During the COVID crisis, a lot of companies felt the necessity to diversify the activities of their business and to transfer them online or at least a part of them. More than ever shops felt the urge to build their online presence solely or parallel with the existing store. There are over 2.14 billion active people shopping online globally — 49% of whom do so more now than they did pre-COVID-19.
WITH THIS ARTICLE WE WILL GIVE YOU SOME BASIC GUIDANCE ON HOW TO START AN ONLINE SHOP.
There are 10 basic steps you can’t do without:
1. Research and test your idea for products you intend to sell
If your product is one of a kind this is just great. For sure you will have an advance. But how can you know this? Test your product concept with friends and family. Check the market, starting with your potential competitors. Look at the customer reviews to learn what people like and dislike about them. Internet and especially social media help a lot in this step. Define your target customers.
2. How will you supply your online store?
Where you will get your products from? Where are you going to store them? You can sell in advance and deliver the products without the real need to have stock.
3. Prepare carefully your initial budget
You don’t have costs only to make a website. Check carefully all the taxes and fees throughout the whole process – payment gateways and credit card processing fees, advertising, inventory management, shipping fees, packaging supplies, etc.
4. Similar to the shelves in a traditional shop, categorize your products
The easy navigation on your website makes your eCommerce products easy to find. Also, be creative and marketing-oriented and make attractive product descriptions. If you have enough budget, it is wise to hire a copywriter who will do all the text content for your website. Use professionally made photos.
5. eCommerce payments and checkout
The key to closing an online sale is to provide an intuitive and seamless checkout and payment experience. The smooth checkout process, and using the right payment gateways, will set you apart from your competitors. Consult with your accountant on the whole payment process – sales taxes, etc.
6. Be very careful with the shipping
Your shipping and fulfillment strategy can heavily impact your site’s overall customer experience and repeat purchases. The cost to ship products, and the length of time required to deliver them, can also be major deal-breakers.
7. Promote your store online.
Useless to say that you need an online marketing strategy.
8. The opening
Now you’ve planned and prepared all – it is time to launch your online shop either using a platform or creating your own.
9. Attract new customers
Offering deals and discounts is a good marketing strategy to help you attract and convert new customers. You can use also free shipping as a discount for new customers or those that purchase goods above some amount. Collaborating with influencers.
10. Follow a strict management strategy of the whole process
Don’t forget that you’ll need to budget some time for answering customer emails and phone inquiries, updating order statuses, and entering shipping details. Also, define your refund and return policy. Create your privacy policy and terms of service. Speak with a lawyer as you develop this policy, and ask them to help you to craft your terms of service, which is a legal document that outlines the terms and conditions for customers who use your products or services. It will protect you if any legal issues arise down the line.
After all this effort and when all is set up and ready to roll … don’t tell me that you will leave it on luck.
The most important step in order to have a peace of mind is to get business insurance which will combine protection for the physical damage of your product and for the data security … Actually, just give us a call and we’ll advise you what policies package fits best in order to minimize your business risk.
Contact us now: https://www.insuranceideal.com.cy/contact and appoint a meeting.
