Does e-commerce help my business

I am thinking about using e-commerce for my business but hesitant to do so.  I've heard that an average of 3% of the visitors will actually buy from the site. What percentage of visitors to your online e-commerce store actually buy anything?

 I think it depends on what you sell. If it is a tangible good that everyone knows, then people would still buy from you because of the popular demand. Bringing your business online can also help you reach potential customers on an international level. If you're interested in brining your business online, I can recommend you to a really awesome web application that may help you.

In the case of a brick-and-mortar retail store, you'll probably find a lot of your online visitors to your website are physical store visitors. My wife owns a pet boutique, and almost all of our ecommerce store traffic are people who visited the store in the past week. Some buy online, most call her after and ask to buy things on the website.

Example:

- Customer comes in and browses the store.

- Customer goes home and thinks about that super cute pink collar that would look great on their poodle

- Customer goes to her website, which is a online store

- Customer most likely comes back to buy it. Sometimes they call and order it. Sometimes they order it online. Either way, we got the customer to stay interested and to come back, either to a physical or a virtual property we own

As global as the website is (everyone in the world can see it), I find in her case that it's mostly people within physical proximity from the store that visit, browse and buy. I can tell you that, sitting there on Saturdays with her while she works, almost every person that comes in says: "I was on your website and I saw this really cute <fill in cute product here>.. do you have one I can see?"

Hope this helps - I believe there's definitely value to having an online store, even if it just ends up being a online catalog for your products.

-mjs

 Thanks for the responses.  It definitely gives me something to think about.

It is true an online store is one of the best ways not only to add another revenue stream to your business, but is yet another method of advertising, almost like an elaborate business card that talks about you and your business, your products and customer service.

When implementing some good SEO practices you are actually working to give yourself free advertising!

Whether you are selling or not a website is basically a must, and will be undeniably required in the future.

I would look at a cost/profit analysis. If you change the average % of sales and visitors at what point it is still worth investing in building an ecommerce business. There are many examples of  P&L statements just do a google search for it. 

I have learned that there are certain niche markets that can really perform well by running e-commerce operations.  The best thing to do is try to research how many competitors you have online and what their pricing is like.  Can you compete with your competitors based on their pricing?

Most of the people today first use the internet if they want to find any information about any business so there are pretty good chances that your business will be notified.