E-Commerce - Is the way to go...
E-Commerce is not an uncommon term now a days. Layman may be a little unaware of bookish meaning of the term E-Commerce. However, almost everyone is aware of on-line buying, on-line consumption of various services. Especially India, which is a huge consumer market, is seeing a steep transformation in the E-Commerce space. According to IBEF and Statist, E-Commerce market in India is expected to grow US$200 billion by 2026 from US$ 64 billion as on 2020. Though the Internet and smart-phone penetration is majorly responsible for the growth of E-Commerce, Covid Pandemic changed the consumer’s behavior drastically and made consumers to go from regular shopping to on-line shopping. This has lead to many of the small scale businesses who did not consider online stores as viable marketplace for them, are on the way to consider, evaluate and experiment with E-Commerce.
However, big players such as Amazon, FlipKart etc in this space, are eating up the local business share and trying to penetrate into local market even at the risk of incurring huge losses. Money is being pumped to capture the market. This poses a greater risk to local businesses that are running brick and mortar stores, irrespective of whether these businesses are selling products or services.
As a custom software development company, specialized in E-Commerce development, Flexible Softwares Pvt. Ltd, we have worked with many of the small-scale businesses, mid sized as well as big businesses for E-Commerce development and mobile application development. We observed few common challenges and question those needs to be answered for small and mid scale businesses that want to go online. We are listing down such a top 10 questions here.
1. Does it make sense to go online?
Expert from FSPL: We can have a look at the pattern of the developed nations like US. We could hardly see any small brick and mortar stores, local businesses those have remained in the competition. It looks like, unless, small and mid size businesses take any concrete action to stay in competition, this pattern is not going to differ from what happened to small and mid sized businesses in developed nations. They are on the verge of extinct. Big giants already have investments corpus to pump in and stay ahead in the competition and they are doing so. Small businesses and entrepreneur have to harp on shortcomings of these giants. They have to do what these big giants cannot do even if they want to do so.
However, the very first step towards it is to be ready to digitize your business, coming up with online presence and start to move towards E-Commerce business. So it’s a need of time to go online for your business and carve the future.
2. How can we digitize our business, where to start?
Expert from FSPL: It depends on the type of product and services you sale, volume of your sale, amount you are ready to invest for this new revamp and most importantly, your vision. In our expert’s opinion, you can plan to target your local areas where you have your brick and mortar store. It’s always easier to manage fulfillment of placed orders with achievable customer satisfaction.
You shall speak with the experts in the E-Commerce solution area and define an informed strategy to navigate in this space. Flexible Softwares Pvt. Ltd is one of the best organizations that provides consultation services on E-Commerce and digitization of your business.
3. How can I cope-up with challenges on technology, an unknown area for me?
Expert from FSPL: You do not have to be a technology expert but you need to know your business very well when you want take your business online. A trusted technology partner can help you to validate and chose the best possible option. Technology choices are based on the requirements and needs.
Technology challenges keeps adding up as we move ahead and move up in business. Besides, there are pros and cons of each technology, mostly associated with scalability of business and cost associated with it.
Technology is not your expertise however knowing about available technology options is always helpful. You can always ask your consultant or technology experts to explain it to you in understandable terms. However, I won’t suggest digging too much there. You may loose focus on what you are trying to achieve out of it. Ultimately, technology is a tool to enable and enhance your existing business.
4. Who can educate me on step-by-step process to move onto digitization path?
Expert from FSPL: Flexible Softwares is one of the leading E-Commerce experts, E-Commerce Development Company in India who has team that worked on big E-Commerce and retails brands in US as well within India. It comes with years of experience in software technology implementation, systematic and process based approach with blend of innovation and creativity.
You can always start with the initial free consultation from Flexible Softwares Pvt. Ltd. for your business. If you find value in the association, you can continue with it.
5. How can I trust Implementation Company on the cost that I am going to incur?
Expert from FSPL: Most of the time when you discuss a cost of E-Commerce system, you always focus on development cost of the E-Commerce applications. However, the operating cost and the maintenance cost of these E-Commerce applications also needs to be considered. It occupies considerable cost portion.
If you are just planning to spend on development of E-Commerce system then it’s surely going to fail sooner or later. Besides, it may lead to disagreements with your implementation partner/s. There are many of the vendors who are of YES SIR category who will try to win projects without providing complete cost picture. This could lead customers to opt for their low cost solution. However, ultimately, you will end up in loosing this investment, as you won’t be using this piece of software application for longer run. The chances are that it will leave you with the bitter experience of being deceived.
Our suggestion would be to get consultation from the expert who can navigate you through the process and can also implement the committed vision.
6. What are the operational and maintenance costs of having online stores?
Expert from FSPL: Your E-Commerce solution needs to be hosted on servers. You do have option to have it hosted on well-known cloud platforms like Google Cloud Platform, Amazon Web Services Platform, and Microsoft Azure etc. OR you can host it on on-premise servers. However, in General, to have it hosted on cloud platform is a cost-optimal, easy to start, lesser investment required option. It gets billed month on month basis, as per your consumption of services from these platforms.
In addition to this, your application needs servicing, configuration changes, code fixes, functional and non-functional enhancements, monitoring of the applications.
Another cost associated with online stores is content creation e.g. products upload, image and copy i.e. text content creations, banners for offers and discounts etc.
It’s better for you to understand these costs and plan for it. Cheaper solutions are like patches to the problems but does not provide better and complete solutions.
7. What shall be my allocated budget for an E-Commerce application development, operations and maintenance?
Expert from FSPL: It varies vastly based on the requirements e.g. online web application, mobile application, features and functionalities, total number of expected users for the store, expected number of concurrent users.
You can always start with the initial free consultation from Flexible Softwares Pvt. Ltd. for your business. If you find value in the association, you can continue with it.
8. What should be my realistic time-lines to have my online store available?
Expert from FSPL: Though it depends on the requirements, you can expect 2 to 6 months of development time for E-Commerce web application and mobile application. We can get the things moving faster if we put more resources into parallel development. It may impacts immediate cost but long-term cost may not vary much.
9. Who can help me here?
Expert from FSPL: Flexible Softwares is one of the leading E-Commerce experts, E-Commerce development companies in India who has team with experience of working with big E-Commerce and retails brands in US as well within India. Flexible Softwares comes with years of experience in software technology implementation, systematic and process based approach with blend of innovation and creativity.
You can always start with the initial free consultation from Flexible Softwares Pvt. Ltd. for your business. If you find value in the association, you can continue with it.
10. Where can we reach Flexible Softwares for our free consultation call?
Expert from FSPL: You can reach-out to Flexible Softwares’ team at info@flexiblesoftwares.com and / or can call to Flexible Softwares Pvt. Ltd on +91-989-021-8477 and / or WhatsApp us on +1-408-462-1016.
K Y Nilesh, DirectorFlexible Softwares Pvt Ltd.