E-commerce solutions started wayback around early 2000. In fact, the Philippines had its first Electronic Commerce Act in 2000(now Republic Act 8792). Quoting its Section 3, it’s objective is “to facilitate domestic and international dealings, transactions, arrangements, agreements, contracts and exchanges and storage of information through the utilization of electronic, optical and similar medium, mode, instrumentality and technology to recognize the authenticity and reliability of electronic documents related to such activities and to promote the universal use of electronic transaction in the government and general public.” In short, it encourages everyone to use technology as a way of doing transactions and to treat the electronic documentation as authentic and reliable receipts of data. Actually, you can simply use an email as evidence in a court trial since it has time stamped and e-signature.
We are all going through the COVID-19 pandemic, people are not allowed to socialize outside. Social/Physical distancing is strictly imposed. This means that personal/face to face direct selling or doing transactions are not also allowed. But, being present in the digital/online world is highly encouraged and advantageous to anyone especially for a business. If your business doesn’t have any online presence via website, social media sites or the like, then probably people are not aware of you and your business. You don’t even exist in their radar. This is crucial since awareness of the brand and being on the top of the mind mostly equates to product sales and higher demand; the real reason why big businesses spend more money in advertising campaigns.
In this era where connectivity using technology is becoming a necessity, everyone, specifically businesses, should be part of the world wide web. Not all consumers can listen to your agent’s sales pitch but they will definitely Googled up your company’s name and products or services offered, in their own free time. Having a website really helps to establish an online presence and recall for your customers. You can even make it an interactive one by having a chatbot and a mini shop embedded in it. That way existing and future consumers can check out and directly pay for the products through your website. This will also maximize your opportunity to become more responsive to your client’s needs and give them a nice customer service experience (plus points for your business).
A business website is really a subtle way to market all your products/services, without being a too pushy salesperson. It’s also an efficient way to let the world know about your competitive advantages by highlighting your brand against your competitors.
But not all can afford having a website, that’s why there are many platforms(like 1Export website) that help existing and aspiring entrepreneurs. We knew for a fact that marketing one product locally can already be too costly. How about if you have a lot of products to offer to the consuming public worldwide? And you can’t just do what traditional marketers/salespeople do in this new normal world. Then most likely, you would use social media sites like Facebook Marketplace, Instagram or a selling platform like Carousell(it started as sulit.com turned OLX and now known as Carousell), Shopee and or Lazada.
What’s the common factor in those I cited above is that they are giving customers a more comprehensive list of choices at the palm of their hands. It’s so convenient and resources(time and money spending activities) are maximized while using minimum efforts(minimax) in using those platforms. It gives a win-win situation for the producers, suppliers and consumers as well as the people in between transactions. Every product ordered is eventually paid and that’s giving life to the business.
Another advantage of going digital is the ease of having a clear and complete documentation of your company’s transactions. This would only be possible if you have practiced a neat and systematic way of doing things and paper trails, for you and your clients. And instead of filing physical paperworks, you can just upload and back it up in your preferred portal(Cloud, Google etc.). That’s an eco-friendly way of documentation. You can also just retrieve the perpetual copy of files if needed.
Going digital may seem to be costly at the first glance. Yet is a crucial investment to make if you want your business to survive and thrive in the new normal world. With its features, advantages and benefits, who would not love to go digital nowadays? Maybe there’s one or few, but their existence would not be known anymore in the future.
Go digital with exporting with 1Export for free at www.1export.net/register.