Building an Online Store for Small Business

Have you ever thought about launching an online store to build your business, sell online and increase your revenues but found the technology of developing an online venture daunting?

Don’t worry, you’re not alone. Most retailers have everything they need to sell online from customer service and shipping partners but fear getting in over their head with the day to day management of an online store.

The trick in my experience is to start off small and grow with your customers needs, don’t worry about all the complex features and options right away, instead focus on delivering your most in demand products, or those you see a remote niche market for. Scope out your idea and determine what can be sent most reasonably.

Understanding Online Sales

Selling online has one important difference over customers coming to your store, shipping. You need to send your project to customers and that will involved finding the right mix of online products and shipping costs. For example, you shouldn’t sell patio stones online unless you can deliver them for a reasonable price. Customers hate buying low cost items, only to have high shipping costs applied at the last minute.

True Story: I recently tried to buy my wife a set of dishes from Denby USA, they’re cost was $150 for the set but $125 to ship to my address. That’s not reasonable and as an online retailer, you’ll need to understand customers shouldn’t face punitive shipping costs. Instead, balance your store to offer items you can ship cost effectively.

Taking online payments

Accepting online payments is one of the biggest worries but smallest features of an online store. Small stores can take advantage of PayPal’s service which costs just 35¢ per transaction plus 2.35% for most small orders. For businesses who want to hide their payment gateway, a $25 a month package will allow you to accept credit cards online without exposing users to PayPal.

More advanced sites can make use of full scale payment gateways, tied directly to banks for instant payment. Remember, you can always add new payment services at a cost, but taking away payment gateways will also cost money so instead, focus on starting small and learning what you really need.

Knowing your market

For some businesses, taking payments online shouldn’t be a concern at all. A local tire sales team I’ve worked with prefers to accept all their orders online but uses a separate billing system to issue monthly invoices. Remember that e-commerce like all website applications are designed to help build your business, not force it to adopt new processes.

Focus on sales, not style

There are some businesses that require their web store to be filled with rich graphics, stunning sales pages and complex marketing messages but for most of us, it’s about helping our prospects turn into customers.

Focus your online store by making it easy to shop. Help customers pick the right variations, add them to a shopping basket and process the order quickly. Ensure they can find what they’re looking for and suggest helpful add-ons as a way to build their order but remember, the best shopping sites focus on sales, not style.

Make it easy with WordPress

Over the past 15 years of developing websites I have learn many lessons but not as important as this one, if a website is hard to update it will fail. I’ve seen million dollar websites fail because inputing product was too hard and that’s why I believe in using WordPress to build not only great websites but also great online stores.

Remember, if you can’t train the least technical staff on your team to fix a price or update a product, the changes will simply never get made. That’s why WordPress is such a valuable tool for e-commerce stores and why I believe it’s the right choice for your business.