Are you ready to start an on line business?
But where do you start when you want to take your business online?
Choose a Channel
Are you going to have a dedicated online store, or use an established channel such as eBay or Amazon to list your items?
If you choose to launch a dedicated store, then you’ll need to have the technical expertise in house to be able to setup a website, or you’ll need a third party to set the site up for you.
There are a range of e-commerce software solutions, many of which are a free download. Some, such as Magento offer a range of options. If you have the skills to do it yourself, then there’s Magento Community Edition. Else they offer a hosted solution at Magento Go, which can get your e-commerce site up and running quickly and easily.
Many e-commerce companies use more than one channel to sell their products, for instance listing items on e-bay as well as their dedicated store. Research your market and decided where your customers are most likely to shop, and then pick which channels work best for you.
Choose a Fulfilment Method
Before you get going with your e-commerce site, you need to know how you’ll be getting orders to customers. If you’re starting out small, then you might be able to store your products yourself, package items up and arrange delivery via Royal Mail, or a website such as Parcel 2 Go, which can offer you a variety of methods for getting orders to customers.
If all goes well with your e-commerce site, then you’ll likely soon outgrow this solution, and a dedicated fulfilment service will be required. A dedicated fulfilment house can store all your products for your, and provide a professional pick-pack service to cope with a high level of orders. They will also negotiate much better rates with delivery companies, so you can pass on offers such as Free Delivery to your customers.
How Will Customers Pay You?
At some point you’ll want to take payment from customers from your e-commerce store, but where do you start?
Often small businesses start with a service such as PayPal. This can be a simple solution to get your business up and running, but soon you will want to choose a dedicated payment gateway to handle your credit card transactions.
A payment gateway provides a professional front end to your customers when making payments, reassuring them that they are dealing with a legitimate website, and that their details are safe.
All businesses taking payment via cards also need to ensure they are PCI complaint, by using a payment processing gateway, you ensure that customer cards details are kept safely, according to the PCI standards.
Some customers may still prefer to pay via other methods, so it is worth giving them as many options as you can to pay, often your chosen payment gateway may offer integration into these services, as Secure Trading do with Pay Pal and Ukash.
What about Your Customers?
Customer service is something which is often overlooked in e-commerce, but it can really set you apart from the rest if your deliver great service to your customers.
As with fulfilment, you may be able to start out by dealing with emails and phone calls directly from your customers, but as order levels increase, you will soon need another solution.
Dedicated call centres can provide customer services solutions for your business. A good company will be able to deal with your customers professionally and quickly, ensuring they will be return customers.
When looking at customer services, recognise that social media is now playing a part in communicating with customers, and that offering customer service via Twitter and Facebook, can really set you apart from your competitors.
So Your Site is Ready to Launch?
Don’t sit back and expect the customers to flood right in. Building traffic to your website may be the hardest part of running an e-commerce site. Again, the technical expertise needed to build traffic to your site may be something you wish to outsource.
Dedicated SEO companies can work with you to build your sites ranking in the search engines, but choosing the right one can be difficult. As a rule of thumb, avoid any company who make claims such as ‘guaranteed number one in Google’ as no company can ensure this.
PPC (Pay Per Click) can be a quick way to get your site seen in search engines, with Google Ad Words being a great place to start with this.
Building content on your site is another way you can provide an added extra to your customers, whilst also building your search engine visibility. Start a blog on a subject surrounding the products you sell, and update it regularly.
Again, social media can really boast visits to you site, use services such as Twitter and Facebook to promote your site and blog, and remember to interact with those who follow you. Building a community around your e-commerce site can help to promote your site as well as build loyal customers.
Ready to Give it A Go?
If you’re ready to give e-commerce a go, then the above should give you a place to start so you can look into how e-commerce can fit into your business. Remember that one solution does not fit all, and that you need to evaluate what your business needs from an e-commerce solution.
For help and advice along the way, just connect up with
Karen at southwarks.mumsbusinessclub.com
