eCommerce for services | Sell your services online and increase revenue

What is an eCommerce service?

An eCommerce service is a business that sells and/or delivers its services online. Much like retailers, service-based businesses sell different services. These include accounting services, education and training, and meal-prepping services, to name a few.

An accountant can sell different packages online for, say, bookkeeping, cost accounting, employee benefits consulting, and tax preparation. Another example is a meal-prepping service, where a caterer or catering company prepares healthy and nutritious ready-made meals for busy customers. While the meals are “goods,” the act of preparing and delivering the meals to their customers is a service.

These eCommerce services have websites where customers can view, select, and pay for services.

Tip: Have a look at Netcash’s showcase to have a better idea of the types of service-based businesses that can use eCommerce.

Industries that have gone from brick-and-mortar to online in recent years

Looking at recent years, you’ll see that both B2B (business to business) and B2C (business to consumer) businesses have increasingly made the move to digitisation. Financial services, entertainment, education, marketing, and health and wellness are industries that have made massive strides in this regard. Here’s a brief look at how some of these industries have moved to deliver services online:

• Food and delivery services: Apart from meal-prepping services, food delivery services like UberEATS and Bolt Food connect customers with restaurants allowing them to order, pay for, and have delivered to their doorstep, their favourite takeaways.
• Education: Online learning via e-learning platforms has become more popular over the years, with sites like Coursera, Udemy and universities offering courses, certifications, and online degrees. Udemy, for example, serves B2C customers with its offering, as well as other businesses with its B2B Udemy Business offering.
• Health and medicine: The rise in telehealth services like NetcarePlus allow customers to access health services, like GP consultations, from the comfort of their home.

Benefits of selling eCommerce services – Why you should sell your services online

Now that you understand what an eCommerce service is, you may be wondering what makes them beneficial. Here’s how your business can benefit from selling its services online as opposed to just having a query-based site. You can search for information on this site by entering a query or filling out a contact form to request information.

Reach a wider audience by selling online

With eCommerce, you’re not restricted to providing services in a physical location. While your accounting firm, for example, may have a brick-and-mortar office in Sandton, you can still sell and render accounting services to customers all over the world.

If you just have a query-based site, a potential customer from abroad may lose interest after seeing and filling in a contact form. This could be because there’s typically no follow-through on the query, so there’s no real payoff with such a site.

Operate your service business from anywhere

Speaking of “all over the world,” selling eCommerce services allows you to run your business virtually anywhere.

Consider your fictional accounting firm. You may have Sandton offices, but that doesn’t mean you have to be in the area to run your business. As long as you have the right tools and equipment, like a laptop and a fast internet connection, you can sell your services from your home office or at a coffee shop.

That said, you’ll obviously need project management software like Asana or ClickUp, and communication software such as Slack to keep up-to-date with what your team and task. Of course, you’ll need cloud storage, too, to access much-needed company files.

A query-based site would not allow you to accept payments from customers. This stifles your ability to sell anywhere and make money.

Lower cost to set up and operate

Service-based businesses that purely sell online don’t have to worry about high rental costs. The same holds true for essentials like water and electricity. Instead of renting, they most likely pay for hosting and domain renewals. And internet costs, of course.

Granted, the average business has more expenses than those. But when you consider big-ticket items like rent, selling services online looks like a better choice. A query-based site that potentially only generates leads that may not walk through the doors of a rent-guzzling office space? Not so much.

The opportunity cost of not taking your business online

By now, the importance of selling online should be clear to you. But what happens if you don’t sell your eCommerce website services online?

• Less reach: You won’t reach as many customers as you would’ve had you sold your services online.
• Possibly lose market share: If you don’t change with the times, you’ll get left behind. A prime example of this is Blockbuster. It only had physical stores, and customers had to go in-store to rent a movie. In contrast, Netflix is a digital store, allowing for easy movie watching from any device with an internet connection. In 2007, Blockbuster had a 40% share of the rental market. However, it wound up filing for bankruptcy in 2010 partly due to competition from online video streaming services like Netflix and Redbox.
• Connect less with customers and forego social selling opportunities: With the average internet user spending 6 hours and 40 minutes online every day, you miss out on connecting with potential customers online. And if you don’t connect with users online, you can’t sell to them.

Overall, not taking your business online means not being able to compete with other online service-based businesses in the marketplace. Essentially, you’ll be handing revenue and growth potential to your competitors. If you write off going online to sell, you’re writing off a lot more than just a step into the digital world.

eCommerce basics for setting up an online store to monetise your service business

Below are some tips for monetising your service business online. You’ll learn where to place your services to sell online, from selecting an eCommerce platform, such as Netcash, to marketing your store.

