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If you have a business that trades in physical products, being able to sell those products online can open a huge market for you and enable your business to grow exponentially. If you haven’t already begun researching and discovering the ways you can make this happen, now is the time to get started. There are two main ways to sell your products online, and the first one is through an e-commerce page on your own website. Below are a few tips to help you know what to look for, and what choices you will have to make to get your online retail up and running.
Your Website
There are two main ways to sell your products online, and the first one is through an e-commerce page on your own website. If you go down this route, the design of this page will be one of the most important things you work on. It will need to be very user-friendly and attractive in order to entice customers towards your product as opposed to the hundreds of other options out there. Consider making sure there is the ability to search the ‘shop’ by product type, color, or price so that the process is made as straightforward as possible. If you have a physical shop, think of your website in the same way as you’d think of your shop floor; it must be clean, attractive, and easy to navigate.
A Third Party Seller
Alongside your website (or instead of it) you may choose to sell your products through a third-party retailer. Examples of these services include massive companies such as Amazon or eBay. Different websites will work in different ways, but they will usually take either a membership fee or a percentage of your profits, sometimes with a baseline amount that you guarantee to pay them each year. It is worth closely researching the terms and conditions of different retailers before committing to one, as you do not want to get drawn into a bad deal. On the positive side, selling through these outlets can massively increase your reach, and can also help manage the practical deliveries of items.
Shipping
If you decide to retail through your own store and manage delivery yourself, it’s important to consider the practicalities of this service, and know whether you want to deliver domestically or internationally. Either way, you will need to invest in equipment, from packaging to pallet scales, in order to prepare your orders. Consider if this is something that may require extra manpower - do you have the capacity to take responsibility for deliveries, or might you need to hire more staff to facilitate this new service? If so, you will need to create a budget and project when you will break even on this extra expenditure, and be able to grow.
Supply and Demand
This may seem like your last concern, as you worry about receiving orders and setting up your infrastructure. However, it is worth making sure you have enough stock that you will be able to meet unexpectedly high demands for your product. If this happens, you do not want to risk your business’s reputation by being unable to deliver - so stock up, get ready, and be prepared for the best scenario!