Digital Marketing for Online Stores

 

History of Marketing for Online Stores

“Online shopping” began in 1979 when the British inventor Michael Aldrich created a system that allowed real-time transactions. Two years later, through the initiative of a British travel company, the first business transaction helped drive both business-to-consumer and business-to-business transactions.

In 1990, the famous World Wide Web was created. It was the first browser ever developed, as well as a server used to access this “worldwide network of computers.” In essence, the web (network) refers to a system of coded documents that are interconnected and executed on the internet.

In 1994 and 1995, important advances occurred on the path that led us to digitalization as we know it today. Netscape (USA) introduced a new browser and a cryptography system for secure transactions.

Finally, banks and brands such as Pizza Hut began enabling online orders, and companies that are now giants appeared, such as Amazon (which recorded its first profit in 2013) and Ebay, among others. It is also worth mentioning the implementation of PayPal, a secure payment service that still holds around 70% of the market today, as well as several innovative sharing software solutions that helped strengthen and expand the internet community.

First items sold on Ebay and Amazon:

 

 

 

Digital Marketing for Online Stores

Within general digital marketing, there is also digital marketing specifically for online stores. What is digital marketing for online stores? It is the implementation of a multichannel strategy that aims not only to promote a business’s online store but also to optimize the brand/company’s content in the digital world and increase and manage the community of current and future customers.

Sounds simple? In reality, the hardest part is getting started! Imagine you have a business selling a product or service but you are not sure how to manage an online store or how to maximize its potential. We can approach this issue from three perspectives: the product/service, the marketing, and the engineering behind the system.

First, we need a product with potential that meets legal requirements (just because something is online does not mean it will sell a lot). Next, the marketing strategy for the product/service must be well planned. This is where the work of digital agencies like Weboost comes into play.

After aligning with the brand’s strategy and goals, we develop an action plan for the digital world. This may include website creation, online store development, multimedia production, branding, search engine optimization, social media communication, and many other aspects.

 

Online Market Values in Portugal

The growth of the online buyer and seller community in Portugal has followed global growth. According to 2018 data from WeAreSocial in partnership with Hootsuite, 78% of the population uses the Internet, representing more than 8 million people, of which an estimated 85% use it every day.

In addition to the already “expected” acceleration of digitalization due to increased mobile usage (internet access via smartphones) and the time spent online, consumer trust in online commerce has also seen very positive changes.

From a study of people over 15 years old, the numbers—even if not perfectly exact—speak for themselves. We believe this situation is not just a “trend” and that there is a great potential for business growth through the digital world. We can observe very positive revenue values by category and purchasing behavior that shows signs of changing, with consumers buying more and in a more “digital” way (online bank accounts, direct payments, etc.).

Global Online Market Values

If the numbers in Portugal already show potential, globally the situation is similar—and, of course, the audience is much larger.

More than half of the world’s population uses the Internet and 45% also use social networks. In addition, more than 5.1 billion people have mobile devices, mainly smartphones, meaning they can access the internet virtually anywhere.

In the previous list we can observe the 20 most popular Google searches in the first quarter of 2019. Good news if you are looking for a sign to partner with a digital marketing agency!

Platforms such as social networks (Facebook, Instagram, Gmail, Hotmail, Whatsapp, Twitter), search engines (Google, YouTube), or even e-commerce websites such as Amazon dominate this list. All of these are related to e-commerce or can be used to boost an e-commerce business.

Just as we did for Portugal, let’s now observe the values of global online commerce. Once again, even if the numbers are not perfectly exact, we can imagine they are not far from reality. After all, the richest man in the world—by a considerable margin over number two—is Jeff Bezos, founder and CEO of Amazon, the giant of online sales.

Let’s use this chart to conclude the article. Here we can observe the evolution of mobile data consumption since 2013, which shows a monthly average of 7 gigabytes per smartphone. The key point we want to emphasize is the growing use of this type of internet access, which may represent an even greater increase than expected in global online shopping—and that is why it deserves special mention in this conclusion.

Dedicate your valuable time to your brand and leave the rest to us. All you need to do is decide to take your business to the next level—and then simply wait to discover how far it can go!