Why Owning A Website And Investing In Quality Website Design And Development For An E-commerce Business Is Vital
The retail environment is increasingly changing, and in the past two years, the world has seen one of the most significant changes in the industry: online shopping.
Considering how online shopping is in demand these days, your e-commerce website must be user-friendly. From accessible catalogues to fast loading times, each element of your e-commerce website plays a vital role in giving customers the ultimate shopping experience. The COVID-19 global pandemic has played a key role in people’s adoption of online shopping, and it caused the e-commerce industry in Singapore to flourish.
Businesses have two primary options when joining the e-commerce landscape: self-manage their own brand website (brand.com) or join e-commerce platforms.
LEARN MORE: 4 Ways To Build A Customer-Friendly E-Commerce Store
Besides owning a website, investing in quality website design and development is key to providing customers with what they exactly want and need. Here are the reasons why owning a website and investing in quality website design and development for an e-commerce business in Singapore is vital.
1. Promising Growth For Brand Websites
According to a study, out of 3,600 shoppers interviewed from three different markets, 55% of this population used brand websites throughout their paths to purchase journeys. Online shoppers also expressed their desire to continue using brand websites in the future. It only means that brand websites are one of the most valuable e-commerce channels for online shoppers.
According to Google's study, 55% of online shoppers they interviewed use the brand's website throughout their path to purchase journey.
Source: ThinkWithGoogle
Businesses can take advantage of this promising growth by investing in their brand website with the help of an e-commerce website builder in Singapore.
2. Immersive Brand Experience
Marketplace platforms have a standard website design for all the different stores listed on the marketplace. It is a disadvantage if the brand wants to give an immersive brand experience to the shoppers.
According to Google, Ipsos and SixthFactor‘s study, 41% of online shoppers say they had an immersive experience with brand websites compared to the marketplace’s 35%.
How can a brand.com make its brand experience more immersive? Each business has specific brand guidelines concerning. Besides being consistent with the brand name and recognisable logo, the business must be cohesive with its brand voice, content format, and visual style, including the colours, font, and overall site theme. Many brands create a style guide to maintain consistency in their visual styles. All these factors are crucial in establishing a brand identity that sets the business apart from its competitors and leaves a long-lasting impression on the audience.
Another factor that affects brand experience is the e-commerce website design. Customers favour brand websites that are easy to navigate, have detailed product information and categorisation features, and have a comparison function. Other features allow users to set the website language they are comfortable with and save their preferred checkout process, payment methods and other preferences. Unfortunately, only brand websites can have this flexibility in e-commerce brand website development and not on marketplace platforms.
The immersive brand experience affects customers’ decision-making and motivation across the purchase journey. Enhanced customer experience could lead to sales. It is why starting an e-commerce website design & development project for the brand website is vital for entrepreneurs.
3. Tapping Non-Buyers And Local Markets
Tapping and connecting with non-buyers is one of the challenges for brands, but it is achievable by owning an e-commerce website in Singapore.
Many barriers or factors dissuade customers from purchasing a product, and one of them is language. Besides marketing strategies that sustain the brand growth in local markets, language can help the brand connect and communicate with their customer.
Below are the other barriers across the purchase journey among non-buyers.
The Barriers Across The Purchase Journey Among Non-Buyers
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Expensive Price -
Product Video And Photo Issues -
Lack Of Product/Service Reviews On The Website/Platform -
Brand Competition -
Website/Platform Unsuitable For Inspiration -
Unclear Product Details -
Unreliable Product Details -
Lack Of Promotion, Deals, And Discounts
4. Secures Brand Loyalty
As mentioned in item number two, brand.com offers a better brand experience to the customer. Allowing the customers to surf through the website using the language they are comfortable with, save their preferred payment methods and receive personalised product recommendations. Overtime, these small touchpoints enhance brand loyalty.
Brand Websites Command Around 20% Higher Spend Premium From Shoppers
Moreover, having e-commerce websites allows the brand to communicate and engage with its customers on different platforms, such as email and social media, through informative content. Doing so should promote the creation of a brand community where customers can share their feedback. The emails can be about seasonal sales, discount codes, ‘thank you emails’, and other freebies.
5. Make Your E-commerce Website Mobile-Friendly
By 2023, Statista forecasted that there would be 5.49 million smartphone users in Singapore. That does not include other mobile devices, including tablets. For that reason, you must ensure that your e-commerce website is mobile-friendly.
There is a high chance that many of your customers are visiting your online store through smartphones and tablets, given that more than half of the global website traffic comes from mobile devices. The good news is that investing in website design and development includes optimising your website for mobile devices. You can improve your website’s performance for mobile users.
For instance, one example of mobile optimisation for e-commerce websites is responsive website design. This strategy focuses on optimising your website and improving its performance to make it render smoothly on any mobile device, regardless of the size and shape of the screen.
