E-Commerce and online shopping is a trend that is showing no signs of slowing down. It refers to the purchasing of goods and services over the internet and offers customers a simple and convenient way to shop.
Although car wash services may consider themselves as an offline business, many innovative car washes are leveraging the power of e-commerce and online marketing to grow their businesses. Utilising e-commerce helps car wash services meet customer expectations through a seamless buying experience.
E-commerce presents a wealth of benefits for both businesses and consumers, so car wash businesses should look to review their online presence and think carefully about if they are meeting customer buying preferences.
So, what exactly are some of the benefits for car wash services to incorporate e-commerce into their business?
Benefits of E-Commerce
- Easily Integrated
Integrating e-commerce into your current business model is easier than you may think. Here at PSD Codax, our e-commerce platform can be integrated into your current website without any problems. This means you can start selling online instantly!
Our solution allows you to incorporate your own branding too, so you can focus on developing your brand online.
Once it’s integrated, you can decide on what services/products you want to sell.
- Develop on Online Presence
Being able to sell online means that you can utilise the internet more directly. For example, when sharing things on social media, instead of simply asking people to get in contact to learn more, you can share a link where customers can buy directly from that link.
This helps create a more seamless experience for your customers and also reflects the current desire to shop quickly and hassle free.
Car wash businesses could even try things like referral schemes whereby they incentivise other local businesses to promote their online products and offer them a percentage of any sale. E-commerce software can make this incredibly simple and effective, helping create new customer acquisition opportunities.
- Stay Top of Mind with Customers
Your customers are likely spending a considerable amount of time on the internet each day. Whether that’s on their smart phone, tablet or desktop, or browsing emails, social media or their favourite websites. People’s attention is very much towards the internet so having a presence online and having reasons for your customers to visit your website (e.g. to get discounts), is a great way to stay top of mind with your customers.
- Receive Payment in Advance
E-commerce allows you to sell your products and receive payment instantly. This means you can often get paid before a customer uses your services or products. This makes it a great cash flow asset for businesses.
- Automation and Scaling
E-commerce can help provide a platform to automate repetitive tasks and help create a business model that is scalable. E-commerce platforms allow you to sell 24/7. No sales team or customer service team are required to be present with the customer as they sell, and businesses can create systems and processes that ensure all orders are dealt with effectively.
Having a simple customer feedback form sent a week after a customer orders anything online can be a great way to learn about how customers are perceiving your services and any feedback they have. Gathering this type of information can be much easier and more practical via e-commerce than in shops or kiosks as the customer can respond in their own time and can reflect on the experience.
- Track Orders/Analytics
E-commerce makes it very easy to track orders and customer information. E-commerce software can be synced with a CRM to help manage customers to ensure they are receiving the best possible experience.
E-commerce and online selling also means you can track online advertising very accurately. You can see how many people directly bought from seeing your advert. This helps car washes become very agile and proactive with regard to advertising and marketing. Instead of waiting to see if a promotional campaign leads to more customers visiting the car wash, they can simply run an online campaign and see how many people bought the service.
This can also mean upsells or cross-sells are presented to the right customer, at the right time, in their individual experience with your car wash.
- Test New Offers
E-commerce makes it quick and easy to test different pricing options or offers and seeing which one converts best. Within a day, you can have a good idea of whether your new idea/offer is proving popular or not. Traditionally, to get this kind of data took much longer.
E-commerce also helps pre-sell products easily analyse whether or not it is likely to do well.
Getting Started with E-Commerce
To get started with e-commerce, start small and look to develop over time. Start by getting an e-commerce shop online (ideally integrated with your website). You can then tell your current customers that they can order online. You can start to see your initial orders come in and make sure your team are ready for processing such orders.
Over time, you can promote it more and look to give more focus on the e-commerce side of things, until it becomes a vital component of your car wash business.
E-commerce doesn’t replace the need to have high quality customer service. It also doesn’t replace traditional means of promotion and selling – instead, it simply offers a new channel for businesses to explore. Those businesses that embrace change and get excited by new opportunities are likely to have the biggest success going forward.
A lot of the value of e-commerce comes from the data and insights it presents. This means car wash businesses need to value that data and ensure they are extracting as many useful pieces of information as they can out of it.
Learn More with PSD Codax
If you’re looking to get the most out of your car wash, make sure you get in touch with us here at PSD Codax. As well as offering tailored e-commerce solutions for car wash businesses, we also have a wide range of products and services designed to help empower car washes through advanced technology.
From payment kiosks, to fleet cards, to car wash controllers, our mission is to help advance the car wash industry through powerful technology and products.
To learn more, simply get in touch and we’ll help you get more out of your car wash.
See more: Brand Loyalty – Benefits of Loyalty Cards and Schemes in your Car Wash Business
