Arun Pratap of Dial4 Trade on e-commerce platforms driving SME growth

Authored By: Arun Pratap Singh (Founder & Director) Dial4 Trade

Mr. Arun Pratap Singh is the Managing Director and Founder of Dial4Trade, an emerging online B2B marketplace that boasts a 4.9 customer rating on Google and Facebook. Before starting his own venture, Mr. Arun worked as a Product Head/Digital Marketing Head in various IT companies. Despite enjoying a successful career for 12 years, he was keen on opening a startup that would give solutions to all the challenges faced by the B2B marketplace in India.

Almost no one would argue that being successful in business today, demands serving customers across the world, around the clock. Hence nearly every SME that wishes to increase sales and to enhance the perception of its brand must have an online footprint because being online means being able to serve clients any time of the day, wherever the client may be. For SME’s the advantages of having an online presence are elaborated below.

Sell Immediately, Worldwide

Every small business owner knows that building a business takes time, sometimes as long as a few months or even years. One reason this is so because it takes time to attract clients. However, an SME that takes advantage of an e-commerce portal can sell to more customers than it could sell to otherwise. This is because customers from across the globe visit e-commerce sites and because there are more prospective customers globally than in one region, more customers are likely to buy an SME’s products from an e-commerce portal than will buy from a shop or shops.

Also, a business can be ready to sell online quickly. A few simple clicks and an SME can showcase its inventory of goods to the world. It is also less expensive to run an e-commerce business than it is to run an offline business because one doesn’t need much manpower to manage sales- customers are automatically directed to the e-commerce site where they can choose from the goods available for sale. Also, an e-commerce site is open 24 hours a day whereas an offline store is usually open only from 9 to 6.

Understand Customers Better

Selling online also allows businesses to understand each customer better and to better serve the customer’s needs in the future. By using sophisticated software to understand what customers are looking for, an SME can recommend additional products that customers are more likely to buy. This also helps create a good relationship with customers.

Hiring New Employees is a Breeze

It is easy to hire qualified employees cheaply to manage an e-commerce site. This is because an e-commerce site can be accessed from anywhere allowing an SME to judge qualified workers from across the globe and to hire those who offer the best quality at the best price. An additional advantage of having an e-commerce site is that an SME need not hire new employees until after launching the site.

Lower Operational Costs

It’s obvious that the popularity of e-commerce is growing by the day. With each passing year, more people shop online than did the year before. Shopping online is convenient and fun. This means that SME’s stand to sell to a growing audience if SME’s have an online presence. Finally by using e-commerce suppliers can decrease their cost of inventory management by using a web-based management system. This leads to lower operational costs for suppliers.

As has been proven above there are numerous unique advantages to selling online. Every SME that hopes to grow its customer base and its revenues should explore the opportunity presented by e-commerce sites.   

Disclaimer: Views expressed in this article do not necessarily reflect that of the publisher