6. Convert Website Visitors Into Customers
Most people who visit your website are not guaranteed to buy your products. They may not trust your business yet, or perhaps they only want to see more of your catalogue without purchasing. If that is the case, then encourage your visitors to purchase.
Convert visitors into customers by building a high-quality e-commerce website. Speed up your website, implement a well-designed layout, and use eye-catching images, animations, and videos to make the shopping experience more engaging.
Another way to convert website visitors into customers is cookie tracking. Asking website visitors to allow cookie tracking when they first visit a website. By obtaining user consent upfront, website owners can gather valuable data about user behaviour that can be used to create more targeted and personalised marketing campaigns. This can help companies improve engagement with customers and achieve better business outcomes.
7. Boost Your Search Engine Rankings
SEO is part of website design and development, which improves your site’s organic search presence. While e-commerce website design in Singapore focuses on aesthetics, website development is about your site’s performance and functionality.
By enhancing the technical aspects of your website, which can be cleaning up codes, adhering to core web vitals requirements, debugging, and optimising the plugins, you can directly impact your search engine rankings.
8. Make A Good First Impression
If you want to make a brilliant first impression of your online business, there is no better way than to conduct an excellent website design and development strategy.
Whenever someone visits your e-commerce website, make a positive impact on their impression of your business. Ensure your website looks aesthetically appealing and improves its loading times. It will positively influence your customers’ perception of your brand, thus increasing their chances of purchasing your products.
DISCOVER: What’s Hot: The Top Website Design Trends You Should Look Out For This 2023
These combined factors help secure brand loyalty of customers and, more importantly, attract non-buyers. It is difficult for entrepreneurs to achieve these factors; therefore, it is advantageous to have their own brand website with the help of an e-commerce website development agency
9. Increase Sales
Most importantly, updated website design and development are essential because it helps you increase sales. Website visitors, especially the younger generation, are used to a website that provides easy and fast checkout. They will become more enticed to purchase as compared to buying from an e-commerce website with a poor checkout experience.
Continue to provide them with an excellent shopping experience so they can purchase more of your products. In the long run, your hard work will pay off and lead to increased sales.
Now that you know why it is vital for entrepreneurs to set up their e-commerce brand websites for business in Singapore, it is time to discuss the benefits of having one.
5 Benefits Of E-Commerce Brand Website In Singapore
1. Increase In Revenue
It is indeed cheaper to set up and maintain a shop on a marketplace platform; however, there are several drawbacks to this. Firstly, competitive pricing. Brands are forced to drop their prices to make them competitive. Otherwise, price-sensitive customers will ignore the brand’s offerings.
Secondly, marketplace platforms have a commission on each product listing. Therefore, brands do not get their entire profit from the products and services.
On the other side of the coin, entrepreneurs must invest money in establishing and maintaining e-commerce website design and development of their brand websites. But the advantage is the brand can dictate the prices and get their profit entirely.
2. User Reach
At first glance, entrepreneurs think the marketplace platform’s reach is advantageous. In hindsight, the intense competition offset this reach. Remember, hundreds to thousands of brands compete for this reach and only a fraction may go to your brand’s shop.
As mentioned, brand.com doesn’t have to get head-to-head against these hundreds of brands on the marketplace platform. However, establishing a brand website also means ramping up digital marketing strategies to drive website traffic. These strategies include e-commerce SEO, paid advertisements, content and social media marketing, and more. An e-commerce SEO agency can help you with digital marketing strategies.
3. Branding
Entrepreneurs have limited ability to customise their shop according to their image and branding on marketplace platforms. Therefore, it impedes brand recall and identity.
Through e-commerce website design in Singapore, brands can customise their websites according to their branding. The brands can alter the website interface, produce various content, use signature colours and fonts, and optimise the website browsing experience. All of these factors contribute to brand expression, identity, and recall.
4. Easy To Showcase The Best-Selling Products
Another benefit of an e-commerce brand website is that business owners can easily feature their best selling products. Customers no longer need to search for their brand name on a search bar like they do on online marketplaces to view a brand’s products.
On an e-commerce brand website, they see the bestselling products on the landing page, including the discount and latest promotions. As customers scroll through the website page, they will also see the newest products available and related items.
5. Personalised Customers’ Online Experience
An e-commerce brand website also lets business owners provide personalised customers’ online experiences. The image below, for example, allows customers to choose which item they would like to get free when their overall purchase reaches $50 or more.
FINAL REMARKS
With the advent of online shopping, entrepreneurs must be quick in adapting to the e-commerce industry. One of the first steps is to establish a brand website. With the PSG e-commerce website development grant rolled out by IMDA to support SMEs, entrepreneurs can now tap onto the grant and set up their own brand website. But it does not end here.
Building a quality website is no easy task, so you should consider hiring a website development company in Singapore like OOm. We can help you create a mobile and SEO-friendly website to boost leads and sales.
Contact OOm today at +65 6690 4049 or leave a message on our website to learn more about e-commerce website design and development.
