Digital display window

An easier way to get started with e-commerce Have you or your business discussed starting e-commerce, but haven't quite felt you have the time or the energy? Does it get too complicated to keep up with a new platform and all that it entails? Maybe a digital storefront could still be for you! Here we go through what it is and why it might be a good option. Taking the plunge online and expanding your business from just having one or more physical stores is no easy feat. It presents some challenges and it requires both time and commitment. If you or your business is to succeed really well, you need to put quite a lot of effort into your e-commerce, you need to keep the product balance up to date, you need to make sure that the shipping works properly and so on. Maybe you just don't have the time? There's nothing wrong with that, but at the same time it's a shame to miss out on all the opportunities that online visibility brings, isn't it?

Show what you've got - but sell offline

This is where the digital shop window comes in, but what is it?

Yes, in a way it's like an e-commerce, except you're not selling anything directly on the web. Instead, you can display your range in a neat and tidy way so that anyone who has considered visiting your physical store knows what's available and what's not. This can also attract a lot of new customers who are looking for a particular product, but who had no idea that you were selling it in the first place. With a digital storefront, you simply display the products available in your store, but you don't have to deal with shipping, inventory balances and all the other things that can take extra time. It works much like a classic product catalogue, but a more modern one.

We're playing with the idea that your company is called "Stina's Garden Tools AB" (STAB). You sell, as the name suggests, gardening tools. We are also toying with the idea that Hakim is buying a new lawnmower and that he has heard from his friend that STAB exists - however, the friend was unsure whether you sell lawnmowers or not. Probably STAB has a good entry point with Hakim because his friend told him about you and so he is googling you. Let's say you have a website where people can find your opening hours, contact details and that you sell "all kinds of gardening tools" but not much more than that. Hakim finds your website but doesn't get an answer to his question, in short he still doesn't know if you sell lawnmowers or not. Instead, he finds your competitor and buys the lawnmower there instead.

The above example is of course almost a little over-ambiguous, but it still encapsulates what a digital shop window could do for your business.

Advantages over a regular website

Let's break down the advantages of a digital shop window into three points where we focus a little extra on why it is better than just having a regular website.

Nice and tidy. Even if you have a perfectly fine website where you've put up some pictures of what you're selling, it doesn't give nearly the same professional impression as if you had the products neatly sorted by category, with clear product names and pictures. Who would you rather buy a product from? The shop with an information-rich website or the shop with a well-organised digital shop window?

Searchability on Google. In addition to the example of Hakim, there are a lot of other customers out there who are also looking for a lawnmower. Many of them may not have even considered that you might be selling lawnmowers and even more may not even know about you at all. However, what they are probably doing is searching Google for lawnmowers. If you've done your homework right with a digital shop window, you're much more likely to come up higher in the search results than if you just have a website with a few pictures. By having a real e-commerce business (even if you don't sell online), your lawnmower may even show up in Google Shopping results. If you're not familiar with Google Shopping, you've probably come across it at some point when searching for a specific product without giving it a second thought. Either on the home page of your search results you see a row of products, what they cost and where you can buy them, or you've clicked on "Shopping" in the row where you can select "Everything", "Images", "Maps" and so on. This is Google Shopping and since 2020 Google has also started to show organic results here and not just paid ads.

Business-to-business (B2B) sales. If you are a B2B salesperson, a digital shop window is highly recommended, both for potential and existing customers. In addition to making it easier to reach new customers, you can simplify things for your existing ones and perhaps sell more or at least save your precious time in the process. If it's easy to see what's available, how much it costs and what the product is called, it will be much easier for the customer to communicate their order to you. This means fewer questions, fewer misunderstandings and more time left over for other things.

Digital storefront via Abicart

If you or your business are curious about trying a digital storefront, we at Abicart can help. We'll make sure you get the design you want, that you get the tools you need and that you get started without a hitch. The first month with us is also completely free, so if you're not satisfied, just cancel the partnership.