In a digitally driven world, businesses are constantly looking for ways to make their online presence more prominent. Since there have been many options for e-commerce platforms in recent years, the most common question a brand has is whether to set up their own online brand store or sell on marketplaces. While marketplaces such as Amazon, Myntra and Flipkart are popular these days, the possibility of your product being lost in the several hundred similar options is too high. Hence, in order to make sure that the customer recognizes your brand identity and its quality products, it is imperative that you must build your own brand ecommerce website.

It is estimated that brandstore can contribute to ~25-30% of overall retail e-commerce in India by 2026. Rise of DTCs and focus from established brands is a testament to online brandstore becoming core to retail strategy.

What are the advantages of building a brand store?

First and foremost, when you sell on a marketplace, the sole competition you have with other brands is on the basis of price. Marketplaces do not give many options for brands to show value against the 100 other brands offering a similar product.

Here are some key advantages of having your own ecommerce website:

Control brand experience:
You’re able to control everything on the site; from positioning to merchandising. You have a number of pre-built templates to choose from, complete flexibility over design, mobile-optimized interface, and a much more personal connection with your customers. Also, you get to control the pricing and authenticity of your products. This builds trust in buyers and familiarizes them with your brand and your ecosystem. Not only this, it establishes uniformity and a seamless transfer between your offline and online store.

Serve your customers directly:
Having your own website provides a personalized shopping experience to your customers, which ultimately reinforces your brand image. This allows you to have exclusive catalogs, discounts and content along with niche products according to their preferences. A personalized experience curated by the brand will reassure the customer about the authenticity and quality of the products and also make them trust the safety of the website.

Cross-sell and upsell your products:
You can boost your sales by adding a cross-sell option for customers, often seen as ‘similar products’ or ‘customers also bought’ options during the process of purchasing products. While in upselling, it is recommended that the customer buys a better, and hence more expensive, product. This is enabled when you know your customers’ purchasing preferences and have their data in order to tailor the suggestions as per their wants and needs.

Increased profit margins:
Your own brand’s e-commerce website will allow you to have more control over your online revenue. And since the sales will be on your own website, you will not have to share your profits with anyone except for ~2% gateway payment cut. Apart from that, unlike online marketplaces, you don’t need to pay any transaction or listing fees when you are using your own website. Additionally, you can run offers and deals as per your will and you won’t be penalized for a delay in delivery for some unforeseen circumstances.

Leverage customer data:
Since you will build your own customer database, their purchase patterns and key demographic information will help you improve targeting and personalization, along with aiding in product development and improving user flow. Adding to that, a leading fashion marketplace has its private labels which account for more than 25% of its business. Most of the time, marketplaces use the consumer data of other brands to improve their own private labels. Moreover, it is very difficult to formulate marketing actions such as sales promotion, discounts, abandoned shopping cart recovery, etc. for your own brand without customer insights.

While marketplaces do provide the consumers with ease of shopping, if you are looking to position your brand and build a loyal customer base, having your own e-commerce website is more reliable. With the correct support team and resources, it can definitely go a long way in generating sales and ample revenue over time.

If you are looking for an expert e-commerce team to listen to your business needs and build a personalized website that reflects your brand identity, then get in touch with us at [email protected]

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