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If you are reading this you may have everything already planned, set in place and ready to go for setting up your online retail business. You may have your inventory, funding, business plan and perhaps even your marketing strategy established and ready for launch. However there are a few things that ecommerce start ups rarely take into consideration before launching their business and these things can be the difference between making or breaking your business.
Setting up an ecommerce site can be incredibly exciting, but it is also extremely challenging and there are many unexpected surprises that can crop up along the way. So today we are sharing the top four things, that online retail businesses need to take into consideration, before launching, to ensure that your new business is set for strong growth, healthy figures and all round success.
You May Not Always Like Your Customers
It is natural to expect that we will feel warmth and goodwill to all our customers. They are the bread and butter of our business after all and our businesses would not survive without them. However as ecommerce sites are so tightly wound around your customers and the needs of your customers you are going to need to be prepared to bend over backwards to keep them happy, even when you may not particularly like their requests, or the way they communicate with you.
It is also natural to assume that ecommerce is a product based business, however this is a big misconception. Ecommerce is essentially a service business and there will be times when you do everything in your power to put your customers first and it will still not be enough. This can be frustrating and down right deflating. Therefore all ecommerce businesses should be striving to offer over and above the standard level of customer service in order to be confident that what you are offering is of a premium level service that should keep, at least the majority anyway, of your customers happy and loyal to your company.
You Will Need Strong Partners
Even if you consider yourself to be a ‘one-person-package’ when it comes to your ecommerce business you are not going to be able to do everything alone. Particularly not when everything picks up anyhow. Starting up a solid, fully-functioning and appealing e commerce site is not easy so you will probably want to reach out to potential partners from managed services for ecommerce setups to get your site properly set up and looking appealing to consumers. All the way through to logistical partners who will be able to make sure that your business is prepared for when the orders start to come in, ensuring that your business is logistically viable.
Skepticism is Commonplace
We all like to believe the best in new businesses, but that doesn’t mean that we actually do. With consumers becoming more and more savvy when it comes to online shopping we need to be focusing on how we can communicate values of reliability and trust when it comes to new online ecommerce sites.
That also works the other way. You, as new ecommerce site owners must also be savvy when it comes to cases of consumer fraud. There is now, unfortunately, a huge amount of orders that are placed online that are placed in order to swindle online retailers out of large amounts of money. Therefore as you expect your consumers to be savvy about online purchasing activity, you should also be flexing the same approach when receiving unusual order. Therefore it essential to be smart and alert to ensure that everything is legitimate before shipping out large orders.
Endless Opportunities
It is all very well to create a business plan and stick to it like glue over the initial first, few months. However the nature of ecommerce businesses opens up an infinite amount of possibilities that you should not be afraid to be tapping into and regularly adjusting your plans to incorporate.
Yes, with ecommerce sites, you will encounter your fair share of problems with inventory, accounting, website design and the odd disgruntled customer. However this is a fantastic industry with the potential to allow your business to reap great success and enjoy steady growth over a long-term basis.
Going into a new business should always be done with an eyes-wide-open approach, but we should also never lose fact of the fact that it should also be fun and should be seen as a learning curve that will strengthen both our business approach and our businesses over time.
