Your website generates plenty of traffic, but there’s a gap between site metrics and the revenue you’d like to have. Savvy visitors aren’t a captive audience for ads, so ad revenue possibilities don’t always match their potential. You need something new – a way to increase revenue while engaging visitors, and e-commerce on your website is a solution.

It only makes sense. Each site visitor spends money somewhere, so why send customers somewhere else? Whether you offer products, subscriptions, or a specialty service, e-commerce can drive up revenue while increasing visitor loyalty.

Add Value to Each Site Visit

You already know that when visitors find something worthwhile to them at your website, they naturally want to return. More than a point-of-sale addition to your website, e-commerce is added value. Value can be present in the content that you share and the products or services that you sell, and having e-commerce available can add more to the overall experience, and encourages users to visit frequently.

Turn e-Commerce on its Ear

Shoppers are faced with a seemingly endless stream of ways to spend money, and many of them are lost in a blur. If you want to stand out, you’ll need something more than a typical purchasing interface. Wanelo, for example, brings in the eye candy factor. Using an interface that’s similar to Pinterest, where users select and save or ”pin” items that they love, each visitor can create a unique wish list that goes further than a simple reference thumbnail. The Moz Blog recommends adding video to your homepage to help drive visitors to your web store.

Don’t Worry about Inventory or Hours of Operation

Whether you sell services, subscriptions, or tangible products, e-commerce doesn’t mean you’ll need an on-site warehouse. Where there are physical products involved, offsite drop-ship companies can handle that, and the upside is worldwide distribution. As with advertising revenue, e-commerce doesn’t sleep. Site visitors aren’t restricted by operating hours, so your site can generate revenue 24 hours a day.

It’s Simpler than You Might Imagine

Increased revenue is an obvious plus, so don’t let the details weigh you down. Setup doesn’t have to be a challenge. With a web store e-commerce software package, basic site additions are practically plug and play. Some offer free trials, and most let you customize the look to match so there’s nothing to lose. With a well-known payment system, such as Paypal, customers shop with confidence. High-Level Marketing estimates that you’d pay between $0 and $40 per month for a merchant account, and up to $30 a month for e-commerce software.

Don’t Forget Mobile

Mobile is the sleeper hit of e-commerce. With website publishers quickly learning how valuable mobile sites can be to their business, it only makes sense to add on mobile e-commerce. With a scaled down mobile version of the point-of-sale platform that’s available at your main website, mobile visitors can send revenue to you anywhere they have a signal.

Content is value on its own. Your page views and states are proof enough of that. But with the addition of e-commerce, you’re expanding the possibilities. Every publisher needs revenue, and ads alone aren’t enough. With a successful sales platform you have even more metrics to examine.

With e-commerce, your website can become a hub where new visitors and loyal ones find value at every page load.