It is difficult . You must have the right product, the correct location and the correct employee to make it play a role. If you miss any marking, you will definitely struggle.
If you already have a successful store, no one can blame you to think you can do anything. Or want, maybe, take over the world a little. It seems natural to expand your influence -once you know that you can run a store, why not open two?
For your entrepreneurial physical shop owner, the next natural steps are usually turned to online stores. Although this is a smart move, you should act carefully.
Opening offline stores online may be very beneficial, but before you set up any settings, you need to consider and plan some things .
If you are considering adding the online store to the combination, whether you have been engaged in the retail business for a few months or years, please read these tips and steps first.
Decided who will first manage the store settings, transportation and customer service
The characters in the retail world are black or white: you have all you have all: you have all you have Our, manager, cashier, inventory, and so on. Although they may be promoted elsewhere from time to time, these people can always answer the question \”What are you responsible for?\” in the same way.
However, for e -commerce, the role is not always easy to define. If the store is small enough, the owner may handle everything from customer service to design. Or you may have a manager responsible for setting and updating the product page -but must also pack and send goods, because product management is not a full -time job.
You don’t want to build a new store, just realize that you have no time or resources to run it
. Therefore, it is important to evaluate who you need to establish Your new store, but also evaluate that once it starts and runs, who will be responsible for managing all aspects of its operation. Sit down
Write who to deal with:
Establish a store
-This includes from the selection platform to acquisition or creation design before the design. All the contents of the installation and testing additional components or extensions
Manage daily operations
-s such as adding new products, marking the order as shipping, adding new images …
Packaging and transportation orders
—— It can be said that you may have to add other people to deal with this problem with the increase of demand, but at least consider who can immediately perform this operation
Communicate with customers
-Reply email, telephone or social media inquiry
Marketing -Whita chooses to use social media, blogs or other ways
Solve technical problems or complete updates – If your store fails, runs slowly, or its software needs to be updated, who can view it?
This may seem unstoppable. And you may realize that you have no good answers or employees of these questions now. This is not to scare you or stop you from selling online, but to make you prepare for the reality of running the second store. This may be as harsh as your current store, or even higher
.
First spend as much time as possible to solve this problem. Chatting with your current employees and understanding their abilities, even if you only spend a few more minutes more time to sort out the box or reply email when you start the first start. But don’t skip this step, because if you do this, you may immediately feel overwhelmed and frustrated (and no one wants that). Next, after classifying the freight, box and carrier
After classifying resources, you will turn to logistics -that is, how to send the product from the store to the customer’s hands [ 123].
As you already know, online shopping is much more complicated than selling people standing in front of you. But don’t be discouraged -we believe you. You can do this.
Some products are easily sold in the store. However, on the Internet, they need to consider special considerations.
Okay, aside from those inspiring conversations, the following
is the three most important tips for us to organize product transportation before selling products online:
]
Measted your product and find a suitable box as soon as possible
. When the order comes in, you don’t want to be caught without the correct box -this may lead to delay. Don’t wait until the last minute, because some sizes need to be specially ordered.
If any of your products need special treatment orPackaging, please solve it as soon as possible -In example. Order the bubble film, query the rate of refrigerated/frozen food transportation, and determine that you want the local delivery or assembly area, and so on. Similarly, don’t leave these details to the last minute; you don’t want to provide your chocolate online, just realize that they will melt after they go out
.
Study your local transportation company to see who will provide the best service
(or provide you with the best price!), And then install their expansion procedures. The following is a transport expansion suitable for Woocommerce.
If you don’t want (or cannot) store more inventory in the store, and it is difficult for you and your employees to manage transportation, you can consider a choice: Dropshipping
. Check this guide to understand how to start using direct sales, which allows you to set up an online store easier.
Determine the product you want to sell online-and prepare your inventory appropriately
You have to ask your next question to which products you want to sell online.
You don’t have to sell all the products you stored online . You don’t have to limit yourself Only to sell the products you are currently provided. Your online store is not necessarily the image of your offline store -this 100% depends on you.
