E-commerce:
what is it and how do you get started?
E-commerce is no longer a new concept, but it’s still a term that raises plenty of questions. It literally means electronic commerce, which is the online purchase and sale of goods and services. More and more businesses are investing in e-commerce because customers today expect the convenience of arranging everything online. From physical products and digital services to subscriptions and online platforms—the possibilities are endless. But building a successful webshop takes more than just putting products online. You need the right strategy, technology, and user experience to truly stand out and grow. At The Dare Company, we help businesses take the first step into e-commerce with webshops that are built to perform, scale, and create real results.
What is e-commerce?
E-commerce, or electronic commerce, simply means buying and selling products or services online. This can happen through webshops, marketplaces, or even social media platforms. In short: anything involving online transactions and payments falls under e-commerce. So you no longer need to run a “traditional webshop” to be active in e-commerce.
The benefits of E-COMMERCE
Selling products and services online comes with several important advantages:
- E-commerce allows you to offer a wider range of products and services than a physical store.
- E-commerce helps you reach a much broader audience compared to a local physical shop.
- E-commerce is not limited by opening hours, allowing customers to shop 24/7.
What falls under e-commerce?
E-commerce can take many different forms. The most common way to categorize it is based on the type of product or service being sold.
Physical products
These are tangible products that you order online and receive at home, such as:
- Clothing
- Books
- Electronics
- Household products
This remains the most common form of e-commerce and includes traditional online stores.
Digital products
These are products without a physical form, such as:
- E-books
- Online courses
- Software
- Templates or downloadable files
The main advantage is that there is no inventory or shipping involved, making them fully scalable from day one.
Services
In this case, you're not selling a product, but a service, such as:
- Marketing services
- SEO or advertising
- Coaching
- Consultancy
This is also becoming increasingly common online, via funnels, intake forms, and online payments.
E-commerce based on customer type
- Business-to-Business (B2B): trade betweem two companies. (Mailchimp)
- Business-to-Consumer (B2C): trade between a company and a consumer. (Zalando)
- Consumer-to-Consumer (C2C): trade between consumers. (Marktplaats)
- Business-to-Business-for-Consumer (B2B4C): a company-to-company model that ultimately serves consumers. (Picnic)
What is Business-to-Business e-commerce? (B2B)
B2B e-commerce occurs when businesses trade products or services online with other businesses. This mainly involves (online) services being exchanged between companies. For example, our SEO specialists helping you optimize your website for search engines is a form of B2B e-commerce.
What is Business-to-Consumer e-commerce? (B2C)
B2C e-commerce takes place when businesses sell products or services directly to consumers online. For example, you might search for a black T-shirt, end up on the Zalando website, and place an order that gets delivered to your home a few days later. This is a typical example of B2C retail e-commerce.
What is Consumer-to-Consumer e-commerce?
C2C e-commerce takes place between consumers who trade products or services online with each other. When you sell something to another consumer through an online marketplace such as Marktplaats, you are engaging in C2C e-commerce.
What is Business-to-Business-for-Consumer e-commerce? (B2B4C)
B2B4C e-commerce occurs when businesses collaborate with other businesses to sell a product or service to the end consumer. For example, Picnic sells products from brands like Unilever directly to consumers through its online platform. This is an example of B2B4C e-commerce.
Where does e-commerce take place?
E-commerce is no longer limited to traditional webshops. Today, it happens across multiple channels at the same time:
- Webshops (Shopify, WooCommerce, Magento)
- Marketplaces (Bol, Amazon)
- Social media (Instagram, TikTok shops)
- Google Shopping
- Apps en mobile commerce
With this shift, mobile-first has become the standard, as most purchases start on a smartphone.
Popular e-commerce platforms
WooCommerce
A plugin for WordPress. Ideal if you already have a website and want to expand it with e-commerce.
Advantage: high flexibility and low entry costs.
Disadvantage: requires more technical knowledge.
Shopify
An all-in-one platform that allows you to quickly launch a webshop without technical knowledge.
Advantage: user-friendly and quick to go live.
Disadvantage: limited flexibility for custom solutions.
Magento
A powerful platform designed for larger webshops with complex requirements.
Advantage: highly scalable and flexible.
Disadvantage: requires development and maintenance.
E-commerce and Google Shopping
Google still plays a major role in e-commerce. For many webshops, the customer journey simply starts in the search engine. With Google Shopping, products appear directly in search results, including images, prices, and the retailer. This not only increases your visibility, but also makes it easier for potential customers to compare and view your products instantly. For webshops, Google Shopping is often one of the most important sources of traffic and revenue.
Google analytics for your webshop
Insight is just as important as visibility. With Google Analytics, you get a clear understanding of how visitors behave on your webshop. You can see where visitors come from, which pages convert well, and at what point people drop off. This data helps you continuously optimize and make better decisions for your webshop, marketing, and advertising. Without data, you’re ultimately navigating blind.
Step-by-step plan to start e-commerce
Decide what you're going to sell
Everything starts with the basics: are you offering a product or a service, and who exactly are you trying to reach? It’s also important to define what makes you different and how you will ultimately generate revenue. This stage is often where the difference between success and stagnation is made—not the platform, but your proposition determines the outcome.
Choose your platform
Depending on your situation, you might choose WooCommerce, Shopify, or Magento, each with its own advantages and level of complexity. The most important thing is not choosing “the best platform,” but selecting a platform that fits your current stage and ambitions.
Build your traffic
A webshop without visitors is simply a store without an audience, so you need to actively build traffic. This can be done through SEO, Google Ads or Shopping, social media advertising, content marketing, and email marketing, where the real strength lies in combining multiple channels.
Optimize continuously
E-commerce is never finished and requires ongoing improvement in conversion, advertising, product pages, speed, and user experience. The companies that win are not necessarily the biggest, but the ones that learn and optimize the fastest based on data.
Dare to grow your webshop
With 20 years of marketing experience and a fully in-house team, we help make your webshop more visible and discoverable. Together, we build lasting visibility that works across all channels. Let’s explore where your opportunities lie.
Frequently asked questions
What is E-commerce?
E-commerce involves companies selling their goods by using the Internet. The company creates a website or has one developed on which they showcase their products. The visitor can then easily place an order through this website. The product is then delivered through the mail.
What does E-commerce mean?
The "E" of E-commerce stands for electronic. Therefore, E-commerce means Electronic Commerse.
How does E-commerce work?
You speak of E-commerce when you place an order for a product or service via the Internet. The website visitor can easily place an order from the site and the company behind the website then delivers the product.
Why deploy E-commerce?
It is impossible to imagine life without the Internet. We see more and more companies taking the leap to online. E-commerce can be a good addition to the business plan because you realise a new sales channel as a company. However, we see that many companies struggle with the interpretation of e-commerce. The Dare Company helps companies to achieve optimal returns from their e-commerce website!