Having an online presence is a necessity, but the process isn’t easy, especially for people that didn’t grew up toying with computers, internet, coding, designing…
To simplify things, AGC eCommerce helps anyone that wants an online store to sell their products without having to deal with choosing complicated themes, setting up everything, updating plugins and apps and everything else. Cesar Cruz, CEO of
AGC eCommerce, talked with us to explain his vision, what his company has to offer and the future holds.
Please present AGC eCommerce to our audience.
My name is Cesar and I am the CEO of AGC eCommerce. We are a drag & drop website builder for small businesses for entrepreneurs, solopreneurs and anyone who needs to get online.
Despite being a traumatic year in general, 2020 presented the importance of an online presence to people. Did you notice a growing interest in your company and tool in that period?
We saw a large increase in demand for our services the past year, to be honest. As we all know, 2020 was definitely difficult, affecting many businesses in a way no one could predict. If this past year taught us one thing it was that we need to adapt in these changing times faster than ever.
Many business owners have learned to go online and start using services like ours for their websites and eCommerce needs. They also realized this is not an option anymore, but a necessity. In 2018 and 2019 people were still worried about eCommerce and going online versus a traditional brick-and-mortar business but this is now a necessity.
What does your customer base look like?
Pretty much anyone that needs to go online or to be found online. We have the right platform for people who want to build a great website for their business or use something to leverage sales online.
We want to give our customers the best product. That they don’t maintain constantly, use plug-ins or update apps. Thus, they don’t need to worry about all that with AGC eCommerce, which is a true SaaS company. We available by chat 24/7, so that you don’t have to worry about support when you need it the most. You just got to focus on selling your product or service. With our simplistic affordable pricing we are a perfect platform for you.
Do you see your SaaS features as your main advantage compared to other eCommerce platforms?
Shopify and WordPress have been around for a while and are great at what they do. They are industry giants and have helped many entrepreneurs in different ways. We run our business in a different manner, more friendly to new users for a web design platform.
When I first started in the industry, I found both to be a little hard to learn to use for a while. A lot of people have to pay others in order to build their website instead of having the opportunity to build for themselves, and that’s the way we run our business.
We are more of a minimalistic platform in terms of design, though packed with features. We have a full web design platform, and you can build literally anything you need, from simple websites to complex eCommerce stores. We provide sales funnels, webinars, landing pages, built-in form builder, countdown timers, checkout builders, full eCommerce customization for our customers and much more.
How does AGC eCommerce help its customers with conversion?
We provide a comprehensive SEO out of the box for every customer. We have dashboards to track your website engagement, traffic and conversion, CRM for customers’ orders. We also have a blog full of tips and tricks to help you succeed. Of course, we are SEO-friendly and hosted on Amazon cloud, so our speed is blazing fast.
What is the future for AGC eCommerce?
That’s the biggest concern nowadays: how businesses are expanding and making it better for customers. In 2021, we plan to introduce email marketing built-in with customizable templates. So, you don’t have to go to different companies to be able to do your email marketing, it’ll be all in-house.
On top of that, we are updating ecommerce store templates, adding more widgets. Recently, we have partnered with Integrately to provide more functions – they are similar to Zapier. We are definitely paving the way to becoming an industry leader, by offering what no one else offers.
What do your customers struggle to find somewhere else than AGC eCommerce?
People ask me all the time: why am I not being found online? It doesn’t matter the platform you are using; it takes time to build the reputation to be found online.
On top of that, the best way to be found immediately would be Google Ads, Facebook Ads to start driving traffic towards the business.
Also, every time you design a site, make it user-friendly: not what you want to see, but what your customer wants to see.
What do ecommerce companies have to think about to differentiate and have a bigger chance of being successful?
For the platforms, the only way to differentiate from competitors is to offer what no one else can, for instance by making everything built-in (email marketing, website builder etc.). At the same time, adding apps or plugins will slow down your website speed.
Many good platforms have a lot of features but require the user to pay for many improvements. Functionality of the platform should be improved and offered for a great price. It’s baffling to me that some people pay 500 dollars a month to a web designer when they can pay 40 dollars and get the same speed and a better website.
For customers, making yourself different from everybody and not having the “cookie cutter” website. Some builders have 5 or 10 similar templates, but you want to make your impact by looking different than everybody else. Also, some people will not think a site is reliable if it offers the same product in the same template as 5 other different sites, for instance.
You want to make sure that your site is unique and fast. you want to have your own template, by designing it yourself and adding your own product, the customer will see your unique site and know it is legitimate and reliable.