In any case, should be your inventory that should be short beforehand. The products you created and/or offline may see that the demand is increased when you provide it. What you don’t want to do is to let customers wait for the delivery. Therefore, now start to increase production or consider ordering more inventory.
Your retail store may have enough inventory, but online shoppers usually buy more (more frequently). Prepare to double production.
If you plan to sell direct products for your online store, don’t worry about this step. However, no matter how you plan to get and transport your inventory, you will get more products immediately -you will try everything to avoid delaying delivery (and unsatisfactory customers).
Decided on the payment processor to collaborate with your retail store
] For the owners of many stores, nothing is more frustrating than this, because they feel that every place is living in a separate world. Manage two separate payment solutions, inventory sources, and salesThe sales point system, etc. are a very annoying thing, and it is a waste of time.
It is an ideal choice to combine your online store with your offline store as closely as possible. This means finding a solution so that you can make payment and synchronous inventory through the same system, and (most importantly) to prevent your and your employees from doubleing to manage your products.
If you are already using Square offline, then you are lucky: we have recently released an integration that allows you to use Square with woocommerce. Therefore, if you use Woocommerce and Square at the same time, you will be able to:
Payment through the exactly the same system you already use
, which means that you no longer charge a separate processor or payment gateway provider
Between your retail store and WOOCOMMERCE Synchronous inventory
, so you don’t have to track things manually or sell the products you actually do not actually do not actually do not need to update the product list
, because you can decide to decide on Square and WooCommerce by yourself Synchronous images, categories and other data
If you do not use Square in retail stores, then no problem-Woocommerce supports a large amount of payment solutions, we have been looking for other sales points integration. However, the close combination of online and offline provided by Square is unparalleled. We are glad to recommend this to shop owners who want to expand in the new direction.
Need to help choose a payment solution? No matter what product you plan to sell online, there is a guide you may find useful.
Study the platform and additional components you need before starting the construction We are for us to make it for us. The last prompt you provided is the last prompt before you start building online stores: research .
You should spend time to read many of the necessities required for the operation of the new store. Not only do you need to know what you need, but also
clear why
need it, and how much it costs.
Don’t start building anything before you know what you need -including plug -in and extensions and other additional components.123]
You should specifically study:
Tortoat
– Where will your store \”live\”? Do you want to update and upgrade the plan, or will you choose to handle this problem for you?
Platform/CMS-
Are you comfortable to log in, create products, manage users, etc.? If you need help, do you know how to get help?
Additional components or extensions -What do you need to build your store? For example, if you want to sell subscriptions through Woocommerce, you need to add Woocommerce subscription extensions.
Maintenance —— How often do all the above content updates? Can you handle these updates by yourself? Do you know how to deal with them correctly?
Cost -Finally, what is your monthly and annual costs of your hosting, payment providers, platforms, additional components, etc.?
Of course, no one likes to sit in front of the computer for a few hours. However, if you only do a little research, you can avoid unnecessary accidents … For example, you can find that the platform you choose does not support subscriptions, or you know that your payment gateway is too expensive and cannot be buried for a long time.
Everything is related to the preparation. There is no doubt that you now understand that this is the theme of these techniques:
Prepare in advance, instead of piercing in advance. When you finally start selling online, you will get better results [ 123]. When opening a retail store on the Internet, the plan is the key. Don’t worry -ready to produce better results.
Click tweet
After careful preparation, you can successfully go online
You have it-we are in The techniques of opening physical stores online.
By planning, research and discussion before starting the establishment of a new store, you will better prepare for the creation and launch of the store #2.
We hope this suggestion will be helpful to you. Are there any questions to ask us? We are all listening, just leave a message in the comments, we will reply to you immediately.
I wish you a good luck!
Related reading:
Start online salesSix aspects to be set up before
How to make online stores offline
Use Square and Woocommerce to pay anytime, anywhere
Your retail store may have enough inventory, but online shoppers usually buy more (more frequently). Prepare to double production.
