Is the world of Ecommerce, Google reviews, and YouTube shorts for you?
Ankit Rungata, an entrepreneur trying to establish an affordable high-quality furniture chain. He started as a family-owned business in Gujrat. Over time he was able to establish physical stores all over the country, dealing with various retailers to help with sales. But like all businesses he faced many challenges relating to inventory and supply chain efficiency. These factors hindered his vision to provide quality furnishing at low costs.
Chinu Kala, also an entrepreneur, noticed a huge gap in the Jewelry and apparel industry. She found that buyers were disappointed with the lack of unique designs in the market. Therefore, she started her own company and opened exclusive stores in major metropolitan cities. Through she found her sales to be stable, the footfall at her stores was decreasing day by day.
The reason for choosing these entrepreneurs as an example is because they started as traditional businesses and faced many obstacles that all new businesses generally face. But today they have found immense success and sales online. Both of their companies have closed all their physical retail stores and re-modeled themselves as E-commerce businesses.
Story@Home, co-founded by Ankit Rungata, had a turnover of close to Rs. 65 crores in 2018 and has an estimate of over 10 lakh new customers joining every year. They sell their products over their website and online channels such as Flipkart, Amazon, etc. They have around 20,000 Likes on their Facebook page and now are actively establishing an online presence.
Rubans Accessories, founded by Chinu Kala, clocked in a revenue of Rs. 13 crores last year. Ruban Accessories is closely associated with its founder, both combined share over 1 lakh followers on Instagram alone. They are now mass branding themselves with tie-ups with celebrities and influencers.
The E-commerce Industry is actively booming and is expected to reach $24,470 million by 2024. India’s e-commerce order volume increased by 36% in the last quarter of 2020 alone, the growth is much rapid than the expected rate. Small and medium businesses in India are also contributing to this growth and earning revenue worth crores by just selling online.
In such an exponential market, the competition is also steadily rising. To have an established online presence of a kind has become a must for all businesses.
An online presence could mean a website, a paid advertisement, a google review, an Instagram page, a marketing email, and much more. It has a huge impact on a Brand’s Image as people are now more connected and perceptive than ever. With a wide audience, businesses will get a chance to capture the attention of the consumers and retain them by selling quality products. With the right niche, the right platform and the right marketing, a business can boost itself exponentially.
The benefits of taking a business online are endless, low operations cost, global market, direct contact with customers, highly responsive business, better brand image etc. It is quite useful and fulfilling in developing a business with a strong impact.
This is the prime time to start utilizing online platforms and their tools to expand your business. If a few words of mouth can bring you some business, then solid reviews, pictures, and a website online will certainly help you a lot more. It may seem cumbersome but is a necessity now, not indulging in this practice will leave you outdated. Also, not progressing much in establishing online will be equally bad. Therefore, it\’s not just important to enter the game but to know how to play it.