HOW TO MOVE YOUR BUSINESS ONLINE VIA SHOPIFY

 

Shopify is an ecommerce platform that allows entrepreneurs to set up beautiful online stores to sell their products.

Selling your products and services online enables you to make your consumers more comfortable, especially those who are too busy or unable to visit your business.

Basically, you'll want to make a lot of information available to your clients online, which will help build trust in and for your business. As a result, you will receive feedback on your products and services, which will allow you to improve them.

Many offline retailers have made a lot of money, especially during the epidemic, where they were forced to sell via the web. They had an internet store that didn't break the COVID-19 precautionary measure's regulation. So, in this online age, you should take your business online, i.e., develop your e-commerce presence.

 

STEPS IN MOVING YOUR BUSINESS ONLINE 

 

The first step is to choose an e-commerce platform, then design a website. After this, write down a description of what you want your web page to look like. You need to figure out how to handle shipping, returns and privacy policies, find a payment method, and then start promoting your online store. You can set this up easily with Shopify.

Remember that building an online business does not necessarily replace traditional stores. It will only help accelerate your transaction with your customers, which means more profit and ultimately the ability to stand the test of time.

 

Choose a Suitable E-commerce Platform

Today, many e-commerce platforms are available, with different quality but the same services. However, it is important to choose wisely which one is suitable for your business. 

You need to choose an online store carefully, because it should be aligned with your physical store. You don't want to run two completely different shops that will create extra work and consume your time.

This can be misleading to your customers if the branding looks different from your physical store, while affecting your operational process and inventory management, traffic, accounting, ordering, payroll and much more.

 

Design and Setup Your Website

First, ensure your online business is kept in line with your traditional business. They should have the same appeal and also pass on a similar message. Most o

Online stores offer a series of themes to enable you to create a website that matches your physical store. 
You can just install a theme and do it yourself if you know how to set up a Shopify store, but this doesn't give you room to do any custom designs or functionalities you may need to match your business brand. 

Some themes offer some basic customization options. With this, you should find features and themes that enable you to create a functional store, like a clear design compatible on a mobile phone, and a simple way to check out.


Remember that a poorly set-up store will leave you with too many frustrated shoppers who abandon their carts.

  •  At this stage, you must dedicate time to creating awesome product pages. This is a very important step in attracting a customer to shop with you for the first time and have repeat orders. You've put a lot of time and effort into getting the shopper to come in, so you should do your best to keep them there. One of the ways to make this happen is through attractive photos. 
  • Where necessary, add videos of your product that will catch your customers' attention to the extent they will imagine what the product will look like with them or when they try it on. Upload different views of products, allow zooming of the product to have them take a detailed look.

Create a description and Page Optimization

Describing your product exactly as it is crucial. Some information about how they can use the product will be beneficial. Avoid superlative descriptions, which are not helpful. Also, you need to fix up your site so that search engines can figure out what you're selling. With this, shoppers can get right to what they want without any delay. The search engine will help generate traffic for your online store. 

 

Find out Shipping, Privacy Policy, and Returns

The most complicated part of launching a new online store is establishing your basic shipping, returns, and privacy policies. Your customers want to be comfortable while shopping; they want a consistent and flexible service simultaneously. This is not a license to be generous, because you need to keep it at the back of your mind that expedited shipping options and all returns will be an additional cost for your business.

Free shipping is not a bad thing to consider, because it will keep many shoppers coming back. However, if this will cost your profit, you don't have to do it.

 

Plan the Payment Gateway

Mode of payment is one thing traditional stores don't have to worry about, because payments are completed either via cash or transfer to the owner of the goods at every point of sales. This same thing happens for online business, but requires setting up your order processing for payments online. 

Online sales can forward their shoppers to third-party sites, such as PayPal or another payment gateway. Once it is time to make a payment or give room for the completion of the transaction on their site itself, which is convenient and advisable. Paying directly on your website is the higher conversion rate. While enabling your customers to trust your website, one of the cons can be that you have a way to keep the site secure when paying for your product. On the other hand, the third party has little liability, and it is cheaper.

Promote Your Online Store

After you have finally set up your store and are sure it is up and running, start the marketing process. The horrible part of setting up an online store might have been done, but you still need to attract visitors to your store. Continuously optimize the search engine option to be rank and ensure it contains the word the shoppers are looking for. 

Consider email marketing campaigns to attract new shoppers, lapsed customers, shoppers with abandoned carts, etc. Advertise your online store on your already existing social media store. Organize a campaign that enlightens people on the opening of the online store and product expansion if applicable.

So in Summary

Moving your store online is a profitable decision that you will appreciate in the future. Online stores are great because they reach more people than a physical store would. However, make sure you do it right by making all the right decisions before deciding what kind of store you want to run.

 

You can always contact Beyond Boundary Agency to help you transition from a physical store to an online business