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Digital shop window
Art. no. 117764284 24 Apr 2025
An easier way to get started with e-commerce
Have you or your company discussed starting with e-commerce, but not really felt that you have the time or energy? Is it getting too complicated to keep track of a new platform with all that it entails? Maybe a digital storefront could be for you! Here we go through what it is and why it can be a good option.
Taking the step online and expanding your business from having only one or more physical stores is not an easy thing. It presents a number of challenges and requires both time and commitment. If you or your business is to be really successful, you need to put quite a lot of effort into your e-commerce, you need to keep your product inventory up to date, you need to make sure that shipping works properly and so on. Maybe you simply don't have the time? There's nothing wrong with that, but at the same time, it's a shame to miss out on all the opportunities that online visibility brings, isn't it?
Show off what you have - but sell offline
This is where the digital shop window comes in, but what is it?Well, in a way, it's like an e-commerce store, except you're not selling anything directly online. Instead, you can showcase your range in a neat and well-stocked way so that anyone who has considered visiting your physical store knows what is and isn't available. This can also attract a number of new customers looking for a particular product, who initially had no idea that you sold it. With a digital storefront, you simply put out the products that are in your store, but you don't have to deal with shipping, inventory, and all those things that can take extra time. It works much like a classic product catalog, but a more modern one.
Let's play with the idea that your company is called "Stinas Trädgårdsredskap AB" (STAB). As the name suggests, you sell gardening tools. We also play with the idea that Hakim is going to buy a new lawnmower and that he has heard from his friend that STAB exists - however, the friend was unsure whether you sell lawnmowers or not. It's likely that STAB has a good entry point with Hakim because his friend told him about you and so he Googles you. Let's say you have a website where people can find your opening hours, contact details and that you sell "all kinds of garden tools" but not much more than that. Hakim finds your website but doesn't get an answer to his question, in short, he still doesn't know if you sell lawnmowers or not. Instead, he finds your competitor and buys the mower there instead.
Of course, the example above is almost a bit over the top, but it still encapsulates what a digital storefront could do for your business.
Benefits over a regular website
Let's break down the benefits of a digital storefront into three points, focusing a little extra on why it's better than just having a regular website.Neat and tidy. Even if you have a perfectly good website where you have posted some pictures of what you sell, it does not give the same professional impression as if you had the products neatly sorted by category, with clear product names and pictures. Who would you rather buy a product from? The store with an information-rich website or the store with a well-organized digital storefront?
Searchability on Google. In addition to the Hakim example, there are many other customers out there who are also looking for a lawn mower. Many of them may not have even considered that you might be selling lawnmowers and even more may not even know about you at all. What they are most likely doing, however, is searching on Google for lawnmowers. If you've done your homework with a digital storefront, you're much more likely to rank higher in search results than if you just have a website with a few images. Having a real e-commerce (even if you don't sell online) can even make your lawnmower appear in Google Shopping results. If you're not familiar with Google Shopping, you've probably come across it at some point when searching for a specific product without realizing it. Either you see on the home page of your search result a row of products, what they cost and where you can buy them, or you have clicked on "Shopping" in the row where you can choose "Everything", "Images", "Maps" and so on. This is Google Shopping and since 2020, Google has also started to release organic results here and not just paid ads.
Business to business (B2B) sales. If you're a B2B seller, a digital storefront is highly recommended, both for potential and existing customers. As well as making it easier to reach new customers, you can make it easier for your existing ones, potentially selling more or at least saving your precious time. If it is easy to see what is available, what it costs and what the item is called, it will be much easier for the customer to communicate their order to you. This means fewer questions, fewer misunderstandings and more time for other things.
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