The future of online shopping – Q&A with VP-ASP

This week we interviewed Gareth from VP-ASP. We asked him to share his thoughts and insights regarding eCommerce as he sees it.

1. What is the #1 advantage you have over your competitors?
Our feature list is as big or bigger than most of our competitors yet we keep our prices low. We also offer a customization & development service with the ability to customize our software to almost any requirement.

2. From your experience, should a merchant run a small shop with limited number of items, or rather a big one with many items for sale?
I would say it’s best to find a niche and stick to it. Anyone can open a web store filled with thousands of products with generic images & descriptions and these types of stores are not the path to success, Amazon has truly devoured that market and it’s near impossible to compete. My advice would be to find a niche market and offer a small number of products which you know inside and out, accompanied by unique product descriptions, images and videos. Offer a level of pre and post sales care that larger retailers cannot and add even more value with a blog.

4. Do many of your merchants run a brick and stone store as well?
Yes, I would say around 20% run a brick and mortar store in addition to their online store. Most opened their online store as an extension to their physical stores but these days the swing tends to be in the opposite direction with merchants opening online stores first then brick and mortar stores in areas where their products are most popular.

5. Can you share any interesting plans for your platform in the near future?
We are currently building version 8 which is set to contain a host of powerful new features, we’re really taking our time with this as we want it to a market leading shopping cart.

6. How do you cope with the high pace of changes in the eCommerce arena and specifically in the social commerce world?
We keep a close eye on industry news and ensure we listen to our customers. If our customers come to us asking for a feature / function they’ve seen elsewhere, most of the time we will build it for them.

8. Do you believe that in 10 years, shopping will be done mostly online?
Maybe 10 years is a little too early but I do think it will become that way eventually. However I also believe that some sectors will always have a place on the high street, such as fashion as technology will never be able to create the experience of going into stores and trying on clothes.

9. From your experience, what is the first thing a merchant should pay attention to when opening a web store?
The competition, if the market is flooded with established stores selling the same products and services as you intend to, how are you going to compete? The answer is you probably can’t.

10. Tell us something about your platform that would make our readers remember it.
Despite having a large presence and 80% of our clients in the USA, we are actually based in Melbourne, Australia.

A BIG thank you for Gareth, VP-ASP marketing director, for taking the time to answer the above questions. If you want to learm more about this great platform visit them now at: https://www.vpasp.com

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