1. Choose an eCommerce platform

eCommerce services need to be placed somewhere online for you to sell them. That’s where an eCommerce platform comes in. This software application opens up the wonders of the internet, allowing you to sell online services. But it also offers so much more.

This platform not only provides a website to sell services; it provides a channel for you to manage key aspects of your service-selling website. Think of operations, marketing, payments, and shipping.

If you’re just starting out, the best eCommerce selling platforms allow for free and easy setup. Look for one that doesn’t require you to know how to code to build a website. Netcash’s platform is a no-code instant site and provides you with its built-in eCommerce payment gateway.

2. Register your domain name and choose a host for your website

You’ll need to register a domain name for your website. Think of it as your piece of online real estate. It’s your “address” on the internet that no other business owns.

To do this, visit a domain name registrar and search for names that reflect your brand. This will most likely be the name of your business.

Then, choose a host. An eCommerce host helps you run your online store. It’s a web hosting service that provides you with the much-needed bandwidth, server space, and software you need to keep your eCommerce website running smoothly.

3. Build or design your website

It’s time to build online property on your digital real estate. Ensure your website is designed to be visually appealing, easy to use, and mobile-friendly. This will help improve customer experience, making them more likely to purchase your eCommerce service.

Now, not every small business owner knows how to code or has the resources to pay someone to build them a website. That’s why Netcash offers its eCommerce Instant Site. The free feature allows you to choose a customisable design theme.

Want to dip your toes into building the site yourself? Netcash’s Instant Site also allows for easy, beautiful website builds. Of course, customisation is the name of the game here.

You can choose different colours to match your brand. There’s also the option for you to use content blocks. Include everything from company promotions to your business’s information.

Afterwards, you can connect your domain name to the Instant Site. And once that’s all done, you can move on to placing your services online.

4. Add services to your online store

Much like a retailer places goods on those supermarket shelves, you’ll also need to “stock” your services. Placing your services to sell online with Netcash’s Instant Site looks like adding categories and showcasing featured services on it.

This is better explained with an illustrative example. Let’s look at your fictional accounting firm again. Here, you’ll select different content blocks where you’ll display your services. You can include bookkeeping as one featured product and payroll as another. On top of that, you can include details about each in its block.

5. Set up an eCommerce Payment Gateway

The whole point of eCommerce selling is to generate revenue. And an eCommerce payment gateway serves just that purpose. It enables your customers to pay you and you to receive payment when selling online services.

Netcash’s built-in eCommerce payment gateway helps your customers make easy, secure payments online. With multiple payment options from OZOW Instant EFT to Scan to Pay, your customers will be able to pay in a way that’s most convenient to them.

Add to that its PCI DSS Level 1 Compliant, and you can rest assured that Netcash adheres to the payment card industry’s most stringent data security standards.

6. Market your store

Lastly, you want to get those virtual tills ringing. Achieve this by promoting your eCommerce services shop with good old-fashioned marketing. Following the tips in this marketing checklist can help you drive traffic to your store.

Check out the “Marketing” page of your store admin. In there, you’ll find a host of powerful features like the abandoned cart recovery and setting up remarketing ad campaigns. Selecting attractive service photos and adding strong product descriptions are great ways to make your service stand out.

You can also employ digital marketing strategies like promoting your services on social media and using email marketing to reach your customers. Another strategy you could use is to try paid ads. Use Google Shopping Ads to promote your services on Google or social media ads on Instagram and Facebook. In South Africa, you can link to your store, so traffic & sales from Pinterest can be tracked similar to other social channels connected to Shop.

Sell services online with these tips

Before you rush off into advertising your service-based business, here are some tips to help you make the most of your eCommerce journey:

• Have a mobile-friendly website: With customers using their phones more than ever, it’s important to ensure your website is smooth, fast, and beautiful. Use Google’s mobile-friendly test to see if your website makes the cut.
• Offer different payment options: People like options, so being able to checkout using buy now pay later services, for example, offers customers great flexibility. And it could improve your sales.
• Provide excellent customer service: Keep customers coming back for more by communicating clearly, being positive, and assisting them promptly.
• Track your sales data: Use marketing data analytics to understand which services sell more and which services could be improved on. Make use of tools and data like heatmaps, click-through rates, etc., to get the information you need to make informed decisions.

Final thoughts on eCommerce for services

eCommerce has the potential to change the way your service-based business operates. By selling your services online, you can reach a much wider audience and make more sales than previously thought.

Retail businesses aren’t the only ones to benefit from this. If you can deliver your services to prospective customers online, eCommerce selling can be a great opportunity for your small business. And with consumers increasingly pursuing convenience in this digital age, it’s important for you to embrace selling services online.

Are you a service business owner? Contact Netcash today to explore the potential eCommerce can unleash in your business.