2019, making it the brand communication channel with the largest growth.
  • eCommerce stores adopting Facebook Messenger along with an abandon cart chatbot have started to boost revenue by 7-25%. Additionally, 55% of businesses using chatbots have generated a greater volume of high-quality leads. 

Are you convinced yet that business chat is the way forward? Like email marketing, Shopify allows customization to your chat and shows you how it is performing in analytics. You can also integrate your chat into Facebook Messenger and other messaging apps. Shopify works seamlessly across various platforms so you don’t have to. 

Ads

ECommerce businesses rely on ads to get their products front and center. Knowing where to start or even how to start an ad campaign can be a headache. The tricky thing about ads for most ECommerce businesses is figuring out where to advertise. Shopify takes the guesswork out of ads by setting you up for success in their platform. 

  • 68% of marketers stated that paid advertising is "very important" or "extremely important" to their overall marketing strategy. 

Being able to advertise, sell, offer customer support, and market from one platform is invaluable to ECommerce business owners. Shopify offers impressive perks when it comes to advertising your products. 

  • Advertise on Instagram and Facebook from one inventory that is housed in your one Shopify platform.
  • Provide in-app shopping for Instagram users.
  • Create and schedule social media posts to increase sales.

Getting Started

Shopify ecommerce store development

Our Woggle team has seen Shopify in action and it’s transforming Ecommerce businesses by increasing their ROI, improving the customer experience, and helping their ads be seen by their ideal customer.

Remember, we can sign you up for a free 14 day trial with Shopify if you’re not ready to commit and want to take it for a test drive.


Woggle is a huge fan of making business simple, and we’re equally as passionate about seeing your business grow! Reach out today, together we'll get everything sorted!

-Off you go! Your horizon awaits.

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