Vendor’s Best Bet; E-Commerce Portals Or Brick-And-Mortar Stores?

1. Vendor’s Best Bet; E-Commerce Portals Or Brick-And- Mortar Stores? The world has transformed dramatically when it comes to commerce. From the ancient barter system to the traditional brick-and-mortar stores, and now to continuously progressing e-commerce stores, the expansion and evolution of commerce is spectacular. This ceaseless innovation in the field of commerce has led the customers’ experience on a path, where they can easily relish the ingenious advancement of commerce, at ease of their homes. Due to this huge advancement in commerce, it is extremely necessary for the vendors to unfold each and every layer of the e-commerce store and the traditional brick-and-mortar store, as it is vital to measure both the sides of the spectrum, in a careful and precise manner before deciding the best business platform to start the business. Below mentioned are the major key differences between brick-and-mortar store and the e-commerce store, which help local vendors to compare and decide the best platform for their business. 1. Sales transaction Even though technology is steadily advancing to permit remote exchanges, most of the brick-and-mortar stores accept only cash. This limits the payment flexibility option for the customers, where on the other hand, e-commerce stores accept

2. cash, credit cards, and many other different transaction methods. Flexible sale transaction allows customers to shop even when they don’t posses any cash, because of which more and more customers prefer shopping from different e-commerce stores. Hence local vendors by joining e-commerce platform can expand their business revenue by adopting e-commerce stores that allow customers to make flexible transactions. 2. Location It is wrong to conflate e-commerce stores with traditional brick-and-mortar stores, since both involve different strategies to sell products and services. The biggest difference is, the way in which the products and services are sold. In the case of traditional brick-and-mortar stores, customers need to leave the comfort of their homes, and go out for purchasing the household necessities, even if they are too tired or not in the mood to shop. Due to this reason, customers resist shopping from a physical store. On the other hand, e-commerce stores, don’t include a physical storefront, instead they sell the products online through an app or a website. Customers prefer shopping from such platforms as they can choose from a wide variety of products, make payments, and get the products delivered home, without even compromising their comfort zone. Hence local vendors by joining an e-commerce platform, can provide their customers a better option for purchasing goods and services, than the brick-and- mortar stores, that usually have a single physical outlet or a chain of stores. Vendors by merging their business with the e-commerce platform, are able to create a seamless shopping experience for their audience. 3. Omni-channel approach Adopting an omni-channel focus means, connecting and communicating with customers through multiple ways. For example, an e-commerce platform connects with customers by sending out messages, establishing a connection by emailing, providing information via websites and much more. By creating an application or by establishing a connection via customer service representatives, e-commerce website is able to connect to a larger number of buyers, which is impossible in the case of a traditional brick-and-mortar stores.

3. On the other hand, most of the traditional physical stores struggle to discover an effective communicating medium with the customers. Hence, due to the advantage of omni-channel approach, many local vendors are associating their business with e-commerce platforms. E-commerce platform by curbing all the challenges, provides vendors a larger scale of audience, by connecting with the customers via social media platforms, and helping buyers to discover the vendors’ products and services. 4. Customer attention While shopping customers need to physically travel to the brick-and-mortar stores and only then, the traditional stores get a chance to grab their customers’ attention and pitch in their best sellers. Capturing buyer’s attention is extremely difficult for vendors in case of brick-and-mortar stores, as they cannot acquire customer’s personal data and draw their attention towards their store. This results in low sales, which in turn hamper the business revenue. Therefore, more and more vendors are joining e-commerce platforms to attract customers towards their products and services. E-commerce portals successfully draw buyers’ attention by displaying push notifications on their mobile phones, which in turn draw customers’ attention and remind them of the necessary purchases they need to make, that they might have forgotten earlier. E-commerce portals use the customers’ data to modify and enhance the complete shopping experience for them. Online platforms personalize the shopping experience according to the buyer’s needs and choices. Vendors can cultivate their sales revenue by joining an e-commerce store and attracting a wider range of customers. 5. Operating expenses Brick-and-mortar stores, need to spend a considerable amount of money into various aspects. For example the extra cost required to rent a store, or the expenditure necessary in store designing, or several other necessities like buying sales equipment, inventory, and many other upfront costs. On the other hand, e-commerce business portals, offer different cost effective ways for vendors, to help them expand the sales by curbing on the operating expenditure. Local vendors by joining a leading e-commerce portal, are able to bar

4. the extra investment required to appoint the staff for maintenance, and security of the physical store, because the lesser the operating expenses, the better is the business revenue. 6. Audience expansion E-commerce stores expand the vendors’ business revenue by providing a greater customer base. Since e-commerce portals are not limited by boundaries such as time and location, they are able to provide 24*7 accessibility to the users. With the help of e-commerce platform, vendors are able to sell their goods and services to international buyers also. This helps them to increase their sales by expanding the audience base. But in the case of traditional brick-and-mortar store, vendors can reach to only a limited number of customers, because of the physical constrains, and this results in the finite number of purchases. So if a vendor wants to elevate its business revenue, joining an e-commerce store is the best possible way to make it happen, because online platform is easily accessible by a larger number of users, in comparison to the brick-and-mortar stores. Conclusion So these are the major key differences between a traditional brick-and-mortar store and an e-commerce store. Choosing a leading e-commerce portal, elevates vendor’s local business. One such online shopping portal is WAKI. WAKI, is a leading online shopping site opportunities to the local vendors to bring their offered goods and services on the portal and get exposed to an incredible customer base. in Saudi Arabia , that provides incredible