The Growing Importance of Ecommerce: Why It’s Crucial for Digital Growth

Despite recent years of ongoing uncertainty, the home and building supply industry has experienced a boom in ecommerce channels brought on by the pandemic. Customer buying trends continue to gravitate toward engagement with online content and the convenience of online purchasing. As they do, business leaders have been forced to evolve their strategies toward online offerings that go beyond the national websites of their vendors. It’s quickly becoming a requirement to fully represent all product offerings to meet online shoppers' expectations.

In today’s post-pandemic world, the importance of ecommerce as a channel to local markets has become a necessity. In fact, according to ECI Software Solutions’ 2022 State of Lumber, Building Material, and Hardlines (LBMH) Report, 63 percent of industry professionals consider ecommerce to be the most crucial focus area in running their businesses.

While some in the industry have adopted an ecommerce software solution, many are lagging. For others, just the idea of ecommerce feels outside their realm of traditional customer engagement. But given its growing importance and accessibility to easy-to-use tools and sales opportunities, businesses can no longer afford to look past having an online presence and must embrace digital growth by adopting or expanding their ecommerce strategy to stay competitive.

The growing importance of ecommerce

Just a few years ago, a typical online presence would suffice if it included store hours and a few photos from vendors. Many businesses receive some benefit from inclusion on their vendor’s national site for a percentage of their product sales. However, as customer convenience further emerges as the new loyalty threshold, ecommerce as a channel into local markets is quickly becoming an everyday customer expectation.

Ecommerce has become an essential part of how we do business and shop. Whether it be to engage customers, track trends or make more informed business decisions, you need to rely on ecommerce, especially small and mid-size retailers. It’s no longer enough for yous to sell only in-store and over the phone. Ecommerce is critical to increasing revenue and better connecting with customers.

As these trends continue to grow, business leaders must consider if their business is prepared to meet customer expectations through digital channels. The time has come for you to fully integrate an ecommerce solution that provides the opportunity for an omnichannel customer experience should be considered the minimum viable solution. This will make running a business easier and deliver more convenience to customers while providing scalability and increased profits.

Achieving digital growth with the right ecommerce solution

Having the right ecommerce solution enables small and mid-size retailers to compete with big-box retailers. Not only does the right solution open an online sales channel that can turn visitors into customers, but it can also serve to educate consumers and drive project sales—saving everyone time and money. Not to mention it allows customers to easily shop safely and securely.

More than ever, builders and consumers want to research and purchase items at their convenience. Without a robust online presence, suppliers could lose customers and potential sales to competitors who offer the ability to conduct product research before they buy and then complete a purchase online. And today, convenience drives loyalty. That means meeting customers at the level of ease they’ve come to expect from online purchasing and on any mobile device. An ecommerce site optimized for all devices, whether desktop, mobile, or tablet, has become a competitive requirement.

Taking convenience a step further, the right ecommerce solution can make day-to-day operations easier for building suppliers. An ecommerce solution integrated with an enterprise resource planning (ERP) software and product information management (PIM) system can automate many manual efforts. This includes processing online payments, managing product information, and streamlining services like BOPIS (buy online, pick up in-store).

The PIM system can serve as a database where all product information is stored and synced across all sales channels, relieving the tedious manual labor needed to manage multiple vendors and sales. Having fully automated processes eliminates the risk of potentially costly manual errors that can result in profit loss and product waste. Additionally, you now give staff time to be more efficient and effective, allowing them to focus on building new and long-lasting customer relationships.

Adopting an ecommerce solution

For those who have yet to make the full digital leap and have done well so far, it might seem optional to put forward the effort in building an online presence. However, we are in the era of online purchasing, and those who choose to overlook building an online presence will risk losing new and current customers to those with an online store.

When ready to adopt an ecommerce solution or make the full commitment to digital transformation, it’s important to explore solutions that merge seamlessly with business management systems—which can track finances, supply chain management, daily operations, order and sales, and so on. With the right, vertically specific tools, creating an online presence that can service both tradespeople and consumers don’t have to be difficult or intimidating.

This article was published in the March 2023 issue of Hardware Connection (page 34-36).